XANTHUS (mod. Gunük), an ancient city of Lycia, on the river Xanthus (Eshen Chai) about 8 m. above its mouth. It was besieged by the Persian general Harpagus (546 B.C.), when the acropolis was burned and all the inhabitants perished (Herod. i. 176). The city was afterwards rebuilt; and in 42 B.C. it was besieged by the Romans under M. Junius Brutus. It was taken by storm and set on fire, and the inhabitants perished in the flames. The ruins lie on a plateau, high above the left bank of the river. The nearest port is Kalamaki, whence a tedious ride of three to four hours round the edge of the great marsh of the Eshen Chai brings the traveller to Xanthus. The whole plan of the city with its walls and gates can be discerned. The well-preserved theatre is remarkable for a break in the curve of its auditorium, which has been constructed so as not to interfere with a sarcophagus on a pedestal and with the “Harpy Monument” which still stands to its full height, robbed of the reliefs of its parapet (now in the British Museum). In front of the theatre stands the famous stele of Xanthus inscribed on all four sides in Lycian and Greek. Behind the theatre is a terrace on which probably the temple of either the Xanthian Apollo or Sarpedon stood. The best of the tombs—the “Payava Tomb,” the “Nereid Monument,” the “Ionic Monument” and the “Lion Tomb”—are in the British Museum, as the result of Sir Chas. Fellows’s expedition; only their bases can be seen on the site. A fine triple gateway, much polygonal masonry, and the walls of the acropolis are the other objects of most interest.
See O. Benndorf and G. Niemann, Reisen in Lykien und Karien (1884). (D. G. H.)
XAVIER, FRANCISCO DE (1506–1552), Jesuit missionary
and saint, commonly known in English as St Francis Xavier
and also called the “Apostle of the Indies.” He was the
youngest son of Juan de Jasso, privy councillor to Jean d’Albret,
king of Navarre, and his wife, Maria de Azpilcueta y Xavier, sole
heiress of two noble Navarrese families. He was born at his
mother’s castle of Xavier or Xavero, at the foot of the Pyrenees
and close to the little town of Sanguesa, on the 7th of April 1506,
according to a family register, though his earlier biographers
fix his birth in 1497. Following a Spanish custom of the
time, which left the surname of either parent optional with
children, he was called after his mother; the best authorities
write “Francisco de Xavier” (Lat. Xaverius) rather than
“Francisco Xavier,” as Xavier is originally a place-name. In
1524 he went to the university of Paris, where he entered the
College of St Barbara, then the headquarters of the Spanish
and Portuguese students, and in 1528 was appointed lecturer
in Aristotelian philosophy at the Collége de Beauvais. In
1530 he took his degree as master of arts. He and the Savoyard
Pierre Lefèvre, who shared his lodging, had already, in 1529,
made the acquaintance of Ignatius of Loyola—like Xavier a
native of the Spanish Basque country. Ignatius succeeded,
though in Xavier’s case after some opposition, in gaining their
sympathy for his missionary schemes (see Loyola, Ignatius of);
and they were among the company of seven persons, including
Loyola himself, who took the original Jesuit vows on the 15th
of August 1534. They continued in Paris for two years longer;
but on November 15th, 1536, they started for Italy, to concert
with Ignatius plans for converting the Moslems of Palestine. In
January 1537 they arrived in Venice. As some months must
elapse before they could sail for Palestine, Ignatius determined
that the time should be spent partly in hospital work at Venice
and later in the journey to Rome. Accordingly, Xavier devoted
himself for nine weeks to the hospital for incurables, and then
set out with eight companions for Rome, where Pope Paul III.
sanctioned their enterprise. Returning to Venice, Xavier was
ordained priest on Midsummer Day 1537; but the outbreak
of war between Venice and Turkey put an end to the Palestine
expedition, and the companions dispersed for a twelvemonth’s
home mission work in the Italian cities. Nicolas Bobadilla
and Xavier betook themselves first to Monselice and thence
to Bologna, where they remained till summoned to Rome by
Ignatius at the close of 1538.
Ignatius retained Xavier at Rome until 1541 as secretary to the Society of Jesus (see Jesuits for the events of the period 1538–41). Meanwhile John III., king of Portugal, had resolved on sending a mission to his Indian dominions, and had applied through his envoy Pedro Mascarenhas to the pope for six Jesuits. Ignatius could spare but two, and chose Bobadilla and a Portuguese named Simão Rodrigues for the purpose. Rodrigues set out at once for Lisbon to confer with the king, who ultimately decided to retain him in Portugal. Bobadilla, sent for to Rome, arrived there just before Mascarenhas was about to depart, but fell too ill to respond to the call made on him.
Hereupon Ignatius, on March 15th, 1540, told Xavier to leave Rome the next day with Mascarenhas, in order to join Rodrigues in the Indian mission. Xavier complied, merely waiting long enough to obtain the pope’s benediction, and set out for Lisbon, where he was presented to the king, and soon won his entire confidence, attested notably by procuring for him from the pope four briefs, one of them appointing him papal nuncio in the Indies. On April 7th, 1541, he sailed from Lisbon with Martim Alfonso de Sousa, governor designate of India, and lived amongst the common sailors, ministering to their religious and temporal needs, especially during an outbreak of scurvy. After five months’ voyage the ship reached Mozambique, where the captain resolved to winter, and Xavier was prostrated with a severe attack of fever. When the voyage was resumed, the ship touched at Malindi and Sokotra, and reached Goa on May 6th, 1542. Exhibiting his brief to D. João d’Albuquerque, bishop of Goa, he asked his permission to officiate in the diocese, and at once began walking through the streets ringing a small bell, and telling all to come, and send their children and servants, to the “Christian doctrine” or catechetical instruction in the principal church. He spent five months in Goa, and then turned his attention to the “Fishery Coast,” where he had heard that the Paravas, a tribe engaged in the pearl fishery, had relapsed into heathenism after having professed Christianity. He laboured assiduously amongst them for fifteen months, and at the end of 1543 returned to Goa.
At Travancore he is said to have founded no fewer than forty-five Christian settlements. It is to be noted that his own letters contain, both at this time and later on, express disproof of that miraculous gift of tongues with which he was credited even in his lifetime, and which is attributed to him in the Breviary office for his festival. Not only was he obliged to employ interpreters, but he relates that in their absence he was compelled to use signs only.
He sent a missionary to the isle of Manaar, and himself visited Ceylon and Mailapur (Meliapur), the traditional tomb of St Thomas the apostle, which he reached in April 1544, remaining there four months. At Malacca, where he arrived on September 25th, 1545, he remained another four months, but had comparatively little success. While in Malacca he urged King John III. of Portugal to set up the Inquisition in Goa to repress Judaism, but the tribunal was not set up until 1560. After visiting Amboyna, the Moluccas and other isles of the Malay archipelago, he returned to Malacca in July 1547, and found three Jesuit recruits from Europe awaiting him. About this time an attack upon the city was made by the Achinese fleet, under the raja of Pedir in Sumatra; and Xavier’s early biographers relate a dramatic story of how he roused the governor to action. This story is open to grave suspicion, as, apart from the miracles recorded, there are wide discrepancies between the secular Portuguese histories and the narratives written or inspired by Jesuit chroniclers of the 17th century.
While in Malacca Xavier met one Yajiro, a Japanese exile (known to the biographies as Anger, Angero or Anjiro), who fired him with zeal for the conversion of Japan. But he first revisited India and then, returning to Malacca, took ship for Japan, accompanied by Yajiro, now known as Paul of the Holy Faith. They reached Kagoshima on the 15th of August 1549, and remained in Japan until the 20th of November 1551. (See Japan, § viii.) On board the “Santa Cruz,” the vessel in which he returned from Japan to Malacca, Xavier discussed
