Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/432

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

410 P A T P A T kingdom ; the quarters of the new town are well laid out ; its old harbour being considered hardly safe in winter, a new harbour defended by a breakwater was commenced in 1880 ; new roads (to Kalavryta, for example) are opening up communication with the interior ; a railway to connect the city with Corinth and Athens is in process of con struction (1884); and the proposed cutting of the canal across the isthmus of Corinth would add new elements to its commerce. The population, which had sunk to 8000 at the time of the war, was 16,641 in 1870, and 24,993 in 1879. Patras is the seat of one of the four courts of appeal in the kingdom, and the residence of the arch bishop of Patras and Elis. The custom-house is the most important in all Greece. Like the ancient city, the modern Patras previous to the revolution occupied the high ground of Scatovuni (a hill connected with Mount Yoidia or Pan- achaicum, the dominant summit in this region), but since then it has spread out over the plain towards the sea. The two most interesting buildings are the castle, a mediaeval structure on the site of the ancient acropolis, and the cathedral of St Andrew, which is highly popular as the reputed burial-place of the saint, and has been rebuilt since the revolution. The commerce of Patras consists mainly in the export of currants, valonia, olive-oil, wine, and sheepskins (value in 1881, 19,369,270 francs, of which 18,104,046 francs were for currants alone), and the import of cotton and woollen goods, grain, flour, and colonial wares (value in 1881, 16,560,600 francs). Great Britain and Austria almost divide the foreign shipping trade, with a preponderance in favour of the former country, which takes more thaji half of the currants. August and Sep tember are the months when the port is at its busiest with British vessels. Famous even in antiquity for its flax manufactures (whence the number of females in the city was double that of the males), Patras at present contains several steam factories with about 4000 spindles producing coarse cotton twist from cotton grown in north ern Greece ; and there are also sulphur -crushing mills, flour and macaroni mills, and an iron-foundry. Gas-works and water-works were constructed about 1874. The foundation of Patras goes back to prehistoric times, the legendary account being that Eumelus, having been taught by Triptolemus how to grow grain in the rich soil of the Glaucus valley, established three townships, Aroe (i.e.,ploughland), Antheia (the flowery), and Mesatis (the middle settlement), which were united by the common worship of Artemis Triclaria at her shrine on the river Meilichus. The Achaians having strengthened and enlarged Aroe called it Patrse as the exclusive residence of the ruling families. In 419 B.C. the town was, by the advice of Alcibiades, connected with its harbour by long walls in imitation of those at Athens. The whole armed force of Patrrc was destroyed by Metellus after the defeat of the Achaians at Scarpheia, and many of the remain ing inhabitants forsook the city ; but after the battle of Actium Augustus restored the ancient name Aroe, introduced a military colony of veterans from the 10th and 12th legions (not, as is usually said, the 22d), and bestowed the rights of coloni on the inhabitants of Rhypse and Dyme, and all the Locri Ozolse except those of Am- phissa. Colonia Augusta Aroe Patrensis became one of the most populous of all the towns of Greece ; its colonial coinage extends from Augustus to Gordian III . That it was the scene of the martyrdom of St Andrew is purely apocryphal, but, like Corinth, it was an early and effective centre of Christianity ; its archbishop is mentioned in the lists of the council of Sardica in 347. In 551 Patrte was laid in ruins by an -earthquake. In 807 it was able without external assistance to defeat the Slavonians (Avars), though most of the credit of the victory was assigned to St Andrew, whose church was enriched by the imperial share of the spoils, and whose archbishop was made superior of the bishops of Methone, Lacedaemon, and Corone. Captured in 1205 by William of Champlitte and Villc- hardouin, the city became the capital and its archbishop the primate of the principality of Achaia. In 1587 De Heredia, grand master of the order of the Hospital at Rhodes, endeavoured to make himself master of Achaia, and took Patras by storm. At the close of the 15th century the city was governed by the arch bishop in name of the pope ; but in 1428 Constantino, son of John VI., managed to get possession of it for a time. Taken by a Spanish fleet under Andrea Doria in 1532, sacked by another Spanish fleet in 1595, and again sacked by the knights of Malta in 1(503, Patras was at length in 1687 surrendered by the Turks to the Venetians, who made it the seat of one of the seven fiscal boards into which they divided the Morea. It was at Patras that the Greek revolution began in 1821 ; but the Turks, routined to the citadel, held out till 1828, when the French troops took possession of the Morea. See C. 1. L., vol. iii. 1 ; Bur.sian, Gcogr. von driechenlanil and Finlay s Hist. of Greece. PATRIARCH (Trarpiapx^ lit. the head or ruler of a 7rciT/Ha, tribe, family, or clan) occurs four times in the New Testament, being applied to Abraham, the twelve sons of Jacob collectively, and David, and several times in the LXX., where the word is used to denote the officials called by the chronicler "princes of the tribes of Israel," " princes of hundreds," " chiefs of the fathers." Under the late Roman empire the title was officially applied down to the 5th century to the chief rabbi in Palestine (see Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 1 ; and comp. ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 428) ; the head of the synagogue at Babylon appears also to have been known as patriarch until 1038. The title at an early date passed over into the Christian church as an honorific though not official designation of all bishops ; thus Gregory of Nyssa (Or. Fun. in Mel.} alludes to the fathers assembled in council at Constantinople as " these patriarchs." After wards the Easterns showed a tendency to limit the appella tion to the occupants of the more important sees, just as in the West the so-called " metropolitans " began to receive more definite recognition. At the present day the heads of the various extant churches and sects in the East are very commonly called patriarchs (see vol. xi. p. 154 ,< /.), and in the West the Roman Church gives the honorary title to several dignitaries, such as the archbishops of Lisbon and Venice. In a strictly technical sense, how ever, that church recognizes only five patriarchates, those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome. This peculiar restriction of the word, which may be said to date from the council of Chalcedon in 451, can be traced downwards from the time of Constantino, when the altered political circumstances and the civil division of the empire into four prefectures (Orientis, Illyrici Orientalis, Italian, Galliarum), each containing a number of "dioceses," gave a new importance to ques tions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Thus the council of Nice (can. 6) adjusted the jurisdiction of the " bishop " of Alexandria so as to include Libya and Pentapolis as well as Egypt, the ancient rights of Rome, Antioch, and the other " eparchies " being at the same time con served. The third canon of the council of Constantinople assigned precedence to the "bishop" of Constantinople immediately after the " bishop " of Rome ; and by the 28th of Chalcedon the "metropolitans" of Thrace, Pontus, and Asia were appointed to receive their consecration at his hands. The same council invested the bishop of Jerusalem, formerly under the jurisdiction of the metro politan of Antioch, with supremacy over the whole of Palestine. Thenceforward a certain co-ordinate primacy was thus accorded to Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem ; but it is to be observed that in no official document belonging to this period is the title "patriarch" given to the bishop of any one of these sees, though the word " eparch " or "exarch" is occasionally employed. We find Theodosius, however, so designating the bishop of Rome, and not only is it given to the bishop of Con stantinople in the Novelise of Justinian, but we find Mennas in 536 claiming to be called 6 oi tfoi /zeviKo? xaTpidpxys, not, of course, without violent protest in the West. After the fall of Jerusalem (637), Antioch (638), and Alexandria (640) into the hands of the Saracens, the importance of these sees became of course nominal merely, and it grew easier for Rome, at the head of the unbroken Western church, to give practical expression to its claims of superi-