the ancient Greek language, the adjective βασιλικός could not well be derived.
No perfect MS. has been preserved of the text of the Basilica, and the existence of any portion of the code seems to have been ignored by the jurists of western Europe, until the important bearing of it upon the study of the Roman law was brought to their attention by Viglius Zuichemus, in his preface to his edition of the Greek Paraphrase of Theophilus, published in 1533. A century, however, elapsed before an edition of the sixty books of the Basilica, as far as the MSS. then known to exist supplied materials, was published in seven volumes, by Charles Annibal Fabrot, under the patronage of Louis XIII. of France, who assigned an annual stipend of two thousand livres to the editor during its publication, and placed at his disposal the royal printing-press. This edition, although it was a great undertaking and a work of considerable merit, was a very imperfect representation of the original code. A newly-restored and far more complete text of the sixty books of the Basilica was published at Leipzig in six volumes (1833–1870), edited by K. W. E. Heimbach and G. E. Heimbach. It may seem strange that so important a body of law as the Basilica should not have come down to us in its integrity, but a letter has been preserved, which was addressed by Mark the patriarch of Alexandria to Theodorus Balsamon, from which it appears that copies of the Basilica were in the 12th century very scarce, as the patriarch was unable to procure a copy of the work. The great bulk of the code was an obstacle to the multiplication of copies of it, whilst the necessity for them was in a great degree superseded by the publication from time to time of synopses and encheiridia of its contents, composed by the most eminent jurists, of which a very full account will be found in the Histoire au droit byzantin, by the advocate Mortreuil, published in Paris in 1846.
BASILICATA, a territorial division of Italy, now known as the province of Potenza, which formed a part of the ancient Lucania (q.v.). It is bounded N. by the province of Foggia, N E. by those of Bari and Lecce, E. by the Gulf of Taranto (for a distance of 24 m.), S. by the province of Cosenza, and W. by the Mediterranean (for a distance of 10 m. only), and by the provinces of Salerno and Avellino. It has an area of 3845 sq. m. The province is as a whole mountainous, the highest point being the Monte Pollino (7325 ft.) on the boundary of the province of Cosenza, while the Monte Vulture, at the N.W. extremity, is an extinct volcano (4365 ft.). It is traversed by five rivers, the Bradano, Basento, Cavone or Salandrella, Agri and Sinni. The longest, the Bradano, is 104 m. in length; all run S.E. or E. into the Gulf of Taranto. The province is traversed from W. to E. by the railway from Naples to Taranto and Brindisi, which passes through Potenza and reaches at Metaponto the line along the E. coast from Taranto to Reggio di Calabria. A branch line runs N. from Potenza via Melfi to Rocchetta S. Antonio, a junction for Foggia, Gioia del Colle and Avellino (the second of these lines runs through the province of Potenza as far as Palazzo S. Gervasio), while a branch S. from the Naples and Taranto line at Sicignano terminates at Lagonegro, on the W. edge of the province. Communications are rendered difficult by the mountainous character of the interior. The mountains are still to some extent clothed with forests; in places the soil is fertile, especially along the Gulf of Taranto, though here malaria is the cause of inefficient cultivation. Olive-oil is the most important product. The total population of the province was 490,705 in 1901. The chief towns are Potenza (pop. 1901, 16,186), Avigliana (18,313), Matera (17,237), Melfi (14,649), Rionero in Vulture (11,809), Lauria (10,099).
BASILIDES, one of the most conspicuous exponents of Gnosticism, was living at Alexandria probably as early as the first decades of the 2nd century. It is true that Eusebius, in his Chronicle, dates his first appearance from A.D. 133, but according to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 7 §§ 6-8, Agrippa Castor, who lived under Hadrian (117–138), already wrote a polemic against him, so that his activity may perhaps be set back to a date earlier than 138. Basilides wrote an exegetical work in twenty-four books on “his” gospel, but which this was is not known. In addition to this there are certain writings by his son Isidorus Περὶ προσφυοῦς ψυχῆς; Ἐξηγητικά on the prophet Parchor (Παρχώρ); Ἠθικά. The surviving fragments of these works are collected and commented on in Hilgenfeld’s Ketzergeschichte, 207–218. The most important fragment published by Hilgenfeld (p. 207), part of the 13th book of the Exegetica, in the Acta Archelai et Manetis c. 55, only became known in its complete form later, and was published by L. Traube in the Sitzungsbericht der Münchener Akad., phil. histor. Kl. (1903), pp. 533-549. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. i. 24 §§ 3-7) gives a sketch of Basilides’ school of thought, perhaps derived from Justin’s Syntagma. Closely related to this is the account in the Syntagma of Hippolytus, which is preserved in Epiphanius, Haer. 24, Philaster, Haer. 32, and Pseudo-Tertullian, Haer. 4. These are completed and confirmed by a number of scattered notices in the Stromateis of Clemens Alexandrinus. An essentially different account, with a pronounced monistic tendency, is presented by the so-called Philosophumena of Hippolytus (vii. 20-27; x. 14). Whether this last account, or that given by Irenaeus and in the Syntagma of Hippolytus, represents the original system of Basilides, has been the subject of a long controversy. (See Hilgenfeld p. 205, note 337.) The most recent opinion tends to decide against the Philosophumena; for, in its composition, Hippolytus appears to have used as his principal source the compendium of a Gnostic author who has introduced into most of the systems treated by him, in addition to the employment of older sources, his own opinions or those of his sect. The Philosophumena, therefore, cannot be taken into account in describing the teaching of Basilides (see also H. Stachelin, “Die gnostischen Quellen Hippolyts” in Texte und Untersuchungen, vi. 3; and the article see Gnosticism). A comparison of the surviving fragments of Basilides, moreover, with the outline of his system in Irenaeus-Hippolytus (Syntagma) shows that the account given by the Fathers of the Church is also in the highest degree untrustworthy. The principal and most characteristic points are not noticed by them. If we assume, as we must needs do, that the opinions which Basilides promulgates as the teaching of the “barbari” (Acta Archelai c. 55) were in fact his own, the fragments prove him to have been a decided dualist, and his teaching an interesting further development of oriental (Iranian) dualism. Entirely consistent with this is the information given by the Acta Archelai that Basilides, before he came to Alexandria, had appeared publicly among the Persians (fuit praedicator apud Persas); and the allusion to his having appealed to prophets with oriental names, Barkabbas and Barkoph (Agrippa in Eusebius Hist. Eccl. iv. 7 § 7). So too his son Isidorus explained the prophecies of a certain Parchor (＝Barkoph) and appealed to the prophecies of Cham[1] (Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromat. vi. 6 § 53). Thus Basilides assumed the existence of two principles, not derivable from each other: Light and Darkness. These had existed for a long time side by side, without knowing anything of each other, but when they perceived each other, the Light had only looked and then turned away; but the Darkness, seized with desire for the Light, had made itself master, not indeed of the Light itself, but only of its reflection (species, color). Thus they had been in a position to form this world: unde nec perfectum bonum est in hoc mundo, et quod est, valde est exiguum. This speculation is clearly a development of that which the Iranian cosmology has to tell about the battles between Ahura-Mazda and Angro-Mainyu (Ormuzd and Ahriman). The Iranian optimism has been replaced here by a strong pessimism. This material world is no longer, as in Zoroastrianism, essentially a creation of the good God, but the powers of evil have created it with the aid of some stolen portions of light. This is practically the transference of Iranian dualism to the more Greek antithesis of soul and body, spirit and matter (cf. Irenaeus i. 24 § 5: animae autem eorum solam esse salutem, corpus enim natura corruptibile existit). The fundamental dualism of Basilides is confirmed also by one or two other passages. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Basilides saw the proof of naturam sine radice et sine loco rebus supervenientem (Acta Archelai). According to Clemens, Strom. iv. 12 § 83, &c., Basilides taught that even those who have not sinned in act, even Jesus himself, possess a sinful nature. It is possibly also in connexion with the dualism of his fundamental
- ↑ ＝ Nimrod＝Zoroaster, cf. Pseudo-Clement, Homil. ix. 3; Recogn. iv. 27.
