Troezen (Pausanias ii. 30, 4 with Frazer’s note) was probably intended to secure a good harvest by driving away the evil spirits of unfruitfulness.
See articles by C. Seeliger in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie and by F. Durrbach in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités; H. D. Müller, Mythologie der griechischen Stämme (1861), ii. 328, who explains the name Jason as “wanderer”; W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (1884), pp. 75, 130; O. Crusius, Beiträge zur griechischen Mythologie una Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1886).
Later Versions of the Legend.—Les fais et prouesses du noble et vaillant chevalier Jason was composed in the middle of the 15th century by Raoul Lefèvre on the basis of Benoît’s Roman de Troie, and presented to Philip of Burgundy, founder of the order of the Golden Fleece. The manners and sentiments of the 15th century are made to harmonize with the classical legends after the fashion of the Italian pre-Raphaelite painters, who equipped Jewish warriors with knightly lance and armour. The story is well told; the digressions are few; and there are many touches of domestic life and natural sympathy. The first edition is believed to have been printed at Bruges in 1474.
Caxton translated the book under the title of A Boke of the hoole Lyf of Jason, at the command of the duchess of Burgundy. A Flemish translation appeared at Haarlem in 1495. The Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741) refers to a MS. by Guido delle Colonne, Historia Medeae et Jasonis (unpublished).
The Histoire de la Thoison d’Or (Paris, 1516) by Guillaume Fillastre (1400–1473), written about 1440–1450, is an historical compilation dealing with the exploits of the très chrétiennes maisons of France, Burgundy and Flanders.
JASON OF CYRENE, a Hellenistic Jew, who lived about 100 B.C. and wrote a history of the times of the Maccabees down to the victory over Nicanor (175–161 B.C.). This work is said to have been in five books and formed the basis of the present 2 Macc. (see ch. ii. 19–32).
JASPER, an opaque compact variety of quartz, variously coloured and often containing argillaceous matter. The colours are usually red, brown, yellow or green, and are due to admixture with compounds of iron, either oxides or silicates. Although the term jasper is now restricted to opaque quartz it is certain that the ancient jaspis or ἰάσπις was a stone of considerable translucency. The jasper of antiquity was in many cases distinctly green, for it is often compared with the emerald and other green objects. Jasper is referred to in the Niebelungenlied as being clear and green. Probably the jasper of the ancients included stones which would now be classed as chalcedony, and the emerald-like jasper may have been akin to our chrysoprase. The Hebrew word yashefeh may have designated a green jasper (cf. Assyrian yashpu). Professor Flinders Petrie has suggested that the odem, the first stone on the High Priest’s breastplate, translated “sard,” was a red jasper, whilst tarshish, the tenth stone, may have been a yellow jasper (Hastings’s Dict. Bible, 1902).
Many varieties of jasper are recognized. Riband jasper is a form in which the colours are disposed in bands, as in the well-known ornamental stone from Siberia, which shows a regular alternation of dark red and green stripes. Egyptian jasper is a brown jasper, occurring as nodules in the Lybian desert and in the Nile valley, and characterized by a zonal arrangement of light and dark shades of colour. Agate-jasper is a variety intermediate between true jasper and chalcedony. Basanite, lydite, or Lydian stone, is a velvet-black flinty jasper, used as a touchstone for testing the purity of precious metals by their streak. Porcelain jasper is a clay indurated by natural calcination. (F. W. R.*)
JASSY (Iaṣiĭ), also written Jasii, Jaschi and Yassy, the capital
of the department of Jassy, Rumania; situated on the left bank
of the river Bahlui, an affluent of the Jijia, about 10 m. W. of the
Pruth and the Russian frontier. Pop. (1900), 78,067. Jassy
communicates by rail with Galatz on the Danube, Kishinev in
Bessarabia, and Czernowitz in Bukowina. The surrounding
country is one of uplands and woods, among which rise the
monasteries of Cetaṭuia, Frumoasa, and Galata with its mineral
springs, the water-cure establishment of Rapide and the great
seminary of Socola. Jassy itself stands pleasantly amid vineyards
and gardens, partly on two hills, partly in the hollow
between. Its primitive houses of timber and plaster were mostly
swept away after 1860, when brick or stone came into general use,
and good streets were cut among the network of narrow, insanitary
lanes. Jassy is the seat of the metropolitan of Moldavia,
and of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Synagogues and churches
abound. The two oldest churches date from the reign of Stephen
the Great (1458–1504); perhaps the finest, however, are the 17th-century
metropolitan, St Spiridion and Trei Erarchi, the last a
curious example of Byzantine art, erected in 1639 or 1640 by
Basil the Wolf, and adorned with countless gilded carvings on
its outer walls and twin towers. The St Spiridion Foundation
(due to the liberality of Prince Gregory Ghika in 1727, and available
for the sick of all countries and creeds) has an annual income
of over £80,000, and maintains hospitals and churches in several
towns of Moldavia, besides the baths at Slanic in Walachia. The
main hospital in Jassy is a large building, and possesses a maternity
institution, a midwifery school, a chemical institute, an
inoculating establishment, &c. A society of physicians and
naturalists has existed in Jassy since the early part of the 19th
century, and a number of periodicals are published. Besides the
university, founded by Prince Cuza in 1864, with faculties of
literature, philosophy, law, science and medicine, there are
a military academy and schools of art, music and commerce;
a museum, a fine hall and a theatre; the state library, where
the chief records of Rumanian history are preserved; an appeal
court, a chamber of commerce and several banks. The city is
the headquarters of the 4th army corps. It has an active trade
in petroleum, salt, metals, timber, cereals, fruit, wine, spirits,
preserved meat, textiles, clothing, leather, cardboard and
cigarette paper.
The inscription by which the existence of a Jassiorum municipium in the time of the Roman Empire is sought to be proved, lies open to grave suspicion; but the city is mentioned as early as the 14th century, and probably does derive its name from the Jassians, or Jazygians, who accompanied the Cumanian invaders. It was often visited by the Moldavian court. About 1564, Prince Alexander Lapusneanu, after whom one of the chief streets is named, chose Jassy for the Moldavian capital, instead of Suceava (now Suczawa, in Bukowina). It was already famous as a centre of culture. Between 1561 and 1563 an excellent school and a Lutheran church were founded by the Greek adventurer, Jacob Basilicus (see Rumania: History). In 1643 the first printed book published in Moldavia was issued from a press established by Basil the Wolf. He also founded a school, the first in which the mother-tongue took the place of Greek. Jassy was burned by the Tatars in 1513, by the Turks in 1538, and by the Russians in 1686. By the Peace of Jassy the second Russo-Turkish War was brought to a close in 1792. A Greek insurrection under Ypsilanti in 1821 led to the storming of the city by the Turks in 1822. In 1844 there was a severe conflagration. For the loss caused to the city in 1861 by the removal of the seat of government to Bucharest the constituent assembly voted £148,150, to be paid in ten annual instalments, but no payment was ever made.
JĀTAKA, the technical name, in Buddhist literature, for a story of one or other of the previous births of the Buddha. The word is also used for the name of a collection of 547 of such stories included, by a most fortunate conjuncture of circumstances, in the Buddhist canon. This is the most ancient and the most complete collection of folk-lore now extant in any literature in the world. As it was made at latest in the 3rd century B.C., it can be trusted not to give any of that modern or European colouring which renders suspect much of the folk-lore collected by modern travellers.
Already in the oldest documents, drawn up by the disciples soon after the Buddha’s death, he is identified with certain ancient sages of renown. That a religious teacher should claim to be successor of the prophets of old is not uncommon in the history of religions. But the current belief in metempsychosis led, or enabled, the early Buddhists to make a much wider claim. It was not very long before they gradually identified their master with the hero of each of the popular fables and stories of which
