LAURENTINA, VIA, an ancient road of Italy, leading southwards from Rome. The question of the nomenclature of the group of roads between the Via Ardeatina and the Via Ostiensis is somewhat difficult, and much depends on the view taken as to the site of Laurentum. It seems probable, however, that the Via Laurentina proper is that which led out of the Porta Ardeatina of the Aurelian wall and went direct to Tor Paterno, while the road branching from the Via Ostiensis at the third mile, and leading past Decimo to Lavinium (Pratica), which crosses the other road at right angles not far from its destination (the Laurentina there running S.W. and that to Lavinium S.E.) may for convenience be called Lavinatis, though this name does not occur in ancient times. On this latter road, beyond Decimo, two milestones, one of Tiberius, the other of Maxentius, each bearing the number 11, have been found; and farther on, at Capocotta, traces of ancient buildings, and an important sepulchral inscription of a Jewish ruler of a synagogue have come to light. That the Via Laurentina was near the Via Ardeatina is clear from the fact that the same contractor was responsible for both roads. Laurentum was also accessible by a branch from the Via Ostiensis at the eighth mile (at Malafede) leading past Castel Porziano, the royal hunting-lodge, which is identical with the ancient Ager Solonius (in which, Festus tells us, was situated the Pomonal or sacred grove of Pomona) and which later belonged to Marius.
LAURENTIUS, PAUL (1554–1624), Lutheran divine, was
born on the 30th of March 1554 at Ober Wierau, where his
father, of the same names, was pastor. From a school at
Zwickau he entered (1573) the university of Leipzig, graduating in 1577. In 1578 he became rector of the Martin school at Halberstadt; in 1583 he was appointed town’s preacher at Plauen-im-Vogtland, and in 1586 superintendent at Oelnitz. On the 20th of October 1595 he took his doctorate in theology at Jena, his thesis on the Symbolum Athanasii (1597), gaining him similar honours at Wittenberg and Leipzig. He was promoted (1605) to be pastor and superintendent at Dresden, and transferred (1616) to the superintendence at Meissen, where he died on the 24th of February 1624. His works consist chiefly of commentaries and expository discourses on prophetic books of the Old Testament, parts of the Psalter, the Lord’s Prayer and the history of the Passion. In two orations he compared Luther to Elijah. Besides theological works he was the author
of a Spicilegium Gnomonologicum (1612).
The main authority is C. Schlegel, the historian of the Dresden superintendents (1698), summarized by H. W. Rotermund, in the additions (1810) to Jöcher, Gelehrten-Lexicon (1750). (A. Go.*)
LAURIA (Luria or Loria) ROGER DE (d. 1305), admiral of Aragon and Sicily, was the most prominent figure in the naval war which arose directly from the Sicilian Vespers. Nothing is really known of his life before he was named admiral in 1283. His father was a supporter of the Hohenstaufen, and his mother came to Spain with Costanza, the daughter of Manfred of Beneventum, when she married Peter, the eldest son and heir of James the Conqueror of Aragon. According to one account Bella of Lauria, the admiral’s mother, had been the foster mother of Costanza. Roger, who accompanied his mother, was bred at the court of Aragon and endowed with lands in the newly conquered kingdom of Valencia. When the misrule of Charles of Anjou’s French followers had produced the famous revolt known as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, Roger de Lauria accompanied King Peter III. of Aragon on the expedition which under the cover of an attack on the Moorish kingdom of Tunis was designed to be an attempt to obtain possession of all or at least part of the Hohenstaufen dominions in Naples and Sicily which the king claimed by right of his wife as the heiress of Manfred. In 1283, when the island had put itself under the protection of Peter III. and had crowned him king, he gave the command of his fleet to Roger de Lauria. The commission speaks of him in the most laudatory terms, but makes no reference to previous military services.
From this time forward till the peace of Calatabellota in 1303, Roger de Lauria was the ever victorious leader of fleets in the service of Aragon, both in the waters of southern Italy and on the coast of Catalonia. In the year of his appointment he defeated a French naval force in the service of Charles of Anjou, off Malta. The main object before him was to repel the efforts of the Angevine party to reconquer Sicily and then to carry the war into their dominions in Naples. Although Roger de Lauria did incidental fighting on shore, he was as much a naval officer as any modern admiral, and his victories were won by good manœuvring and by discipline. The Catalan squadron, on which the Sicilian was moulded, was in a state of high and intelligent efficiency. Its chiefs relied not on merely boarding, and the use of the sword, as the French forces of Charles of Anjou did, but on the use of the ram, and of the powerful cross-bows used by the Catalans either by hand or, in case of the larger ones, mounted on the bulwarks, with great skill. The conflict was in fact the equivalent on the water of the battles between the English bowmen and the disorderly chivalry of France in the Hundred Years’ War. In 1284 Roger defeated the Angevine fleet in the Bay of Naples, taking prisoner the heir to the kingdom, Charles of Salerno, who remained a prisoner in the hands of the Aragonese in Sicily, and later in Spain, for years. In 1285 he fought on the coast of Catalonia one of the most brilliant campaigns in all naval history. The French king Philippe le Hardi had invaded Catalonia with a large army to which the pope gave the character of crusaders, in order to support his cousin of Anjou in his conflict with the Aragonese. The king, Peter III., had offended his nobles by his vigorous exercise of the royal authority, and received little support from them, but the outrages perpetrated by the French invaders raised the towns and country against them. The invaders advanced slowly, taking the obstinately defended towns one by one, and relying on the co-operation of a large number of allies, who were stationed in squadrons along the coast, and who brought stores and provisions from Narbonne and Aigues Mortes. They relied in fact wholly on their fleet for their existence. A successful blow struck at that would force them to retreat. King Peter was compelled to risk Sicily for a time, and he recalled Roger de Lauria from Palermo to the coast of Catalonia. The admiral reached Barcelona on the 24th of August, and was informed of the disposition of the French. He saw that if he could break the centre of their line of squadrons, stretched as it was so far that its general superiority of numbers was lost in the attempt to occupy the whole of the coast, he could then dispose of the extremities in detail. On the night of the 9th of September he fell on the central squadron of the French fleet near the Hormigas. The Catalan and Sicilian squadrons doubled on the end of the enemies’ line, and by a vigorous employment of the ram, as well as by the destructive shower of bolts from the cross-bows, which cleared the decks of the French, gained a complete victory. The defeat of the enemy was followed, as usually in medieval naval wars, by a wholesale massacre. Roger then made for Rosas, and tempted out the French squadron stationed there by approaching under French colours. In the open it was beaten in its turn. The result was the capture of the town, and of the stores collected there by King Philippe for the support of his army. Within a short time he was forced to retreat amid sufferings from hunger, and the incessant attacks of the Catalan mountaineers, by which his army was nearly annihilated. This campaign, which was followed up by destructive attacks on the French coast, saved Catalonia from the invaders, and completely ruined the French naval power for the time being. No medieval admiral of any nation displayed an equal combination of intellect and energy, and none of modern times has surpassed it. The work had been so effectually done on the coast of Catalonia that Roger de Lauria was able to return to Sicily, and resume his command in the struggle of Aragonese and Angevine to gain, or to hold, the possession of Naples.
He maintained his reputation and was uniformly successful in his battles at sea, but they were not always fought for the defence of Sicily. The death of Peter III. in 1286 and of his
