the stage. She appeared in San Francisco in 1877, in an English version of Adrienne Lecouvreur, and, in spite of her imperfect command of the language, achieved a remarkable success. She continued to act principally in America, but was also seen from time to time in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, her repertory including several Shakespearian rôles and a variety of emotional parts in modern drama. She died on the 9th of April 1909 at her home near Los Angeles, California.
See Mabel Collins, The Story of Helena Modjeska (London, 1883), and the (autobiographical) Memories and Impressions (New York, 1910).
MÖDLING, an old town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 10 m. S. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 15,304. It is situated at the entrance of the Brühl valley and is a popular summer resort, possessing iron and sulphur baths. It possesses a Gothic church, with a crypt dating from the 15th century, and a still older Romanesque burial chapel. It has a considerable iron and metal industry, and manufactures of shoes, varnish, &c.
MODOC (i.e. “southerners”), a tribe of North American Indians of the Lutuamian stock, who formerly lived around Lower Klamath Lake, south-western Oregon. They were always an aggressive people, and constantly at war with their neighbours. They are known mainly from their stubborn resistance to the United States government in 1872 and 1873. This is called the Modoc War, and was caused by an attempt to place them on a reservation. After some preliminary fighting the Modocs retreated to the “Lava Beds,” a basaltic region, seamed and crevassed, and rich in caves. Here they made a stand for several months. During the war two members of a peace commission were treacherously massacred by them while under a flag of truce. On their final submission the leaders were hanged and part of the tribe was removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and the others were sent back to a reservation on the Klamath.
MODULE (Lat. modulus, a measure), in architecture, the semi-diameter
of the column at its base; the term was first set forth
by Vitruvius (iv. 3), and was generally employed by the architects
of the Italian revival to determine the relative proportions
of the various parts of a columnar ordinance. The module was
divided by the revivalists into thirty parts, called minutes,
allowing of much greater accuracy than was thought necessary
by Vitruvius, whose subdivision was usually six parts. The
tendency now is to adopt the whole diameter instead of the
semi-diameter when determining the height of the column or
entablature or any of their subdivisions. The term module is
also applied in hydraulics (q.v.) to a contrivance for regulating
the supply of water from an irrigation channel.
MOERIS, AELIUS, Greek grammarian, surnamed Atticista
(“the Atticist”), probably flourished in the 2nd century A.D.
He was the author of an extant (more or less alphabetical) list
of Attic forms and expressions (Ἀττικαὶ λέξεις), accompanied
by the Hellenistic parallels of his own time, the differences of
gender, accent and meaning being clearly and succinctly pointed
out.
Editions by J. Hudson (1711); J. Pierson (1759); A. Koch (1830); I. Bekker (1833); with Harpocration.
MOERIS, LAKE OF, the lake which formerly filled the deep depression of the Fayum to the Nile level, now shrunken and sunk more than 200 ft. to the shallow Birket el Kerūn. In remote prehistoric times the Fayum depression was probably dry, but with the gradual rise of the river bed the high Nile reached a level at which it could enter through the natural or artificial channel now known as the Bahr Yusuf. The borders of the lake were occupied by a neolithic people, and the town of Crocodilopolis grew up very early on the eastern slope south of the channel, where the higher ground formed a ridge in the lake. The rise continuing (at the rate of about 4 in. to the century) the waters threatened to flood the town; consequently under the XIIth Dynasty great embankments were made to save the settled land from encroachment. The line of the embankment is still traceable in places and marked by monuments of the XIIth Dynasty kings, an obelisk of Senwosri I. at Ebgig, and colossi of Amenemhê III. at Biahmu. The latter ornamented the quay of the port of Crocodilopolis, and projected into the lake on high bases. As the Nile fell the broad expanse of the lake lowered, and the water pouring back through the channel was of value for summer irrigation; the inflow and outflow were regulated by sluices, and the capture of fish here and in the lake was enormous. The channel which was of such importance was called the “Great Channel,” Mewêr, in Greek Moeris. The native name of the lake was Shei, “the lake,” later Piôm, “the sea” (whence Fayum); Teshei, “the land of the lake,” was the early name of the region. At its capital Crocodilopolis and elsewhere the crocodile god Sobk (Suchus) was worshipped. Senwosri II. of the XIIth Dynasty built his pyramid at Illahun at the outer end of the channel, Amenemhê III. built his near the inner end at Hawara, and the vast labyrinth attached to it was probably his funerary temple. This king was afterwards worshipped in more than one locality about the lake under the name Marres (his praenomen Nemarē) or Peremarres, i.e. Pharaoh Marres. The mud poured in at high Nile made rich deposits on the eastern slope; in the reign of Philadelphus large reclamations of land were made, veterans from the Syrian War were settled in the “Lake” (Λίμνη), and the latter quickly became a populous and very fertile province. Strabo's account of the Lake of Moeris must be copied from earlier writers, for in his day the outflow had been stopped probably for two centuries, and the old bed of the lake was dotted with flourishing villages to a great depth below the level of the Nile. Large numbers of papyri of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods have been found in and about the Fayum, which continued to flourish through the first two centuries of the Roman rule.
See W. M. F. Petrie, Hawara Biahmu and Arsinoe (London, 1889); R. H. Brown, The Fayûm and Lake Moeris (London, 1892); B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt and D. G. Hogarth, Fayum Towns and their Papyri (London, 1900); H. J. C. Beadnell, The Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of Egypt (Cairo, 1905). (F. Ll. G.)
MOESIA (Gr. Μυσία and Μυσία ἡ ἐν Εὐρώπῃ, to distinguish it
from Mysia in Asia), in ancient geography, a district inhabited
by a Thracian people, bounded on the S. by the mountain ranges
of Haemus and Scardus (Scordus, Scodrus), on the W. by the
Drinus, on the N. by the Danube and on the E. by the Euxine.
It thus corresponded in the main to the modern Servia and Bulgaria.
In 75 B.C., C. Scribonius Curio, proconsul of Macedonia,
penetrated as far as the Danube, and gained a victory over the
inhabitants, who were finally subdued by M. Licinius Crassus,
grandson of the triumvir and also proconsul of Macedonia,
during the reign of Augustus c. 29 B.C. (see Mommsen,
Provinces of the Roman Empire, Eng. trans., i. 12–14). The
country, however, was not organized as a province until the last
years of the reign; in A.D. 6 mention is made of its governor,
Caecina Severus (Dio Cassius lv. 29). The statement of Appian
(Illyrica, 30) that it did not become a Roman province until the
time of Tiberius, is therefore incorrect. Originally one province,
under an imperial consular legate (who probably also had control
of Achaea and Macedonia), it was divided by Domitian into
Upper (superior) and Lower (inferior, also called Ripa Thracia)
Moesia, the western and eastern portions respectively, divided
from each other by the river Cebrus (Ciabrus; mod. Cibritza or
Zibru). Some, however, place the boundary further west. Each
was governed by an imperial consular legate and a procurator.
As a frontier province, Moesia was strengthened by stations
and fortresses erected along the southern bank of the Danube,
and a wall was built from Axiopolis to Tomi as a protection
against Scythian and Sarmatian inroads. After the abandonment
of Dacia (q.v.) to the barbarians by Aurelian (270–275)
and the transference of its inhabitants to the south of the Danube,
the central portion of Moesia took the name of Dacia Aureliani
(again divided into Dacia ripensis and interior). The district
called Dardania (in Upper Moesia), inhabited by the Illyrian
Dardani, was formed into a special province by Diocletian with
capital Naissus (Nissa or Nish), the birthplace of Constantine
the Great. The Goths, who had already invaded Moesia in
250, hard pressed by the Huns, again crossed the Danube during
the reign of Valens (376), and with his permission settled in
