The town wakes up for the fair of Beaucaire and the fête of La Tarasque, the latter in celebration of St Martha’s deliverance of the town from a legendary monster of that name. King René presided in 1469, and grand exhibitions of costume and strange ceremonies take place during the two days of the festival. Tarascon was originally a settlement of the Massaliots, built on an island of the Rhone. The mediæval castle, where Pope Urban II. lived in 1096, was built on the ruins of a Roman castrum. The inhabitants of Tarascon preserved the municipal institutions granted them by the Romans, and of the absolute power claimed by the counts of Provence they only recognized the rights of sovereignty. Tarascon played a bloody part in the White Terror of 1815.
TARAXACUM is the name usually applied in medical practice to the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, Wiggers). The Dandelion (q.v.) is a plant of the northern hemisphere, extending to the Arctic regions, and is cultivated in India. The preparations chiefly employed are the fluid extract, the preserved juice of the root, or succus, and the solid extract. The dried and roasted root, mixed with ground coffee, is often sold under the name of dandelion coffee for use as a beverage. The root is most bitter from March to July, but the milky juice it contains is less abundant in the summer than in the autumn. For this reason, the extract and succus are usually prepared during the months of September and October. After a frost a change takes place in the root, which loses its bitterness to a large extent. In the dried state the root will not keep well, being quickly attacked by insects. Externally it is brown and wrinkled, internally white, with a yellow centre and concentric paler rings. It is 2 inches to a foot long, and about to 14 to 12 inch in diameter. The juice when first exuded is bitter and neutral, but on exposure to the air soon acquires an acid reaction and a brown tint, coagulating and depositing a complex substance, to which the name of “leontodonium’’ has been given. From this deposit a bitter principle, "taraxacin," and an acrid crystalline substance, "taraxacerin," soluble in alcohol, have been obtained, but to which of these the medicinal properties are due is not known. In autumn the root contains about 24 per cent, of inulin, but in summer barely 2 per cent. When the juice has fermented, mannite is found in it. Taraxacum is chiefly employed as a stimulant tonic in hepatic disorders. In some cases it acts as a cholagogue and mild aperient, and in others as a diuretic.
The roots of other Composite plants are sometimes gathered by careless collectors for dandelion, especially that of Leontodon hispidus (L.). The root of this plant is tough when fresh, and rarely exudes any milky juice. The flowers, moreover, have feathery pappus, while in the dandelion it is simple.
TARBES, a town of France, chef-lieu of the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, is situated in one of the most beautiful plains of France, on the left bank of the Adour, streams from which are conducted through all parts of the town. The lines of railway from Paris to Pierrefitte and from Toulouse to Bayonne cross here. Among the many gardens and open spaces for which Tarbes is distinguished is the Massey garden (35 acres), given to his native town by a Versailles official of that name, in which his statue faces the town museum, founded by the collector Achille Jubinal. The varied collections include Roman remains, and specimens of the fauna and flora of the Pyrenees. The architecture of the cathedral is heavy and unpleasing, but the cupola of the transept (14th century), the modern glass in the 12th-century apse, and a rose window of the 13th century, in the north transept, are worthy of notice. The Carmelite church has an interesting steeple, and there are the ruins of a chapel and cloister, and Roman remains in the garden of the former episcopal palace, now occupied by the prefecture. The municipal buildings, with the public library (22,000 volumes), the lyceum, the court of justice, and the barracks (which are large and fine) may also be mentioned among the public buildings. The garrison and artillery establishments, the latter associated with an arsenal and large workshops, have considerable importance. Other industrial establishments are a foundry machine manufactory, felt and woollen factories, and wool and flax spinning mills. Paper, lace, knitted goods, carriages, and leather are also made here, and marble from the Pyrenees is prepared for the market. There are important fairs and markets, particularly for horses, as Tarbes is a well-known centre for a special breed of light horses, its stud being the most important in the south of France. The population of the town was 24,882 in 1886.
Tarbes, a mere vicus in the time of Gregory of Tours, rose into importance after the destruction of the ancient Aquitanian town of Turba. The seat of the bishopric was transferred to it about the 9th century, when a castle was also built. Raymond I., towards the middle of the 10th century, rebuilt the town, fortified it, and made it the capital of the county of Bigorre. The English held the town from 1360 to 1406. In 1569 Tarbes was burnt by Montgomery, and the inhabitants were driven out. This happened a second time, but in August 1570 the peace of St Germain allowed the inhabitants to return to the grass-grown streets. Subsequently Tarbes was four times taken and re-taken, and a number of the inhabitants of Bigorre were forced to take refuge in Spain, but in 1594 the members of the League were finally expelled. The English, under Wellington, gained a victory over the French near Tarbes in 1814. Théophile Gautier was born here in 1811.
TARENTUM, or Taras, now Taranto, a famous Greek city of southern Italy, situated on the north coast of the bay of the same name, at the entrance of the only secure port on the gulf. This port, now called the Mare Piccolo, is a bay 16 miles in circuit, landlocked by a low rocky peninsula. The entrance is so narrow that it is crossed by a bridge of seven arches; it was already bridged in Strabo’s time. The modern town, in the province of Lecce, which is the see of an archbishop and had in 1881 a population of 26,611, stands on the peninsula, which is now rather an island, the isthmus connecting it with the mainland having been cut through for defence by Ferdinand I. The ancient citadel occupied the same site, but the city in its best days was much larger, traces of the walls being visible about 2 miles from the gates of the modern town. The remains of antiquity are inconsiderable.
Tarentum was a Spartan colony founded about the close of the 8th century B.C.. (Jerome gives the date 708) to relieve the parent state of a part of its population which did not possess, but claimed to enjoy, full civic rights. Legend represents these Partheniæ (so they are called) as Spartans with a stain on their birth, but the accounts are neither clear nor consistent, and the facts that underlie them have not been cleared up. The Greeks were not the first settlers on the peninsula: recent excavations have brought to light signs of a pre-Hellenic trading-place, and the name of Taras may be older than the colony. To the Greeks Taras was a mythical hero, son of Neptune, and he is sometimes confounded with the œeist of the colony, Phalanthus. Situated in a fertile district, especially famous for olives and sheep, with an admirable harbour, great fisheries, and prosperous manufactures of wool, purple, and pottery, Tarentum grew in power and wealth and extended its domain inland. Even a great defeat by the natives in 473 B. C., when more Greeks fell than in any battle known to Herodotus, did not break its prosperity, though it led to a change of government from aristocracy to democracy. A feud with the Thurians for the district of the Siris was settled in 432 by the joint foundation of Heraclea, which, however, was regarded as a Tarentine colony. In the 4th century Tarentum was the first city of Great Greece, and its wealth and artistic culture at this time are amply attested by its rich and splendid coins; the gold pieces in particular (mainly later than 360) are perhaps the most beautiful ever struck by Greeks (see Numismatics, vol. xvii. p. 637). In the second half of the century Tarentum was in constant war with the Lucanians, and did not hold its ground without the aid of Spartan and Epirote condottieri. Then followed war with Rome (281), the expedition of Pyrrhus, and at length, in 272, the surrender of the city by its Epirote garrison (see the details in vol. xx. p. 743 sq.), Tarentum retained nominal liberty as an ally of Rome. In the Second Punic War it suffered severely, when it was taken by Hannibal (212), all but the citadel, and retaken and plundered by Fabius (209). After this it fell into great decay, but revived again after receiving a colony in 123 B.C. It remained a considerable seaport, and its purple, second only to that of Tyre, was still valued, but in Strabo's time it had shrunk nearly to the limits of the present town. After the fall of the Western empire it was held from time to time by
