where he made friendships which proved very advantageous for the Allgemcine Zeitung. In 1801 he paid another visit to Paris, in a political capacity, when he carefully studied Napoleon s policy, and treasured up many hints which were useful to him in his literary undertakings. He still, how ever, devoted most of his attention to his own business, and, for many years, made all the entries into the ledger with his own hand. He relieved the tedium of almost ceaseless toil by pleasant intercourse with literary men. With Schiller, Huber, and Pfeffel he was on terms of the warmest friendship ; and he was also intimate with Herder, Schelling, Fichte, Richter, Voss, Hebel, Tieck, Therese Huber, Matthisson, the brothers Humboldt, Johann Miiller, Spittler, and others, whose works he published in whole or in part. In the correspondence of Alexander von Humboldt with Varnhagen von Ense ws see the familiar relations in which the former stood to the Cotta family. In 1795 appeared the Politischen Annalen and the Jahrbiicher der Baukunde, and in 1798 the Damenalmanach, along with some works of less importance. In 1807 he issued the Morgenblatt, to which Schorn s Kunsiblatt and Menzel s Literaturblatt were afterwards added. In 1810 he removed to Stuttgart ; and from that time till his death he was loaded with honours. State affairs and an honourable commission from the German booksellers took him to the Vienna Congress; and in 1815 he was deputy-elect at the Wiirtemberg Diet. In 1819 he became representative of the nobility; then he succeeded to the offices of member of committee and (1824) vice-president of the Wiirtemberg second chamber. He was also chosen Prussian privy court counsellor, Bavarian chancellor, and knight of the order of the Wiirtemberg Crown. Meanwhile such publications aa the Polytechnische Journal, the Hesperus, the Wurtember- gische.n Jahrbiicher, the Hertha, the Ausland, and the Inland issued from the press. In 1828-29 appeared the famous correspondence between Schiller and Goethe. Cotta was an unfailing friend of young struggling men of talent. In addition to his high standing as a publisher, he was a man of great practical energy, which flowed into various fields of activity. He was a scientific agriculturist, and promoted many reforms in farming. He was the first Wiirtembsrg landholder who did away with servitude on his estates. In politics he was throughout his life a moderate liberal. In 1824 he set up a steam printing press in Augsburg, and, about the same time, founded a literary institute at Munich. In 1825 he started steam boats, for the first time, on Lake Constance, and introduced them in the following year for the Rhine traffic. In 1823 he was sent to Berlin, on an important commission, by Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, and was there rewarded with orders of distinction at the hands of the three kings. He died an the 29th of December 1832.
His son, Freiherr Georg Cotta von Cottendorf, who was born in 1796, and died in 1863, succeeded to the management of the business on the death of his father. He was materially assisted by his brother-in-law, Chamber lain Freiherr von Reischach. He greatly extended the connections of the firm ; and, in 1865, the house had establishments for different kinds of publications at Stuttgart, Augsburg, Leipsic, and Munich. The business is still in the hands of the Cotta family.
COTTABUS (Greek, KoVraySos, /coWa/Jo?, or orra^os), a game of skill for a long time in great vogue in ancient Greece, frequently alluded to by the classical writers of the period, and not seldom depicted on the ancient vases. The object of the player was to cast a portion of wine left in his drinking cup in such a way that without breaking bulk in its passage through the air, it should reach a vessel set to receive it, and there produce a distinct noise by it:: impact. The thrower, in the ordinary form of the game was expected to retain the recumbent position that was usual at table, and in flinging the cottabus, to make use of his right hand only. To succeed in the aim no small amount of dexterity was required, and unusual ability in the game was rated as high as corresponding excellence in throwing the javelin. Not only was the cottabus the ordinary accompaniment of the festal assembly, but at least in Sicily a special building of a circular form was sometimes erected so that the players might bo easily arranged round the basin, and follow each other in rapid succession. Like all games in which the element of chanca found a place, ft was regarded as more or less ominous of the future success of the players, especially in matters of love ; and the excitement was sometimes further augmented by some object of value being staked on the event. Various modifications of the original principle of the game wero gradually introduced, and no fewer than nine different kinds, though some of these have no very striking individuality, have been described by Groddeck in his essay on the subject, published in his Antiquarische Versuche, 1800. In one variety a flotilla of shallow saucers was set swimming in a basin, and he was regarded as the victor who sank the greatest number by his casts ; in another the difficulty of the task was increased by setting up a small figure called a fj.a.vr)<;, and requiring the jet of wine first to strike on this, and then to fall with a noise into the vessel beneath ; while in a third two scales wero balanced in such a way that the weight of the liquid cast into either scale caused it to dip down, and touch the top of an image. In the boisterous mirth of convivial gather ings the players seem sometimes to have set a slave or one of their companions whom they wished to annoy, in the place of the //.av^s ; and from this ill-mannered custom the word aTroKOTTa/St ^civ is occasionally used in the sense of to insult. The game appears to have been of Sicilian origin, but it spread through Greece from Thessaly to Rhodes, and was especially fashionable at Athens. Dionysius, Alcasus, Anacreon, Pindar, Bacchylides, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Antiphanes, have frequent and familiar allusion to the KOTra/?os ; but in the writers of the Roman and Alexandrian period such reference as occurs shows that the fashion had died out. In Latin literature it is almost altogether unknown.
For ancient accounts see Athenseus, xv. ; the Scholiast on Aristo- panes, J ac. , the Scholiast on Lucian s Lexiphrones ; Tzetzes, Chiliad, vi. ; Suidas, s.v. Ko-rTaRi&iv ; Nonnus, xxxiii. ; and for modern investigation, Meursins, De hidis Grcecorum ; Becker, De ludicro cottalorum, Dresden, 1754-55 ; Fr. Jacobs, "Ueber dcnKotta- bus," in Wieland s Atiischcs Museum, iii. ; Osann, Beitrdge zu f/riech. Litt. Geschichte, 1835 ; Panofka, licchcrchcs sur Us noms d& vases grccqucs, 1827; Otto Jalm " Kottabos auf Vasenbildern," with illustrations, in Fhilologus, 1867; and Annali dell Institute di corrcsp. Arch, di Roma, 1868 and 1870.
COTTEREAU, Jean. See Chouans.
COTTIN, Sophie (1773-1807), née Restaud, was born at Tonneins, Lot-et-Garonne, and was educated at Bordeaux. At seventeen she married a banker, who died three yeai.s after, when she removed to Paris. In 1798 she published anonymously her Claire d Albe, to obtain money, it is said, for a friend who was proscribed and exiled. Her second romance, Malvina (1800), was also anonymous; but the success of Amelie Mansfield (1802) induced the authoress to reveal her identity. In 1805 appeared Mathilde, a crusading story, sentimental and extravagant to a degree; and in 1806 she produced her last story, the famous Elisa betk, ou les exiles de Siberie. At the date of her death Madame Cottin was engaged on an educational novel, and on a treatise entitled La religion protivee par le sentiment, Her worst fault is a tendency to exaggerate the virtues of her characters. A complete edition of her works was published, in two volumes, in 1847.
