OORDIANUS
649
aORDON
dian, a boy of thirteen, was appointed to thedignity
of Caesar under the joint-emperors Maximus and Bal-
binus. These latter were massacred in 238 by the
Praetorian guards, and the youthful Gordian became
sole emperor. After being for a time under the con-
trol of his mother's eunuchs, he married the daugh-
ter of Misitheus, his teacher of rhetoric. Misitheus
proved to be a capable politician and general, and
stirred up his young charge to march in person against
the Persians. At first the expedition met with suc-
cess, but the death of Jlisitheus put an end to Gor-
dian's prosperity. His soldiers mutinied, at the in-
stigation of Philip, the successor of Misitheus, and
slew him (244). Under the Gordians the Church en-
joyed peace. Their rival, Maximin, had been a fierce
persecutor of the Christians; hence they naturally
cultivated the goodwill of those who had every reason
to oppose his rule.
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Unman Empire (London, 181.5), ch. vii. Allahd, Le chrislianisme et V Empire Remain (Paris, 1898), ch. iii.
T. B. SCANNELL.
Gordianus and Epimachus, Saints, Martyrs, suf- fered under Julian the Apostate, 362, commemorated on 10 May. Gordianus was a judge, but was so moved by the sanctity and sufferings of the saintly priest, Jan- uarius, that he embraced Christianity w'ith many of his household. Being accused before his successor, or as some say before the prefect of the city, Apronianus, he was cruelly tortiu'ed and finally beheaded. His body was carried off by the Christians, and laid in a crypt on the Latin Way beside the body of St. Epima- chus, who had been recently interred there. The two saints gave their name to the cemetery, and have ever since been joined together in the veneration of the Church. There is another Gordianus who suffered martyrdom (place imcertain) with two companions, and is commemorated on 17 September (Acta SS., XLV, 483); and a third, commemorated on 13 Sept., who with several companions was martyred in Pontus or Galatia (Acta SS., XLIV, 55).
There are also several martyrs named Epimachus, and, owing to the meagreness of the information pos- ses.sed concerning them, less careful writers have con- founded them greatly, while the greater hagiologists are imable to agree as to their number or identity. The Bollandists mention five saints of this name: (1) A martyr conunemorated by the Greeks on 6 July (.\cta SS., XXIX. 280); (2) Epimachus and Azirianus, mart\rs \enerated bv the Copts and Abyssinians on 31 Get. (Acta SS., LXI, 684); (3) Epimachus of Pe- lusium in Egypt, venerated by the Greeks on 31 Oct. (Acta SS., LXI, 704); (4) Epimachus and Alexander, martyred at Alexandria in the persecution of Decius, commemorated in the Latin Church on 12 Dec; (5) Epimachus, whose body, with that of St. Gordianus, is honoured at Rome on 10 May. Most of the great writers have denied the existence of an Epimachus martj'red at Rome, and account for the relics honoured there by asserting that the body of tlie Alexandrian Epimachus w-as transported thither .shortly before the martyrdom of St. Gordianus. Remi de Buck, the learned BoUandist, however, maintains that the evi- dence for the Roman Epimachus is too strong to be doubted, while he rejects the pretended translation of the relics of Epimachus of Alexandria.
Acta SS.. XV, .'549; de Buck, De Vorm SS. Epimachis in Acta SS., LXI, 706.
John F. X. Murphy.
Gordon, Andrew, Benedictine monk, phy.sicist; b. 15 June, 1712, at Cofforach in Forfarshire, Scotland; d. 22 August, 1751, at Erfurt, in Saxony. Having travelled extensively on the Continent, Gordon be- came a Benedictine and in 1737 was appointed pro- fessor of natural philosophy in the University of Erfurt. He soon acquired considerable reputation by
his works on electricity, among which were his " PhEe-
nornena electricitatis exposita (1744) ; " Philosophia
utilis et jucunda" (1745); "Physicae experimentalis
elementa" (1751-52). For the sulphur ball of von
Guericke (1671) and the glass globe of Newton (some
say Hauksbee), Gordon substituted a glass cylinder
which made an efficient frictional machine. Two
other inventions of the Benedictine physicist are
noteworthy: the first is the light metallic star sup-
ported on a sharp pivot with the pointed ends bent at
right angles to the rays and commonly called the
electrical whirl; the second is the beautiful device
known as the electric chimes. Though these inven-
tions are described in all textbooks of electricity, the
name of Gordon is never mentioned, though both in-
ventions are fully described by him in his "Versuch
einer Erkliirung der Electricitat" (Erfurt, 1745).
Franklin, who is usually credited with the latter in-
vention, simply adopted the "German chimes" (de-
scribed by Watson in his famous "Sequel", 1746) to
serve as an electrical annunciator in connexion with
his experunental (lightnuig) rod of 1752. The
"whirl" is of special interest because it was an elec-
trostatic reaction motor, the earliest of its kind ; while
the second derives its theoretical importance from its
being the first instance that we have of the application
of what has come to be called "electric convection".
Priestley, History of Electricity (177.5); Electrical World
(New \ork, 2 Jan., 1909); Cooper in Did. Nat. Biog.. s. v.
Brother Potamian. Gordon, William. See Leeds, Diocese of.
Gordon Riots. — This agitation, so called from the head and spirit of the movement, Lord George Gordon, convulsed the metropolis of Englanil from 2 June till 9 June, 1780. The first English Catholic Relief Act of 1778 (18 George III, c. 60) was not due to any strong feeling in favour of Catholics. Of those mainly re- sponsible for the measure, some were ashamed of the brutal intolerance of former days, some feared that the declaration of American independence might result in an Irish rebellion. The majority had been slow to act, and there was also a noisy minority, which filled the House with protest, while the bill was being de- bated, and, when it had become law, strove earnestly to prevent a like measure from being brought for- ward in the legislation for Scotland. To effect this a " Protestant Association ' ' was formed which organized demonstrations of the mob against the Catholics at Perth and Edinburgh, where on 2 February, 1779, the chapel-houses in Chalmer's Close, near Leith Wynd, and in Blackfriars Wynd were burned. Nor was peace restored until the Lord Provost weakly promised that no Catholic relief bill for Scotland should be intro- duced. Though some compensation for the damage done was afterwards ordered by the Government, the Association had gained such a victory that it was encouraged to found branches in England, in order to work for the repeal of the Relief Bill already passed there, as also for the repeal of the Canada or Quebec bill, which granted freedom to Canadian Catholics.
The president of both Scottish and English Associa- tions was Lord George Gordon, third son of the third Duke of Gordon, the first Protestant head of the house. Lord George was eccentric, and unrestrained both in his fanaticism and in his passions; so much so that the mo?, originally formed for Sir Fleetwood Shep- herd, was adapted to him by Wilkes, " Nulla dispjicuit meretrix pneter Babylonicam" (R. Bisset, "George III ", III, 167). This hero of the Protestant Associa- tion resolved on a great demonstration. He procured a petition for the repeal of the Relief Bill, signed bv 30,000 to 40,000 names, carried it to the House o"f Commons, 2 June, 1780, in a huge procession, said in the excitement of the time to have numbered 20,000 or even 40,000 men, all wearing blue cockades, and carrying blue flags with the legend: No Popery. In
