ORCHOMENOS 37 ORDEAL was thoroughly aristocratic, and after the Peloponnesian war the jealous demo- cratic Thebans destroyed it by fire, and sold its inhabitants as slaves. It was rebuilt in the reign of Philip of Mace- ORCHIDS 1. Calyso Borealis. 3. Ladies' Dresses. 2. Moccasin Flower. 4. Snake Mouth. don, but never recovered its position. It was famous for its musical festival iB honor of the Graces, who were specially worshiped in the city. ORCZY, BARONESS (MRS. MON- TAGU BARSTOW), Hungarian play- wright and novelist, born in Tar- naors, Hungary, educated in Brussels, studied art and exhibited in England, where she married Montagu Barstow. Began writing in 1900, and first became known for her brilliant detective stories, known as "The Old Man in the Comer" Series. Among her best known works are: "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1905) ; "A Son of the People" (1906); "Flower o' the Lily" (1918); and "His Majesty's Well-Beloved" (1919). ORDEAL, the judicium Dei of medi- aeval writers; the practice of referring disputed questions (especially those touching the criminality of a suspected person) to supernatural decision, in the belief that the Deity would work a mira- cle rather than the innocent should suffer or the guilty escape punishment. It ex- isted among the Jews. A wife accused of adultery was required to drink "the bitter water that causeth a curse" (Num. v: 12-31), and a strangely similar in- stitution exists at the present day among the negroes of the Gold Coast of Africa; and ordeal in some form or other is still practiced by races of low culture, and by individuals of low culture among races standing in the forefront of civ- ilization. In the Middle Ages in Europe ordeal was sanctioned both by civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, and was chiefly of three kinds: (1) By fire — a survival from the early classic times, in which the accused had to walk barefoot and blindfolded over red-hot plowshares, or to take up and carry a piece of red- hot iron a certain distance. This method was allowed only to persons of high rank; (2) By water, for persons of the middle and lower classes. This was of two kinds. The accused had to take a stone out of boiling water, and if, after a certain time, his arm presented no marks of injury, he was adjudged inno- cent. In the second case — a common method when witchcraft was alleged — the accused, bound hand and foot, was thrown into a river or pond, and it was believed that a guilty person would float without effort, and that an innocent per- son would infallibly sink; (3) Wager of battle. Besides these three principal methods there were three others in less general use: A supposed murderer was required to touch the body of the mur- dered man, and was pronounced guilty if blood flowed from the wounds; the Ordeal of the Eucharist, in which divine judgment was supposed to follow un- worthy reception of the sacrament; and the Corsned.
