The Hystore was turned into verse (alexandrines) by Jacot de Forest (latter part of the 13th century) under the title of Roman de Julius César. A prose compilation by an unknown author, Les Faits des Romains (c. 1225), has little resemblance to the last two works, although mainly derived from the same sources. It was originally intended to contain a history of the twelve Caesars, but concluded with the murder of the dictator, and in some MSS. bears the title of Li livres de César. Its popularity is proved by the numerous MSS. in which it is preserved and by three separate translations into Italian. A Mistaire de Julius César is said to have been represented at Amboise in 1500 before Louis XII.
See A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nella imaginazione del medio evo, i. ch. 8 (1882–1883); P. Meyer in Romania, xiv. (Paris, 1885), where the Faits des Romains is analysed at length; A. Duval in Histoire littéraire de la France, xix. (1838); L. Constans in Petit de Jullevilles’ Hist. de la langue et de la litt. française, i. (1896); H. Wesemann, Die Cäsarfabeln des Mittelalters (Löwenberg, 1879). (M. Br.)
CAESAR, SIR JULIUS (1557-1558–1636), English judge, descended by the female line from the dukes de’ Cesarini in Italy, was born near Tottenham in Middlesex. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and afterwards studied at the university of Paris, where in the year 1581 he was made a doctor of the civil law. Two years later he was admitted to the same degree at Oxford, and also became doctor of the canon law. He held many high offices during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., including a judgeship of the admiralty court (1584), a mastership in chancery (1588), a mastership of the court of requests (1595), chancellor and under treasurer of the exchequer (1606). He was knighted by King James in 1603, and in 1614 was appointed master of the rolls, an office which he held till his death on the 18th of April 1636, He was so remarkable for his bounty and charity to all persons of worth that it was said of him that he seemed to be the almoner-general of the nation. His manuscripts, many of which are now in the British Museum, were sold by auction in 1757 for upwards of £500.
See E. Lodge, Life of Sir Julius Caesar (1810); Wood, Fasti Oxonienses, ed. Bliss; Foss, Lives of the Judges.
CAESAREA MAZACA (mod. Kaisarieh), chief town of a sanjak in the Angora vilayet of Asia Minor. Mazaca, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia, later called Eusebea (perhaps after Ariarathes Eusebes), and named Caesarea probably by Claudius, stood on a low spur on the north side of Erjies Dagh (M. Argaeus). The site, now called Eski-shehr, shows only a few traces of the old town. It was taken by Tigranes and destroyed by the Persian king Shapur (Sapor) I. after his defeat of Valerian in A.D. 260. At this time it is stated to have contained 400,000 inhabitants. In the 4th century Basil, when bishop, established an ecclesiastical centre on the plain, about 1 m. to the north-east, and this gradually supplanted the old town. A portion of Basil’s new city was surrounded with strong walls and turned into a fortress by Justinian; and within the walls, rebuilt in the 13th and 16th centuries, lies the greater part of Kaisarieh, altitude 3500 ft. The town was captured by the Seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, 1064, and by the Mongols, 1243, before passing to the Osmanli Turks. Its geographical situation has made it a place of commercial importance throughout history. It lay on the ancient trade route from Sinope to the Euphrates, on the Persian “Royal Road” from Sardis to Susa, and on the great Roman highway from Ephesus to the East. It is still the most important trade centre in eastern Asia Minor. The town is noted for its fruit, especially its vines; and it exports tissues, carpets, hides, yellow berries and dried fruit. Kaisarieh is the headquarters of the American mission in Cappadocia, which has several churches and schools for boys and girls and does splendid medical work. It is the seat of a Greek bishop, an Armenian archbishop and a Roman Catholic bishop, and there is a Jesuit school. On the 30th of November 1895 there was a massacre of Armenians, in which several Gregorian priests and Protestant pastors lost their lives. Pop., according to Cuinet, 71,000 (of whom 26,000 are Christians). Sir C. Wilson gave it as 50,000 (23,000 Christians).
(C. W. W.; J. G. C. A.)
CAESAREAN SECTION, in obstetrics (q.v.) the operation for removal of a foetus from the uterus by an abdominal incision, so called from a legend of its employment at the birth of Julius Caesar. This procedure has been practised on the dead mother since very early times; in fact it was prescribed by Roman law that every woman dying in advanced pregnancy should be so treated; and in 1608 the senate of Venice enacted that any practitioner who failed to perform this operation on a pregnant woman supposed to be dead, laid himself open to very heavy penalties. But the first recorded instance of its being performed on a living woman occurred about 1500, when a Swiss pig-gelder operated on his own wife. From this time onwards it was tried in many ways and under many conditions, but almost invariably with the same result, the death of the mother. Even as recently as the first half of the 19th century the recorded mortality is over 50%. Thus it is no surprise that craniotomy—in which the life of the child is sacrificed to save that of the mother—was almost invariably preferred. As the use of antiseptics was not then understood, and as it was customary to return the uterus to the body cavity without suturing the incision, the immediate cause of death was either septicaemia or haemorrhage. But in 1882 Sänger published his method of suturing the uterus—that of employing two series of sutures, one deep, the other superficial. This method of procedure was immediately adopted by many obstetricians, and it has proved so satisfactory that it is still in use today. This, and the increasing knowledge of aseptic technique, has brought the mortality from this operation to less than 3% for the mother and about 5% for the child; and every year it is being advised more freely for a larger number of morbid conditions, and with increasingly favourable results. Craniotomy, i.e. crushing the head of the foetus to reduce its size, is now very rarely performed on the living child, but symphysiotomy, i.e. the division of the symphysis pubis to produce a temporary enlargement of the pelvis, or caesarean section, is advocated in its place. Of these two operations, symphysiotomy is steadily being replaced by caesarean section.
This operation is now advised for (1) extreme degrees of pelvic contraction, (2) any malformation or tumour of the uterus, cervix or vagina, which would render the birth of the child through the natural passages impossible, (3) maternal complications, as eclampsia and concealed accidental haemorrhage, and (4) at the death of the mother for the purpose of saving the child.
CAESAREA PALAESTINA, a town built by Herod about 25–13 B.C., on the sea-coast of Palestine, 30 miles N. of Joppa, on the site of a place previously called Turris Stratonis. Remains of all the principal buildings erected by Herod existed down to the end of the 19th century; the ruins were much injured by a colony of Bosnians established here in 1884. These buildings are a temple, dedicated to Caesar; a theatre; a hippodrome; two aqueducts; a boundary wall; and, chief of all, a gigantic mole, 200 ft. wide, built of stones 50 ft. long, in 20 fathoms of water, protecting the harbour on the south and west. The harbour measures 180 yds. across. The massacre of Jews at this place led to the Jewish rebellion and to the Roman war. Vespasian made it a colony and called it Flavia: the old name, however, persisted, and still survives as Kaisarieh. Eusebius was archbishop here (A.D. 315–318). It was captured by the Moslems in 638 and by the Crusaders in 1102, by Saladin in 1187, recaptured by the Crusaders in 1191, and finally lost by them in 1265, since when till its recent settlement it has lain in ruins. Remains of the medieval town are also visible, consisting of the walls (one-tenth the area of the Roman city), the castle, the cathedral (now covered by modern houses), and a church.
(R. A. S. M.)
CAESAREA PHILIPPI, the name of a town 95 miles N. of Jerusalem, 35 miles S.W. from Damascus, 1150 ft. above the sea, on the south base of Hermon, and at an important source of the Jordan. It does not certainly appear in the Old Testament history, though identifications with Baal-Gad and (less certainly) with Laish (Dan) have been proposed. It was certainly a place of great sanctity from very early times, and when foreign
