almost entirely choked up, and is accessible only to the smallest craft. Naupactus is an episcopal see; pop. about 2500. In Greek legend it appears as the place where the Heraclidae built a fleet to invade Peloponnesus. In historical times it belonged to the Ozolian Locrians; but about 455 B.C., in spite of a partial resettlement with Locrians of Opus, it fell to the Athenians, who peopled it with Messenian refugees and made it their chief naval station in western Greece during the Peloponnesian war. In 404 it was restored to the Locrians, who subsequently lost it to the Achaeans, but recovered it through Epaminondas. Philip II. of Macedon gave Naupactus to the Aetolians, who held it till 191, when after an obstinate siege it was surrendered to the Romans. It was still flourishing about A.D. 170, but in Justinian’s reign was destroyed by an earthquake. In the middle ages it fell into the hands of the Venetians, who fortified it so strongly that in 1477 it successfully resisted a four months’ siege by a Turkish army thirty thousand strong; in 1499, however, it was taken by Bayezid II. The mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto was the scene of the great sea fight in which the naval power of Turkey was for the time being destroyed by the united papal, Spanish and Venetian forces (October 7, 1571). See Lepanto, Battle of. In 1678 it was recaptured by the Venetians, but was again restored in 1699, by the treaty of Karlowitz to the Turks; in the war of independence it finally became Greek once more (March 1829).
See Strabo ix. pp. 426-427; Pausanias x. 38. 10-13; Thucydides i.-iii. passim; Livy, bk. xxxvi. passim; E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1901), No. 25.
NAUPLIA, a town in the Peloponnesus, at the head of the Argolic Gulf. In the classical period it was a place of no importance, and when Pausanias lived, about A.D. 150, it was deserted. At a very early time, however, it seems to have been of greater note, being the seaport of the plain in which Argos and Mycenae are situated, and several tombs of the Mycenaean age have been found. A hero Nauplius took part in the Argonautic expedition; another was king of Euboea. The mythic importance of the town revived in the middle ages, when it became one of the chief cities of the Morea. It was captured in 1211 by Godfrey Villehardouin with the help of Venetian ships; a French dynasty ruled in it for some time, and established the feudal system in the country. In 1388 the Venetians bought Argos and Nauplia. In the wars between Venice and the Turks it often changed masters. It was given to the Turks at the peace concluded in 1540; it was recaptured by Venice in 1686, and Palamidhi on the hill overhanging the town was made a great fortress. In 1715 it was taken by the Turks; in 1770 the Russians occupied it for a short time. The Greeks captured it during the War of Independence on the 12th of December 1822, and it was the seat of the Greek administration till 1833, when Athens became the capital of the country. It is the chief town of the department of Argolis (pop. in 1907, 81,943). Pop. about 6000.
NAUSEA (from Gr. ναῦς, a ship), sea-sickness, or generally any disposition to vomit; also used figuratively to denote feelings of strong aversion or dislike.
NAUSICAA, in Greek legend, daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians in the island of Scheria (Odyssey, vi. 15-315, viii. 457.) When Odysseus (Ulysses) was swept into the sea from the raft on which he had left the home of Calypso, he swam ashore to Scheria, where he fell asleep on the bank of a river. Here he was found by Nausicaa, who supplied him with clothes and took him to her father’s palace, where he was hospitably entertained. She is said to have become the wife of Telemachus. The incident of Odysseus and Nausicaa formed the subject of a lost play by Sophocles and was frequently represented in ancient art.
NAUTCH (Hindustani nach), an Indian ballet-dance. The nautch is performed by nautch-girls, who move their feet but little, and the dance consists of swaying the body and posturing with the arms.
NAUTILUS. The term nautilus, meaning simply “the sailor,” was applied by the ancient Greeks to the genus of eight-armed cuttlefishes or octopods which is now known as the paper nautilus, and whose scientific name is Argonauta (see Cephalopoda). This animal is not uncommon in the Mediterranean, and from its habit of floating at the surface attracted the attention of the fishermen and sailors of the Aegean Sea from the earliest times. The popular belief that the expanded arms are raised above the water to act as sails and that the other arms are used as oars was not based on any actual observation of the living animal, and it is now known that although the animal floats at the surface it does not sail, the expanded arms being applied to the exterior surface of the shell, which is secreted by them. The eggs are carried in the shell, and as this structure is entirely absent in the males, there is good reason to conclude that the habit of carrying the eggs and using one pair of arms for that purpose gave rise to the modification of those arms and the secretion of the shell by them. Huxley once expressed the truth of the matter with characteristic felicity in the remark that if the shell of the Argonaut is to be compared to anything of human invention or construction at all, it should be compared, not to a ship or boat, but to a perambulator.
The shell of Argonauta (see fig. 1) is spirally coiled and symmetrical, and thus bears a remarkable resemblance to the shell of the pearly nautilus and the extinct ammonites, especially as it is like that of the pearly nautilus coiled towards the dorsal or anterior surface of the animal.
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| Fig. 1.—The Argonaut in life. (After Lacaze-Duthiers.) |
| Tr, Float; Br.a, ventral or posterior arms; Br.p, dorsal or anterior arms; V, the expanded portion of them, once called the sails; B, the beak; C, the shell; En, the funnel. |
It is ornamented by ridges and furrows which pass in transverse curves from the inner to the outer margin of the coils. The outer margin or keel is somewhat flattened and the whole shell is compressed from side to side. It differs entirely from the shell of the pearly nautilus in the absence of internal septa and siphuncle and in the absence of any attachment between it and the body. It is in fact entirely different in origin and relations to the body from the typical molluscan shell secreted by the mantle in other Cephalopods and other types of Mollusca. It is a structure sui generis, unique in the whole phylum of Mollusca.
The only description of the living animal by a competent observer which we have is that of Lacaze Duthiers, made on a single specimen on the Mediterranean coast of France, and published in 1892, and even this is in some respects incomplete. The specimen after capture was carried in a bucket, and became separated from its shell. When placed with the shell in a large aquarium tank the animal resumed possession of the shell and assumed the attitude shown in fig. 1. The shell floated at the surface, doubtless in consequence of the inclusion of some air in the cavity of the shell. It is not known with certainty that the animal is able in its natural state to descend below the surface; the specimen here considered never did so of its own accord, and when pushed down always rose again.
