the establishment of the Tithonian stage, for strata (mainly equivalent to the English Portland and Purbeck Beds) that occur on the borders of Jurassic and Cretaceous. Of his later works the most important was Paläontologische Mittheilungen aus dem Museum des Königl. Bayer. Staats. (1862–1865). He died at Munich on the 23rd of December 1865.
OPPELN (Polish, Oppolic), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, lies on the right bank of the Oder, 51 m. S.E. of Breslau, on the railway to Kattowitz, and at the junction of lines to Beuthen, Neisse and Tarnowitz. Pop. (1905) 30,769. It is the seat of the provincial administration of Upper Silesia,
and contains the oldest Christian church in the district, that of
St Adalbert, founded at the dose of the 10th century. It has
two other churches and a ducal 15th-century palace on an island
in the Oder. The most prominent among the other buildings
are the offices of the district authorities, the town hall, the
normal seminary and the hospital of St Adalbert. The Roman
Catholic gymnasium is established in an old Jesuit college.
The industries of Oppeln include the manufacture of Portland
cement, machinery, beer, soap, cigars and lime; trade is carried
on by rail and river in cattle, grain and the vast mineral output
of the district, of which Oppeln is the chief centre. The upper
classes speak German, the lower Polish.
Oppeln was a flourishing place at the beginning of the 11th century, and became a town in 1228. It was the capital of the duchy of Oppeln and the residence of the duke from 1163 to 1532, when the ruling family became extinct. Then it passed to Austria, and with the rest of Silesia was ceded to Prussia in 1742.
See Idzikowski, Geschichte der Stadt Oppeln (Oppeln, 1863); and Vogt, Oppeln beim Eintritt in das Jahr 1900 (Oppeln, 1900).
OPPENHEIM, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of
Hesse, picturesquely situated on the slope of vine-clad hills, on
the left bank of the Rhine, 20 m. S. of Mainz, on the railway to
Worms. Pop. (1905) 3696. The only relic of its former importance
is the Evangelical church of St Catherine, one of the most
beautiful Gothic edifices of the 13th and 14th centuries in
Germany, and recently restored at the public expense. The
town has a Roman Catholic church, several schools and a
memorial of the War of 1870–71. Its industries and commerce
are principally concerned with the manufacture and export of
wine. Above the town are the ruins of the fortress of Landskron,
built in the 11th century and destroyed in 1689.
Oppenheim, which occupies the site of the Roman Bauconica, was formerly much larger than at present. In 1226 it appears as a free town of the Empire and later as one of the most important members of the Rhenish League. It lost its independence in 1375, when it was given in pledge to the elector palatine of the Rhine. During the Thirty Years’ War it was alternately occupied by the Swedes and the Imperialists, and in 1689 it was entirely destroyed by the French.
See W. Franck, Geschichte der ehemaligen Reichsstadt Oppenheim (Darmstadt, 1859).
OPPERT, JULIUS (1825–1905), German Assyriologist, was
born at Hamburg, of Jewish parents, on the 9th of July 1825.
After studying at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin, he graduated at
Kiel in 1847, and in the following year went to France, where he
was teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. His leisure was
given to Oriental studies, in which he had made great progress
in Germany, and in 1852 he joined Fresnel’s archaeological
expedition to Mesopotamia. On his return in 1854 he occupied
himself in digesting the results of the expedition in so far as they
concerned cuneiform inscriptions, and published an important
work upon them (Déchriffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes,
1861). In 1857 he was appointed professor of Sanscrit in the
school of languages connected with the National Library in
Paris, and in this capacity he produced a Sanscrit grammar;
but his attention was chiefly given to Assyrian and cognate
subjects, and he was especially prominent in establishing the
Turanian character of the language originally spoken in Assyria.
In 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology
and archaeology at the Collège de France. In 1865 he published
a history of Assyria and Chaldaea in the light of the results of
the different exploring expeditions. At a later period he devoted
much attention to the language and antiquities of ancient Media,
writing Le Peuple et la langue des Mèdes (1879). He died in Paris
on the 21st of August 1905. Oppert was a voluminous writer
upon Assyrian mythology and jurisprudence, and other subjects
connected with the ancient civilizations of the East. Among
his other works may be mentioned: Éléments de la grammar
assyrienne (1868); L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Chaldéens,
(1875); Salomon et ses successeurs (1877); and, with J. Ménant,
Doctrines juridiques de l’Assyrie el de la Chaldée (1877).
OPPIAN (Gr. Ὀππιᾶνός), the name of the authors of two (or
three) didactic poems in Greek hexameters, formerly identified,
but now generally regarded as two different persons, (1) Oppian
of Corycus (or Anabarzus) in Cilicia, who flourished in the reign
of Marcus Aurelius (emperor A.D. 161–180). According to an
anonymous biographer, his father, having incurred the displeasure
of Lucius Verus, the colleague of Aurelius, by neglecting
to pay his respects to him when he visited the town, was banished
to Malta. Oppian, who had accompanied his father into exile,
returned after the death of Verus (169) and went on a visit to
Rome. Here he presented his poems to Aurelius, who was so
pleased with them that he gave the author a piece of gold for each
line, took him into favour and pardoned his father. Oppian
subsequently returned to his native country, but died of the
plague shortly afterwards, at the early age of thirty. His
contemporaries erected a statue in his honour, with an inscription
which is still extant, containing a lament for his premature death
and a eulogy of his precocious genius. His poem on fishing
(Halieutica), of about 3500 lines, dedicated to Aurelius and his
son Commodus, is still extant. (2) Oppian of Apamea (or Pella)
in Syria. His extant poem on hunting (Cynegetica) is dedicated
to the emperor Caracalla, so that it must have been written after
211. It consists of about 2150 lines, and is divided into four
books, the last of which seems incomplete. The author evidently
knew the Halieutica, and perhaps intended his poem as a supplement.
Like his namesake, he shows considerable knowledge of
his subject and close observation of nature; but in style and
poetical merit he is inferior to him. His versification also is less
correct. The improbability of there having been two poets of
the same name, writing on subjects so closely akin and such near
contemporaries, may perhaps be explained by assuming that
the real name of the author of the Cynegetica was not Oppian,
but that he has been confounded with his predecessor. In any
case, it seems clear that the two were not identical.
A third poem on bird-catching (Ixeutica, from ίξός, bird-lime), also formerly attributed to an Oppian, is lost; a paraphrase in Greek prose by a certain Eutecnius is extant. The author is probably one Dionysius, who is mentioned by Suïdas as the author of a treatise on stones (Lithiaca).
The chief modern editions are J. G. Schneider (1776); F. S. Lehrs (1846); U. C. Bussemaker (Scholia, 1849); (Cynegetica) P. Boudreaux (1908). The anonymous biography referred to above will be found in A. Westermann’s Biographi Graeci (1845). On the subject generally see A. Martin, Études sur la vie et les œuvres d’Oppien de Cilicie (1863); A. Ausfeld, De Oppiano et scriptis sub ejus nomine traditis (1876). There are translations of the Halieutica, in English by Diaper and Jones (1722), and in French by E. J. Bourquin (1877).
OPPIUS, GAIUS, an intimate friend of Julius Caesar. He managed the dictator’s private affairs during his absence from Rome, and, together with L. Cornelius Balbus, exercised considerable influence in the city. According to Suetonius (Caesar, 56), many authorities considered Oppius to have written the histories of the Spanish, African and Alexandrian wars which are printed among the works of Caesar. It is now generally held that he may possibly be the author of the last (although the claims of Hirtius are considered stronger), but certainly not of the two first, although Niebuhr confidently assigned the Bellum Africanum to him; the writer of these took an actual part in the wars they described, whereas Oppius was in Rome at the time. He also wrote a life of Caesar and the elder Scipio.
