Under Mircea the Old (1383–1419) Tîrgovishtea became the third capital of Walachia. In the 15th century it was sacked by the Szeklers. Michael the Brave defeated the Turks under its walls in 1597. In the 16th century it had a population of 60,000 and contained 70 churches and 40 convents. After Constantine Brancovan moved the seat of government to Bucharest in 1698, Tîrgovishtea lost its importance and the population decreased.
TÎRGU JIU (often incorrectly written Tergu Jiu), the capital of the department of Gorjiu, Rumania; situated among the lower slopes of the Carpathians, on the left bank of the river Jin, and at the terminus of a branch railway which joins the main Walachian line between Turnu Severin and Craiova. Pop. (1900), 6634. The town has a small trade in timber, petroleum and farm produce. Anthracite coal is found in the neighbourhood.
TÎRGU OCNA (Rumanian also Targul Ocna), a town of Rumania, on the left bank of the river Trotosh, an affluent of the Sereth, and on a branch railway which crosses the Ghimesh Pass into Transylvania. Pop. (1900), 8033. Tîrgu Ocna is built among the Carpathian Mountains, on bare hills formed of rock salt. Outside the town stands the largest prison in Rumania; beyond this are the mines, worked, since 1870, by convicts, who receive a small wage. The thickness of the salt is unknown; the mines yield about 11,000 tons annually.
TIRHUT, or Tirhoot, the historic name of a tract in northern India, being that portion of Behar which lies north of the Ganges. It corresponds roughly with the ancient Hindu kingdom of Mithila (q.v.). Down to 1873 it formed a single district, which was then divided into the two districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. In 1908, when the division of Patna was subdivided, the name of Tirhut was again officially given to a new division, containing the four districts of Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Saran and Champaran: total area, 12,588 sq. m.; total pop. (1901), 9,867,373. It is a continuous alluvial plain, traversed by many winding rivers, and it supports the densest population in all India. It is the main centre of the indigo industry, conducted by European planters, which is now in a declining condition. Other crops are rice, millets, wheat, maize, oilseeds, sugar-cane and tobacco. Apart from indigo there are no large industries. Since the famine of 1874 the whole country has been saved from its former isolation by the construction of the Bengal & North-Western railway, with numerous branches; but the Ganges is nowhere bridged.
TIRIDATES, or Teridates, a Persian name, given by Arrian in his Parthica (preserved by Photius, cod. 58, and Syncellus, p. 539 seq.) to the brother of Arsaces I., the founder of the Parthian kingdom, whom he is said to have succeeded. But Arrian's account seems to be quite unhistorical (cf. Parthia).
The king commonly called Tiridates II. was set up by the Parthians against Phraates IV. in 32 B.C., but expelled when Phraates returned with the help of the Scythians (Dio Cass. li. 18; Justin xlii. 5 seq.; cf. Horace, Od. i. 26). Tiridates fled to Syria, where Augustus allowed him to stay, but refused to support him. During the next years Tiridates invaded Parthia again; some coins dated from March and May, 26 B.C., with the name of a king “Arsaces Philoromaios,” belong to him; on the reverse they show the king seated on the throne, with Tyche stretching out a palm branch towards him. He was soon expelled again, and brought a son of Phraates into Spain to Augustus. Augustus gave the boy back to his father, but declined to surrender “the fugitive slave Tiridates” (Justin xlii. 5; Dio liii. 33; cf. Mon. Ancyr. 5, 54; in li. 18 Dio has wrongly placed the surrender of the son in 30 B.C.).
Tiridates III., grandson of Phraates IV., lived as a hostage in Rome and was educated there. When the Parthians rebelled against Artabanus II. in A.D. 35 they applied for a king to Tiberius, who sent Tiridates. With the assistance of L. Vitellius Tiridates entered Seleucia, but could not maintain himself long (Tacitus, Ann. vi. 32 sqq.; Dio Cass. lviii. 26).
The name Tiridates is also borne by some local kings of Persis, and by some Arsacid kings of Armenia and Georgia. The best known of the Armenian kings is the Tiridates (A.D. 238–314) who was baptized by Gregory the Illuminator (see Armenian Church). (Ed. M.)
TIRLEMONT (Flemish Thienen), a town of Belgium in the province of Brabant, 11 m. S.E. of Louvain. Pop. (1904), 18,340. It still preserves its enceinte, 6 m. in circumference. The principal church, Notre Dame du Lac, begun in the 12th and enlarged in the 15th centuries, is still unfinished. The church of St Germain also dates from the 12th century, and contains a fine altar-piece by Wappers. John Bolland, the Jesuit who began the collection of the Acta sanctorum, was born here in 1596. The principal industries are brewing, soap manufacture and tanning.
TIRMIDHĪ [Abū ’Isā Mahommed ibn ’Isā ut-Tirmidhi] (d. 892), Arabian traditionalist, was born at Tirmidh on the Jiḥûn. He was a scholar of the traditionalist Bukhārī, and in his search for traditions travelled through Khorasan, Irak and Hejaz. His al-Jāmi’ us-Șaḥīḥ is one of the six canonical collections of traditions. In it he admitted every tradition that had ever been used to support a legal decision, indicating the doctrine it supported and mentioning the doctrines opposed to it. It was published at Bulaq in 1875. He also wrote the Kitāb ush-Shama’il on the character and life of Mahomet (printed at Calcutta, 1846). (G. W. T.)
TIROL (or Tyrol[1]), the most southerly province of the Austrian Empire. It makes a great bend southwards towards Italy, by which it is bounded on the S.E., S. and S.W., while on the W. it adjoins part of present Switzerland (till 1652 the Lower Engadine was Tirolese, and not Swiss) and also the Austrian province of Voralberg; to the N. it borders on Bavaria and to the E. the province of Upper Austria. It is traversed from west to east by the main chain of the Alps, which rises in various snow-covered summits, the more important being the Ortler (12,802 ft., the loftiest peak in Tirol and in the Eastern Alps generally), the Wildspitze (12,382 ft., Oetzthal group), the Zuckerhütl (11,520 ft., Stubai group), the Hochfeiler (11,559 ft., Zillerthal group), the Gross Venediger (12,008 ft.) and the Gross Glockner (12,461 ft., both in the Tauern range), while more to the south are the Dolomites, which culminate in the Marmolata (10,972 ft.). It is divided into two very distinct portions by the Brenner Pass (4495 ft.), connecting the Stubai and the Zillerthal groups; over this pass a splendid railway was built in 1864–1867 from Innsbruck to Verona, while the highway over the pass has from the earliest times been of immense importance from every point of view. The Brenner, too, being on the main watershed of the Alps, separates the two main river systems of which Tirol is composed. To the north this province comprises the middle portion of the Inn Valley, with its tributaries, as well as the upper portion of the Lech valley, all flowing towards the Danube and so to the Black Sea, while south of the pass is the great upper valley of the Adige or Etsch, with many tributaries, as well as (since 1500) a portion of the upper Drave valley, which physically belongs to Carinthia—all these (save the Drave) flow to the Adriatic Sea. The area of Tirol is 10,204 sq. m. In 1900 its population was 852,712 (all but wholly Romanist), of whom more than half were German-speaking, and many in the south Italian-speaking, while in certain side valleys of the Adige system the quaint old Ladin dialect, still surviving also in the Swiss Engadine, is the prevailing tongue; in the southern half of the region there are a few German-speaking among the Italian-speaking folk. The capital is Innsbruck, while other important towns are Trent, Botzen and Rovereto.
The present very irregular shape of the district is due to historical causes. The original Tirol consisted of part of the middle Inn valley and of the uppermost portion (the Vintschgau) of the Adige valley. In 1500, by inheritance from the counts of Görz, the Pusterthal and upper Drave valley (east) were added; in 1505 the lower portion of the Zillerthal, with the Inn
- ↑ To speak, as is commonly done, of “the Tirol” is as absurd as speaking of “the England.” As regards the English spelling of the name adopted throughout the Ency. Brit., it should, however, be stated that the writer of this article regards “Tyrol” as more correct.—(Ed.)
