Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/459

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TAROK—TARQUINIUS PRISCUS
  

and also in 1548 when the turbulent szlachta tried to annul by force the marriage of Sigismund Augustus with Barbara Radziwill. In 1553, however, we find him in opposition to the court and thwarting as much as possible the designs of the young king. Nevertheless Tarnowski was emphatically an aristocrat and an oligarch, proud of his ancient lineage and intensely opposed to the democratic tendencies of the szlachta. A firm alliance between the king and the magnates was his ideal of government. On the other hand, though a devout Catholic, he was opposed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the bishops and would even have limited the authority of Rome in Poland. As a soldier Tarnowski invented a new system of tactics which greatly increased the mobility and the security of the armed camps within which the Poles had so often to encounter the Tatars. He also improved discipline by adding to the authority of the commanders. His principles are set forth in his Consilium Rationis Bellicae (best edition, Posen, 1879), which was long regarded as authoritative. As an administrator he did much to populate the vast south-eastern steppes of Poland.

See Stanislaw Orzechowski, Life and Death of Jan Tarnowski (Pol.) (Cracow, 1855).  (R. N. B.) 


TAROK, a game of cards very popular in Austria and Germany, and played to a limited extent in some parts of France. Special cards are used, and the rules are complicated. The name Tarot was originally given by the Italians to a certain card in the pack as early as the 13th century, but was afterwards applied to the game itself.


TAROM, a district of Persia, situated on the borders of Gilan, north-west of Kazvin. It is divided into upper and lower Tarom; the former, on the right bank of the Kizil Uzain (Sefid Rud) river, is a crown domain; the latter, on the left bank, forms part of the province of Kazvin. It produces much cotton and fruit, and derives a considerable revenue from its alum mines at Zajkanin. Most of the alum is exported to Russia. It also has a few olive groves. The inhabitants are Turks.


TARPAULIN, or Tarpauling (as if tarpalling, from tar, and palling, a covering, Lat. palla, a mantle), a heavy, well-made, double warp plain fabric, of various materials, used chiefly in the manufacture of covers for railway and other waggons and for protecting goods on wharves, quays, &c. To make it proof against rain and other atmospheric influences it is generally treated with tar, though various compositions of different kinds are also employed, especially for the finer fabrics such as are used for covering motor-cars. These covers are generally made of flax, hemp and cotton, and are very similar to canvas—indeed, large quantities of canvas are made waterproof, and then called tarpaulin. A very large quantity of tarpaulin is made entirely of jute. The chief seats of manufacture are Dundee, Arbroath and Kirkcaldy. Formerly the word was used as a sort of nickname for a sailor, the modern “tar” in the same sense being an abbreviation of it.


TARPEIA, in Roman legend, daughter of the commander of the Capitol during the war with the Sabines caused by the rape of the Sabine women. According to the common story, she offered to betray the citadel, if the Sabines would give her what they wore on their left arms, meaning their bracelets; instead of this, keeping to the letter of their promise, they threw their shields upon her and crushed her to death. Simylus, a Greek elegiac poet, makes Tarpeia betray the Capitol to a king of the Gauls. The story may be an attempt to account for the Tarpeian rock being chosen as the place of execution of traitors. According to S. Reinach, however, in Revue archéologique, xi. (1908), the story had its origin in a rite—the taboo of military spoils, which led to their being heaped up on consecrated ground that they might not be touched. Tarpeia herself is a local divinity, the manner of whose death was suggested by the tumulus or shields on the spot devoted to her cult, a crime being invented to account for the supposed punishment.

Authorities.—Sir George C. Lewis, Credibility of early Roman History; A. Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, bk. ix. 10; Livy, i. 11; Dion. Halic., ii. 38–40; Plutarch, Romulus, 3; Propertius, iv. 4; Ovid, Fasti, i. 261; C. W. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec., iv. p. 367.


TARQUINII (mod. Corneto Tarquinia, q.v.), an ancient city of Etruria, Italy, situated on a hill overlooking the S.W. coast of Italy, about 5 m. N.W. of it. The site of the Roman town is now deserted, its last remains having been destroyed by the inhabitants of Corneto in 1307. Scanty remains of Walling and of buildings of the Roman period exist above ground; traces of a large rectangular platform were found in 1876, and part of the thermae in 1829; it occupied the summit of a hill defended by ravines, called Piano di Civita. It seems probable, however, that the original settlement occupied the site of the medieval town of Corneto, to the W.S.W., on the further side of a deep valley. Some authorities indeed consider, land very likely with good reason, that this was the site of the Etruscan city, and that the Piano di Civita, which lies further inland and commands but little view of the sea, was only occupied in Roman times. The case would be parallel to others in Etruria, e.g. Civita Castellana (anc. Falerii) which also occupies the site of the Etruscan city, while the Roman site, some distance away, is now abandoned. The importance of Tarquinii to archaeologists lies mainly in its necropolis, situated to the S.E. of the medieval town, on the hill which, from the tumuli raised above the tombs, bears the name of Monterozzi. The tombs themselves are of various kinds. The oldest are tombe a pozza, or shaft graves, containing the ashes of the dead in an urn, of the Villanova period, the oldest of them probably pre-Etruscan; in some of these tombs hut urns, like those of Latium, are found. Next come the various kinds of inhumation graves, the most important of which are rock-hewn chambers, many of which contain well-preserved paintings of various periods; some show close kinship to archaic Greek art, while others are more recent, and one, the Grotta del Tifone (so called from the typhons, or winged genii of death, represented) in which Latin as well as Etruscan inscriptions appear, belongs perhaps to the middle of the 4th century B.C. Fine sarcophagi from these tombs, some showing traces of painting, are preserved in the municipal museum, and also numerous fine Greek vases, bronzes and other objects.

Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen. It was the chief of the twelve cities of Etruria, and appears in the earliest history of Rome as the home of two of its kings, Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus. From it many of the religious rites and ceremonies of Rome are said to have been derived, and even in imperial times a collegium of sixty haruspices continued to exist there. The people of Tarquinii and Veii attempted to restore Tarquinius Superbus to the throne after his expulsion. In 358 B.C. the citizens of Tarquinii captured and put to death 307 Roman soldiers; the resulting war ended in 351 with a forty years’ truce, renewed for a similar period in 308. When Tarquinii came under Roman domination is uncertain, as is also the date at which it became a municipality; in 181 B.C. its port, Graviscae (mod. Porto Clementine), in an unhealthy position on the low coast, became a Roman colony. It exported wine and carried on coral fisheries. Nor do we hear much of it in Roman times; it lay on the hills above the coast road. The flax and forests of its extensive territory are mentioned by classical authors, and we find Tarquinii offering to furnish Scipio with sailcloth in 195 B.C. A bishop of Tarquinii is mentioned in A.D. 456.

See I.. Dasti, Notizie Storiche archeologiche di Tarquinia e Corneto (Rome, 1878); G. Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London, 1883), i. 301 sqq.; Notizie degli Scavi, passim, especially 1885, 513 sqq.; E. Bormann in Corp. Inscr. Lat., xi. (Berlin, 1888), p. 510 sqq.; G. Körte, s.v. “Etrusker” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopädie, vi. 730 sqq.  (T. As.) 


TARQUINIUS PRISCUS, LUCIUS, fifth legendary king of Rome (616–578 B.C.). He is represented as the son of a Greek refugee, who removed from Tarquinii in Etruria to Rome, by the advice of his wife, the prophetess Tanaquil. Appointed guardian to the sons of Ancus Marcius, he succeeded in supplanting them on the throne on their father’s death. He laid out the Circus Maximus, instituted the “great” games, built