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large heads, black hair, eyes narrow and flat, small foreheads, ears always sticking out, and a swarthy skin. In general, they are strong and muscular, and capable of enduring all kinds of labour and privation. They profess Mahometanism, but are little acquainted with its doctrines.

In intellectual development they do not stand high.

See Semenoff, Slovar Ross. Imp. s. v.; Friilin, "De Baskiris," in Mem. de VAcad. de St Petersburg, 1822 ; and Florinsky, in West- nik Ei-ropi, 1874.

BASIL THE GREAT, an eminent ecclesiastic in the 4th century. He was a leader in the Arian controversy, a distinguished theologian, a liturgical reformer ; and his letters to his friends, especially those to Gregory of Nazian- zus, give a great amount of information about the stirring period in which he lived. Basil came of a somewhat famous family, which gave a number of distinguished supporters to the church of the 4th century. His eldest sister, Macrina, was celebrated for her saintly life ; his second brother was the famous Gregory of Nyssa ; his youngest was Peter, bishop of Sebaste ; and his eldest brother was the famous Christian jurist Naucratius. It has been observed that there was in the whole family a tendency to ecstatic emotion and enthusiastic piety. Basil was born about 330, at Csesarea in Cappadocia. While he was still a child, the family removed to Pontus ; but he soon returned to Cappadocia to live with his mother s relations, and seems to have been brought up by his grandmother Macrina. It was at Cjesarea that he became acquainted with his life -long friend Gregory of Nazianzus, and it was there that he began that interesting correspondence to which reference has been made. Basil did not from the first devote himself to the church. He went to Constanti nople in pursuit of learning, and spent four or five years there and at Athens. It was while at Athens that he seriously began to think of the church, and resolved to seek out the most famous hermit saints in Syria and Arabia, in order to learn from them how to attain to that enthusiastic piety in which he delighted, and how to keep his body under by maceration and other ascetic devices. After this we find him at the head of a convent uear Arnesi in Pontus, in which his mother Emmilia, now a widow, his sister Macrina, and several other ladies, gave them selves to a pious life of prayer and charitable works. He was not ordained presbyter until 365, and his ordina tion was probably the result of the entreaties of his ecclesi astical superiors, who wished to use his talents against the Arians, who were numerous in that part of the country, and were favoured by the Arian emperor, who then reigned in Constantinople. In 370 Eusebius, bishop of Ccesarea, died, and Basil was chosen to succeed him. [t was then that his great powers were called into action. Caesarea was an important diocese, and its bishop was, ex officio, exarch of the great diocese of Pontus. Basil was threatened with confiscation of property, banishment, and even death, if he did not relax his regulations against the Arians ; but he refused to yield, and in the end triumphed. He died in 379. The principal theological writings of Basil are his De Spiritu Sancti and his three books against Eunomius. He was a famous preacher, and we possess at least seventeen homilies by him on the Psalms and on Isaiah. His principal efforts as a reformer were directed towards the improvement of the Liturgy (the Liturgy of the Holy Basil], and the reformation of the monastic orders of the East. (Cf. the Benedictine editions of the works of Basil the Great.)

The name Basil also belongs to several distinguished churchmen besides Basil the Great. (1.) Basil, bishop of Ancyra (336-360), a semi-Arian, highly favoured by the Emperor Constantino, and a great polemical writer; none of his works are extant. (2.) Basil of Seleucia (fl. 448-458), a bishop who shifted sides continually in the Eutychian controversy, and who wrote extensively; his works were published in Paris in 1622. (3.) Basil of Ancyra, fl. 787; he opposed image worship at the second council of Nicsea, but afterwards retracted. (4.) Basil, the founder of a sect of mystics who appeared in the Greek Church in the 12th century (cf. Anna Comnena, Alexiad, bk. 15).

BASILICA, a term denoting (1) in civil architecture, a court of law, or merchants exchange, and (2) in ecclesias tical architecture, a church of similar form and arrangement.

The name basilica, /3a<Tiu<r) (sc. crroa or aiX^), " a royal portico," or " hall," is evidence of a Greek origin. The portico at Athens in which the second archon, ap-^v crtXevs, sat to adjudicate on matters touching religion, and in which the council of Areopagus sometimes met, was known as the a-rod /Qao-t Aaos or fiavikiKr) (Pausan., i. 3, 1 ; Demosth., Aristoylt., p. 776 ; Plato, Charmid., ad init.; Aristoph., Ecclesiaz., 685). From this circumstance the term appears to have gained currency as the designation of a law-court, in which sense it was adopted by the Romans. The introduction of basilicce into Rome was not very early. Livy expressly tells us, when describing the conflagration of the city, 210 B.C., that there were none such then, " neque enim turn basilicas erant " (xxvi. 27). The earliest named is that erected by M. Porcius Cato, the censor, 183 B.C. (Liv., xxxix. 44), and called after its founder basilica Porcia, When once introduced this form of building found favour with the Romans. As many as twenty basilicse are recorded to have existed within the walls of Rome, erected at different periods, and bearing the names of their founders, e.g. ^Emilia, Julia, Sempronia, Ulpia or Trajani, &c. The basilicas were always placed in the most frequented quarter of the city, in the immediate vicinity of a forum, and on its sunniest and most sheltered side, that the merchants and others who resorted thither might not suffer from the severity of the weather (Vitruv., De Architect., v. 1). Originally, the basilicas, like the Royal Exchange in London and the Bourse at Antwerp, were unroofed, consisting of a central area surrounded simply by covered porticoes, without side walls. Subse quently, side walls were erected and the central space was covered by a roof, which was generally of timber, the beams being concealed by an arched or coved ceiling, orna mented with lacunaria. Some basilicas (e.g. that of Max- entius or " the Temple of Peace ") were vaulted.

FIG. 1. Basilica at Pompeii. 4. Altar. 2. Hall of Basilica. 3. Side aisles, with galleries over. 5. Tribunal. 6. Chalcidica.

In plan the basilicas were large rectangular halls, the

length of which, according to the rules laid down by Vitruvius (ubi sup.], was not to be more than three times or less than twice its width. In any cases where, from the necessity of the locality, the length exceeded these propor tions, the excess was to be masked by the construction of small apartments (chalcidica} at the further end, on both sides of the tribunal. On each side of the central area was one, or sometimes, as in the Ulpian and ^Emilian basilicas, two rows of columns. These were returned at either end, cutting off a vestibule at one extremity, and the

tribunal or court proper, forming a kind of transept,