clinical school. He was next appointed professor m the College de France (in which position he was eminently successful), and member of the Academy of Sciences. But he was still struggling with debt when the Empress Josephine introduced him to Napoleon, by whom he was created baron and member of the Legion of Honour. His only original work of importance is his Essay on Diseases
of the Heart and the Great Vessels.CORVUS, M. Valerius, one of the most illustrious generals of the early Roman republic, was born about 370 B.C. The legend which accounts for his cognomen of Corvus (the raven) tells how, while fighting with a gigantic Gaul, he was assisted by a raven, which baffled his enemy by fluttering in his face. He was twice dictator and six times consul, and he occupied the curule chair twenty-one times. In his various campaigns he defeated successively the Gauls, the Volsci, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and the Marsi. His most important victory was that which he won over the Samnites at Mount Gaurus (343 B.C.). He died a hundred years old about 270 B.C..
CORYATT, Thomas (1577-1617), was born at Odcombe, Somersetshire, where his father, the Rev. George Coryatt, prebendary of York Cathedral, was rector. Educated in Westminster School and Gloucester Hall, Oxford, he entered the household of Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I. In 1611 he published a curious account of a walking tour, mder the title of Coryatt s Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five Months Travels in France, Italy, <Scc. At the com mand of Prince Henry, verses in mock praise of the author (afterwards published by themselves as the Odcombian Banquet} were added to the volume, written in a number of languages, and some in a mixture of languages, by Ben Jonson, Donne, Chapman, Drayton, and many other of the literary men of the time. In the same year he published a second volume of a similar kind, Coryatt s Crambe, or his Goleworte twice Sodden. In 1612 he set out on another journey, which also was mostly performed on foot. He visited Greece, the Holy Land, Persia, and Agra, whence he sent home an account of his adventures. He died at Surat in 1617.
CORYBANTES, in Greek mythology, were associated with the Phrygian goddess Rhea Cybele as her first worshippers and priests. They were of the same class of beings as the Curetes, C.ibiri, and Dactyls of Mount Ida in Crete, and were of the nature of dcemones, supposed by some to luve sprung from the earth like trees (SevSpo^uets). The wild orgiastic d ince with clangour of music, which was part of tin worship of Cybele, was traced to them, and was called Kopvpa.vTLa.v, whence a derivation of their name has been sought in a word to express this din of music and dance. A i old derivation traced it to Kd/nov, a hill said to ba in Cyprus, but not otherwise known to be there. Besides the power of music the Corybantes exercised also cures by magic and other arts of superstition. Of the other dccmones with whom the Corybautos wore identified in antiquity the Cabiri have already been described (see CABIRI.) The Curetes were associated with the infancy of Zeus in Crete, where they kept guard over him, dancing and clanging their shields. They were thought of as having skill in working in metals and in finding them under the earth. They had also prophetic powers, and made a wild dance part of their ceremony of worshipping Zeus. Through being identified with the Corybantes they became associated with the goddess Cybele, and were found connected with her worship in its various centres in Asia Minor. The Dactyls of Crete were distinctly associated with Rhea Cybele, and were chiefly thought of as being possessed of metallurgic powers, as their names, Kelinis, Damnameneus, and Akmon, imply, though they were also skilled iu music.
CORYPHÆUS (from Kopvyrj, the top of the head), in ancient tragedy, was the leader of the chorus. Hence coryphaeus passed into a general name for the chief or leader of any company or movement.
COS (or Stanko, or Stanchio, by corruption from [ Greek text ]), an island in that part of the Turkish archipelago which was anciently known as the Myrtoan Sea, not far from the south-western corner of Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Gulf of Halicarnassus, or Bay of Budrum. Its total length is about 25 miles, and its circumference about 74. A considerable chain of mountains, known to the ancients as Oromedon, or Prion, extends along the southern coast with hardly a break except near the island of Nisyros; so that the greatest versant and most important streams turn towards the north. The whole island is little more than a mass of limestone, and consequently unites great aridity in the drier mountain regions with the richest fertility in the alluvial districts. As the attention of the islanders is mainly directed to the culture of their vineyards, which yield the famous Sultana raisins, a considerable pro portion of the arable land is left untouched, though wheat, barley, and maize are sown in .some quarters, and melons and sesamum seed appear among the exports. Formerly one of the most valuable products of the island was its lemons and oranges, but since the destruction of the trees by a severe frost in 1850, these fruits hardly take any place in the market. The wild olive is abundant enough, but neglected; and cotton, though it thrives well, is only grown in small quantities. As the principal harbour, in spite of dredging operations, is only fit for smaller vessels, the island is not of so much commercial importance as it would otherwise be; but since 1868 it has been regularly visited by steamers, and about fifty vessels annually enter the harbour. The only town in the island is Cos, or Stanko, at the eastern extremity, remarkable for its fortress, founded by the knights of Rhodes, and for the gigantic plane-tree in the public square. The fortress is supposed to occupy the site of the temple of ^Esculapius so celebrated in antiquity, and it preserves in its walls a number of inter esting architectural fragments. The plane-tree has a cir cumference of about 30 feet, and its huge and heavy branches have to be supported by pillars; of its age there is no certain knowledge, but the popular tradition connects it with Hippocrates. The town is supplied by an aqueduct, about four n.iles in length, with water from a hot chaly beate spring, which is likewise named after the great physician of the island. The villages of Pyli and Kephalas are interesting, the former for the Greek tomb of a certain Chamylos, and the latter for a castle of the knights of St John and the numerous inscriptions that prove that it occupies the site of an ancient city called Isthmos. The population of the island amounts to about 10,400 souls, of whom about a third are Mahometans, and the rest, with the exception of a dozen Jewish families, Christians.
Cos is said to have been colonized from Epiduuras, the great Peloponnesian centre of the worship of ^Esculapius, and it is certain that the jEsculapian cultus had a remarkable hold in the island. For a time the city was a member of the Dorian Pentapolis which held its federal assemblies in the Triopian headland; but at a later date it became subject to the Athenians by whom it was fortified. The Emperor Claudius made it a free state, and to Antoninus Fins it was indebted for restoration from the effects of a great eartl - quake. During the Greek and Roman period the island was famous for its purple and its wines; the Coan robes were cele brated by the poets for the delicacy and transparency of their texture; and it also enjoyed a nobler celebrity as the birthplaca of Hippocrates the physician and Apelles the artist. In ^modern times its history presents few details, the most interesting fact being its possession by the knights of St John.
See Clarke s Travel , vol. ii. 1812; Kiister, De Co Instfa, Halle, 1833; Ross, Reisen nacfi Kos, Halicarnassus, &c., Halle, 1S52; and Reisen auf den Gnech. Inseln; Leake s paper in the Transactions of Vie Ray. Sot:, o/ Lit., 1843; C. * Newton, Traveli and Discoveries in the Lei-ant, 1865.
