Father Mars, Marspiter, Maspiter, Mavors, ∙or Maurs, was the great god of one of the races that composed the Roman state. He is the god of heaven, the giver of light, the opener of the new year; he hurls the thunder and sends the rain. In cases of drougnt the lapis manalιs, which was kept in his temple on the Appian Way, was carried through the city by the pontifices. The first month of the old Roman year was the month of Mars, still called March. On the first day the god had been born; and on the same day various annual ceremonies both political and religious took place; and the holy fire was renewed in the temple of Vesta. When Mamurius Veturius, i.e., Mars of the Year (vetus, Greek ∕ r ∈τos), was beaten out of the city on March 14, the intention'was originally to symbolize the driving away of the old year. The spear sacred to Mars was in its original sense doubtless the lightning, and his sacred shield was, like the aegis of Zeus and Athene, the storm shield, i.e., the thundercloud. The Sabine words Marmar and Mamers (akin to μαρμαίρω) are evidently names of the heaven-god. The wolf which was sacred to Mars may be compared with the-wolves of Zeus Lycaios, and the horse, the sacrifice of Mars, is the horse of the sun, which the Greeks also sacrificed to Helios.

As heaven-god and sender of rain, Mars is the giver of fertility and increase. Hence in some of the oldest cults he is the god of the land,, of agriculture, and of the flocks. As he was powerful to send fertility, so he could cause also drought, sterility, and all evil; and propitiatory ceremonies, such as the Ambarvalia, were consecrated to him. The Arvai brothers invoked Mars to assist them and to avert pestilence. In the Robigalia a sheep and a reddish dog were sacrificed by the flamen of Mars to avert mildew from the crops. The sacrifice of the “October horse” in the Campus Martius, whose head the people of the Subura and the Sacra Via struggled for in order to hang it up in their own precincts, had also a naturalistic and apotropaic character. In times of calamity there was an old Italian custom of dedicating to Mars a ver sacrum. Everything born in this spring was the property of the god; the animals were sacrificed, the young men when they grew up were sent out of the country. Mars seems also to have had some relation to the religious ceremony of marriage. Along with Juno, the goddess of women and of childbirth, he was worshipped by the Roman matrons on June 1 and at the Matronalia on March 1. As god of the land and giver of increase, Mars was also the god of death and the dead; he was one of the deities invoked by Decius when devoting himself to death. He was likewise the giver of oracles: like Zeus he révealed his will to men by certain signs. His ancient oracle at Tiora Matiene near Caere resembled in character the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, in so far as revelation took place by the medium of sacred birds and trees. Woodpeckers were the sacred birds of Mars, and the noise which they made tapping on the trees was one of the simplest methods of revelation. Picus, the woodpecker, was a name or form of Mars, and was ultimately individualized as a local hero, an early king of Latium, and son of the god. Faunus, the favouring deity, son of Picus, is pre-eminently the god of prophecy; he also is closely related to the original Italian character of Mars, which he retained far more truly than the great Roman god.

Although the worship of Mars was known both in Latium and in Etruria, it was probably of Sabine origin. Quirinus, an undoubtedly Sabine word, is merely a name of Mars, which never acquired complete individuality; the feeling always remained alive in Rome that Mars and Quirinus were one, although they had separate priests. It is in accordance with the Sabine character that the warlike element should have been very strong in their conception of deity; ¾pd thus the Sabine Mars became in the Roman pantheon the deity of war. Besides the ceremonies round the altar of Mars in the Campus Martius, the oldest cults of the god in Rome are the Sabine worship of Quirinus on the Quirinal and the Latin worship of the holy spear of Mars in the temple of Vesta. There likewise grew at an early time a cultus of the god on the Palatine, said to have been founded by Numa, and twelve Salii of the Palatine existed alongside of the twelve Quirinal Salii. The Palatine Salii performed one of the most remarkable ceremonies in the Roman worship of Mars. For many days, beginning from March 1, they danced in armour through certain parts of the city, clashing their lances on their shields, and repeated the prescribed song. The shields which they carried were the twelve sacred ancilia preserved on the Palatine. One of these, it was said, fell from heaven in the time of Numa, and the king, in order to preserve safely this pledge of victory for the state, had eleven others exactly like it made by Mamurius Veturius. The song of the Salii, besides mentioning all the gods of the city, referred to Mamurius, whose name is only a form of Mamers

Next to Jupiter, Mars was the chief protecting god oι the Roman state. Quirinus Mars was the father of the twin-founders of the city, and his sacred wolf was the emblem of the city and the foster-mother of the twins. The Campus Martius outside the city was dedicated to the god from a very early time; there the young men practised their warlike exercises; there the horse races, equiria, in honour of Mars (February 27) and the sacrifice of the “October horse” took place. There also was held the census every fifth year, followed by the purificatory ceremonial for the whole city, which was dedicated to Mars. When w ar broke out, the Roman general clashed the shield and spear in the temple of Mars and invoked the god; the spoils of victory belonged to him after Jupiter Feretrius.

There was an ancient temple of Mars outside the Porta Capena on the Appian Way; and on the ides of July, in commemoration of the battle of Lake Regillus, the knights had a procession

“From Castor in the Forum, To Mars without the wall.”

As the god of war, who marched with his people to battle, Mars was Gradivus; such at least was the later explanation of an old religious name. Inuus Lupercus, the averter, to whom the Lupercalia was dedicated, was.probably a local form of Mars; his character as protector of the Palatine city, and the warlike element in him, resemble Mars (see Lupercalia). Silvanus is also closely related to the agricultural god Mars, who is sometimes called Mars Silvanus. A goddess named Nerio or Neriene is sometimes mentioned as wife of Mars. There was also a goddess Bellona, whose name marks her strictly as the goddess of wai’; she is called the sister or daughter or wife of Mars. Quirinus, on the Quirinal, had a festival called Quirinalia, on the 17th of February.

See Preller, Röm. Mythoi., and the other books on Roman religion; Marquardt on religious antiquities; Unger, “Lupercalia, ,, Rhein. Mus., 1881; Jordan, Stadt Rom·, Roscher, Apollo und Mars ; and on the Etruscan Mars, Miiller, Etrusker, ed. Deecke, ii. 57 and 169.

On the small island of San Pantaleone, about 6 miles north of Marsala, lay the Carthaginian stronghold of Motya (Ital., J∕αz⅛). After the destruction of this settlement by Dionysius in 397 b.c. the defeated party established a new colony on the neighbouring promontory of Lilybaeum. It was there that in 276 b.c. the Carthaginians held out successfully against Pyrrhus, who had already driven them from the rest of Sicily; and it was only after a siege of ten years that in the first Punic War they were obliged to surrender the fortress to the Romans. Under its new possessors Lilybaeum continued to flourish and became the residence of one of the two quaestors of Sicily. It was still an important city under the later empire, and when occupied first by the Goths and then by the Vandale. The Arabs called it Mersa t Aly, “port of ‘Aly,” and Edrisi (12th century) describesit as a considerable town, which, having been ruined, had been restored by Roger I. It was at Marsala that Garibaldi began his Sicilian campaign in 1860.

Marsden’s other works are— Numismata, Orientalia, London, 1823-25; Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars, and Alphabets, 1796; and several papers on Eastern topics in the Philosophical Transactions and the Archaeologia. His name will also be remembered in. connexion with African philology, as he had —the first in England, and, it would appear, independently of Lichtenstein and Vater—drawn attention to the affinity of the Congo and Mozambique languages with those spoken by the Kaffre race. See Tuckey’s Narrative of an Expedition to explore the River Zaire, London, 1818, p. 386 sq.

The old harbour of Marseilles opens on the west to the Gulf of Lyons; and the famous Rue de la Cannebière, leading east-north-east from the inner end of the harbour, and continued by the Rue de Noailles, the Allees de Meilhan, and the Boulevard de Longchamps, to the Palais des Arts, forms the first main artery of the town. A second great artery, at right angles to the first, connects the Aix gate and its triumphal arch with the grand Promenade du Prado, by the Cours Belsunce and the Rue de Rome. North of the old harbour, between the Aix gate and the sea, lies the old town of Marseilles. The finest streets, the Rue St Ferréol, the Rue Paradis, and the Rue de Breteuil, are to the south of the Rue Cannebière, running parallel with the Rue de Rome, between it and the foot of the hill upon which is Notre Dame delà Garde. From La Cannebière to La Joliette, the centre of the new docks, runs the broad Rue de la République, lined with fine buildings, and opening a line through the oldest part of the town. The entrance to the old harbour is defended by Fort St Jean on the north and Fort St Nicolas on the south. Behind the latter is the Anse (Creek) de la Réserve. Beyond this again, situated in succession along the shore, come the old imperial palace, the Anse du Pharo, the military exercising ground, and the Anse des Catalans. The new parts of the town extend in this direction to the 'Vallon d’Endoume behind Fort St Nicolas. To the old harbour, which covered only 70 acres, the basin of La Joliette (55 acres) was added in 1853. Communicating with the old harbour by a channel which passes behind Fort St Jean, this dock opens on the south into the outer harbour, opposite the palace and the Anse du Pharo; it is separated from the roadstead on the west by a simple jetty. A series of similar basins have since been added along the shore to the north, viz., the Lazaret or “Bassin des Docks” (37 acres), that of Arene (59 acres), the “Bassin National,” twice as large as the preceding, and the graving dock of 2Ö acres; a fine revolving bridge, worked by· steam, separates the graving dock from the rest. Farther out, the Chateau d’lf and the islets of Pomègue and Ratonneau, where vessels formerly did quarantine, have 45 acres of harbour accommodation. The port of Marseilles has in all an area of 422 acres, but there are only 41 miles of quays, an amount of accommodation quite inadequate for the enormous traffic, now amounting to more than 3,400,000 tons. Protected on the east by Cape Croisette, and on the west by Cape Couronne, the roadstead of Marseilles and its approaches are lighted by six lighthouses, of which the most distant (130 feet high) is 8 miles south-west of the town, on the Planier rock. The docks along the Lazaret basin cover an area of 45 acres, and the company to which they belong also holds a large area of ground for their enlargement, and has exclusive rights over 1 j to 2 miles of quays. The warehouses occupy 27 acres of floor space on their several stories, and the 200,000 tons of goods for which they afford storage are easily manipulated by powerful hydraulic machinery wrought by steam. From the harbour station at the docks the railway is carried up to the principal station, “Gare St Charles,” which commands the town. The Toulon line goes round the zoological gardens, and the whole upper part of Marseilles, and sends a branch to the Prado station. There is a fourth station to the south of the old harbour near the custom-house, and at the foot of the steps of St Victor; it is proposed to join it by a tunnel to the Marseille-Prado station. The large steam vessels for trading with Algiers, the Levant, and the further East lie in La Joliette, but the old harbour still displays the ancient characteristics of Marseilles. The old-fashioned Mediterranean traders with their lateen sails are crowded together in the Rive Neuve Canal to the south, while the sailing vessels of heavy tonnage are moored to the quay by their sterns. At the end of the old harbour opens out La Cannebière, so called from former rope-walks, of which it occupies the site; it is now the liveliest part of the town, where the principal cafés, shops, hotels, naval and commercial agencies, as well as the Bourse, are found.

Despite its antiquity, Marseilles has no ancient monuments. The old cathedral, which superseded a ’ temple of Diana, itself preceded, it is said, by an altar of Baal, has given place to a modern structure, of which the exterior only is completely finished. It is a Byzantine basilica, in the form of a Latin cross, 460 feet long, built in grey Florentine stone blended with white stone from the neighbourhood of Arles. Near the cathedral stands the bishop’s palace. The cathedral is situated at the entrance of the harbours, but a more distant church has superior attractions for the sailors,—the celebrated Notre Dame de la Garde, the steeple of which, surmounted by a gilded statue of the Virgin, 30 feet in height, rises 150 feet above the summit of the hill on which it stands, commanding a view of the whole port and town, as well as of the surrounding mountains and the neighbouring sea. The present chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde occupies the site of one built in 1214. Like the new cathedral it is in the Byzantine style, and constructed of the richest materials.

Descending from Notre Dame by steps, with shops ori both sides containing objects of devotion, such as medals and chaplets, and passing the Promenade Pierre Puget, which affords another fine view of the sea, we reach the church of St Victor, close by Fort St Nicolas. Originally an abbey founded about 410 by St Cassian, it was afterwards destroyed by the Saracens, but rebuilt in the 11th century; destroyed a second time, it was finally restored by Pope Urban V., a former abbot, who surrounded it in 1350with high square crenellated towers. Tradition relates that St Lazarus inhabited the catacombs under St Victor; and the black Virgin, still preserved there, is popularly attributed to St Luke. The spire of the ancient church des Accoules marks the centre of Old Marseilles. At its foot are a “Calvary” and a curious chapel of modern construction in rock work. Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, also in the old town, occupies the place of what was the citadel of the Massaliots when they were besieged by Julius Caesar. The new Hôtel de la Préfecture, at the end of the Rue St Ferréol, the Palais de Justice, and the Bourse, are all buildings of the last twenty years. The first is a palatial edifice 300 feet long and 260 wide, adorned with statues and bas reliefs; it has a fine staircase and large reception rooms, decorated with paintings. Before the Palais de Justice stands a statue of Berryer. The pediment and peristyle are decorated with bas reliefs by Guillaume. The outer hall is surrounded by beautiful pillars of red marble. The Bourse has in the vestibule a bas relief representing Marseilles receiving the productions of ’all parts of the world, and allegorical statues of Marseilles and France. The hall is larger than even that of the Bourse at Paris. The hall of the Chamber of Commerce, at whose cost the whole edifice was built, is remarkable for the magnificence of its mural paintings and gildings. The Hôtel de Ville, an old and unimportant building, stands on the quay to the north of the old harbour. The Palais des Arts de Longchamps^ completed in 1870, is a work of consummate taste; it is built at the terminus of the Canal de Marseille, that great work which has metamorphosed the town and its surroundings by bringing into it the waters of the Durance. This canal, which leaves the river opposite Pertuis, has a length of 94 miles, of which more than 15 are underground. It crosses the valley of the Arc, between Aix and Rognac r by the magnificent aqueduct of Roquefavour, comparable with the noblest works of ancient or modern times. The canal then purifies its waters, charged with ooze, in the basins of Réaltort, sets in motion seventy-two mills, which it supplies with upwards of 1200 horse-power, carrying about 200 cubic feet of water per second to the district of Marseilles. Right and left of the Château d’Eau, which occupies the centre of the Palais de Longchamps, and is 128 feet in height, are the picture gallery, a fine collection of ancient and modern works, and the natural· history museum, remarkable for its conchological department and the interesting collection of ammonites. Behind are extensive zoological gardens, with the astronomical observatory, one of the most important in France. The museum of antiquities is established in the Palais Borély, in a fine park, recently purchased by the town, at the end of the Prado, and approached by the two finest promenades of the city. It includes a Phoenician collection (containing the remains that support the hypothesis of the Phoenician origin of Marseilles), an Egyptian collection, numerous Greek, Latin, and Christian inscriptions in stone, &c. A building within the city, recently finished, 177 feet by 64, with an imposing façade, contains the school of art and a valuable library. The triumphal arch of Aix, originally dedicated to the victors of the Trocadero, was in 1830 appropriated t∏ the conquests of the empire.

Marseilles contains large hospitals. The Hôtel Dieu in the old town was founded in 1188, and rebuilt in 1593; it has 450 beds. The Hospice de la Charité, in the same neighbourhood, accommo-liâtes 600 patients, while at the opposite extremity of the town, near the Prado station, are the modern Hôpital de la Conception (with S00 beds), the military hospital, and the lunatic asylum.

The scientific institutions of the town are also numerous, including a faculty of science, an astronomical observatory, a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, a musical conservatoire, a school of ait, a lyceuιn, and many private institutions. The principal learned societies are the academy of science, letters, and art, the medical association, and the geographical, statistical, agricultural, and horticultural societies.

The mean temperature of Marseilles is 58° Fahr.; frost is rare, and snow almost unknown. The heat of summer is tempered during the day by the cooling sea breeze. The most disagreeable wind is the mistral, a violent and cold north-west wind, which blows on an average one hundred and thirty-eight times a year, but has at least the advantage of restoring salubrity to the frequently unhealthy shores of the Mediterranean. The sirocco, a south-east wind, blows some sixty times a year; though hot and parching in summer, it softens the winter climate. The cast-south-east wind is cold and damp, and brings rain. The Canal de la Durance lias greatly modified the climate of Marseilles and its neighbourhood, for by restoring vegetation it has increased the fogs and rains; there is now an annual rainfall of nearly 24 inches.

Marseilles is at once the largest commercial port of France and a manufacturing town, working up the raw materials brought in by sea from every part of the world. The leading industry is that of soap-making, which occupies sixty factories with 1200 artisans, and annually produces 65,000 tons, valued at £2,000,000 sterling. With this manufacture are connected oil and chemical works; in the former, which employ 2000 to 2500 workmen, 55,000 tons of different oils are produced yearly. The chemical works comprise a dozen mills, manufacturing chiefly the salts of soda and concentrated acids. Two thousand operatives are there employed, and the value of their annual production is estimated at £320,000. There are also three sugar-refineries, producing 65,000 tons of loaf-sugar^ of which more than half is re-exported. Sulphur from Sicily too is refined and converted into sticks or flowers of sulphur, to the value of £80,000. Petroleum refining occupies 100 workmen. Metallurgy is another great industry; a large quantity of ore, imported from Elba, Spain, and Algeria, is smelted in the blast furnaces of St Louis in the suburbs. The Mediterranean iron-works and yards, together with other private companies, have large workshops for the construction or repair of marine steam-engines and every branch of iron shipbuilding, employing several thousand workmen. Marseilles is a great centre for the extraction of silver from lead ore; 16,000 tons of lead and 25 tons of fine silver are separated annually. There are 64 flour-mills with 300 sets of stones, and 100 factories prepare semolina and other cereal pastes, while 34 tanyards dress 500,000 sheep skins and 335,000 goat skins. To this list of industries must be added the manufactories of matches, candles, and waxlights, with brass foundries, glass-works, and manufactures of coral, and of Oriental hosiery.

The port of Marseilles is the centre of numerous lines of steamers. The French company of mail steam packets {Messageries Maritimes) despatch their boats regularly to Italy, Egypt, Réunion, India, China, and the far East, as well as to Greece, Turkey, the Black Sea, Smyrna, and Syria. The Transatlantic Company runs its vessels to Algiers, Tunis, Malta, and the coast of Italy, and has also a regular line between Marseilles and New York. Many private companies have services to Corsica, Algiers, the coast of Languedoc and of Spain, and the Italian Riviera. Other lines connect Marseilles with Brazil and La Plata, Havre, and London. Landward there are two lines of railway to Aix, and a third to Toulon. A navigable canal is greatly needed to connect the port directly with the Rhone, in order to avoid the difficulties of egress from the river and to make Marseilles the natural outlet of the rich Rhone basin. The countries with which the greatest traffic is maintained are Algeria, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and· the Russian ports on the Black Sea; next in order come England, Austria, the western coast of Africa, Réunion, the Cape, British India, Brazil, the Antilles, China, and Sencgambia. From the Black Sea, Turkey, and Algeria come the cereals which form the chief imports in point of bulk; from Italy, Spain, the Levant, China, and Japan the silk, which is the import of greatest value (£4,000,000 yearly). Then follow ores and metals, iron, cast iron, lead, and copper; also wood, raw material for oil manufacture, raw sugar, cattle, wool and cotton, rice, and various dry vegetable foods, petroleum, cocoa, gums, pepper, and other spices, wines and brandies, coal, skins, cod-fish, cheese, and sponges. The principal exports in respect of value are silk, woollen, and cotton fabrics, refined sugars, wines and spirits; those of greatest bulk are cereals in the form of grain or flour, coal, building materials, oil-cakes, iron and other manufactures in metal, wines and spirits, oils, glass and crystal, lead, and coffee.

Of the seagoing tonnage, one-third is under the French flag, but the coasting trade, carried on by French sailors alone, is almost half as large as the ocean trade. The shipowners of the port possess almost seven hundred vessels, without counting the hundreds of fishing boats which ply along the coast.

History.— The Greek colony of Massalia (in Latin, Massilia) was founded by the enterprising mariners of Phocaea in Asia Minor, about 600 b.c. The settlement of the Greeks in waters which the Carthaginians jealously reserved for their own commerce was not effected without a naval conflict; it is, indeed, not improbable that the Phoenicians were settled at Marseilles before the Greek period, and that the very name of the town is the Phoenician ∕∙J0, “settlement.” Whether the judges (□'tθεt√*, “suffetes”) of the Phoenician sacrificial tablet of Marseilles were the rulers of a city older than the advent of the Phoenicians, or were a sort of consuls for Punic residents in the Greek period, is disputed. The fall of the Ionic cities before the Persians probably sent new settlers to the Ligurian coast and cut off the remote city of Massalia from close connexion with the mother country. Isolated amidst alien populations, the Massaliots made their way by great prudence in dealing with the inland tribes, by the vigilant administration of their oligarchical government, and by frugality and temperance united to remarkable commercial and naval enterprise. Their colonies spread east and west along the coast from Monaco to Cape St Martin in Spain, carrying with them the worship of Artemis; the inland trade, in which wine was an important element, can be traced by finds of Massalian coins right across Gaul and through the Alps as far as Tyrol. The Massaliot Pytheas (330-320 b.c.) passed the pillars of Hercules and visited the coasts of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The great rival of Massalian trade was Carthage, and in the Punic wars the city took the side of Romq, and was rewarded by Roman assistance in the subjugation of the native tribes of the Ligurian mountains. In the war of Caesar and Pompey the aristocratic town took the side of the latter, and made a courageous but vain resistance to Caesar. In memory of its ancient services the city, “without which,” as Cicero says, “Rome had never triumphed over the Transalpine nations,” was still left as a civitas libera, but her power was broken and most of her dependencies taken from her. From this time Massalia has little place in Roman history; it became for a time an important school of letters and medicine, but its commercial and intellectual importance gradually declined into insignificance. The town appears to have been Christianized before the end of the 3d century, and its reputation partly revived through the names of Gennadius and Cassian, which give it prominence in the history of Semi-Pelagianism and the foundation of Western monachism.

After the ravages of successive streams of invaders, Marseilles was repeopled in the 10th century under the protection of its viscounts. In 1112 the town bought up their rights, and was formed into a republic, governed by a podestat, who was appointed for life, and exercised his office in conjunction with 3 notables, and a municipal council, composed of 80 citizens, 3 clerics, and 6 principal tradesmen. During the rest of the Middle Ages, however, the higher town was governed by the bishop, and had its harbour at the creek of La Joliette. The southern suburb was governed by the abbot of St Victor, and owned the Port des Catalans. Situated between the two, the lower town, the republic, retained the old harbour, and was the most powerful of the three divisions. The period of the crusades brought great prosperity to Marseilles. The activity of its shipbuilding,, the magnitude of its fleet, the importance of its commerce and manufactures, all increased at once. The count of Provence, Raymond Bérenger, Charles of Anjou, and afterwards Alphonso of Aragon, successively attempted to make themselves masters of the town; it suffered at different times from incendiarism, pillage, and massacre during the 13th and 14th centuries, and in the beginning of the 15th. King René, who had made it his winter residence, however, caused trade, arts, and manufactures again to flourish. Under Francis I., the disaffected constable de Bourbon vainly besieged the town with the imperial forces in 1524. During the wars of religion, Marseilles took an active part against the Protestants, and long refused to acknowledge Henry IV. The loss of the ancient liberties of the town brought on new disturbances under the Fronde, which Louis XIV. came in person to suppress. He took the town by storm, and had Fort St Nicolas constructed. Marseilles repeatedly suffered from the plague, and an epidemic raged from May 1720 to May 1721 with a severity for which it is almost impossible to find a parallel; Bishop Belsunce, Chevalier Rose, and others immortalized themselves by their courage and devotion.

During the Revolution the people rose against the aristocracy, who up to that time had governed the commune. In the Terror they rebelled against the convention, but were promptly subdued by General Carteaux. The wars of the empire, by dealing a severe blow to their maritime commerce, excited the hatred of the inhabitants against Napoleon, who accordingly hailed with enthusiasm the return of the Bourbons and the defeat of Waterloo. The news of the latter provoked a bloody reaction in the town against those suspected of imperialism. Since 1815 the prosperity of the city has received a considerable impulse from the conquest of Algeria and the...