Mouse-ear.** See Botany Index.

**CERASUS.** See Prunus, Botany Index.

**CERATE,** in Pharmacy, a thickish kind of ointment applied to ulcerations, excoriations, &c. See Pharmacy Index.

**CERATION,** the name given by the ancients to the small seeds of ceratonia, used by the Arabian physicians as a weight to adjust the doses of medicines; as the grain weight with us took its rise from a grain of barley.

**CERATION,** or Ceratium, was also a silver coin, equal to one-third of an obolus.

**CERATOCARPUS.** See Botany Index.

**CERATONIA,** the Carob Tree, or St John's Bread. See Botany Index. The pods of this plant are called St John's Bread, from an ill-founded assertion of some writers on Scripture, that these were the locusts which St John ate with his honey in the wilderness.

**CERATOPHYLLUM.** See Botany Index.

**CERAUNIA,** Ceraunias, or Ceraunius Lapis, in Natural History, a sort of flinty stone, of no certain colour, but of a pyramidal or wedge-like figure: popularly supposed to fall from the clouds in the time of thunder-storms, and to be possessed of divers notable virtues, as promoting sleep, preserving from lightning, &c. The word is from the Greek θύρανος, thunderbolt. The ceraunia is the same with what is otherwise called the thunder-stone, or thunder-bolt; and also sometimes sagitta or arrow's head, on account of its shape. The cerauniae are frequently confounded with the ombrie and brotice, as being all supposed to have the same origin. The generality of naturalists take the ceraunia for a native stone, formed among the pyrites, of a saline, concrete, mineral juice. Mercatus and Dr Woodward assert it to be artificial, and to have been fashioned thus by tools. The ceraunia, according to these authors, are the heads of the ancient weapons of war, in use before the invention of iron; which, upon the introduction of that metal, growing into disuse, were dispersed in the fields through this and the neighbouring country. Some of them had possibly served in the early ages for axes, others for wedges, others for chisels; but the greater part for arrow-heads, darts, and lances. The ceraunia is also held by Pliny for a white or crystal-coloured gem, that attracted lightning in itself. What this was, is hard to say. Prudentius also speaks of a yellow ceraunia; by which he is supposed to mean the carbuncle or pyropus.

**CERBERA.** See Botany Index.

**CERBERUS,** in fabulous history, a dreadful three-headed mastiff, born of Typhon and Echidna, and placed to guard the gates of hell. He fawned upon those who entered, but devoured all who attempted to get back. He was, however, mastered by Hercules, who dragged him up to the earth, when, in struggling, a foam dropped from his mouth, which produced the Cerberus poisonous herb called aconite or wolf's bane.

Some have supposed that Cerberus is the symbol of the earth, or of all-devouring time; and that its three mouths represent the present, past, and future. The victory obtained by Hercules over this monster denotes the conquest which this hero acquired over his passions. Dr Bryant supposes that Cerberus was the name of a place, and that it signified the temple of the Sun; deriving it from Kir Abor, the place of light. This temple was called also Tor-Coph-Eli, which was changed to τρικεφαλος; and hence Cerberus was supposed to have had three heads. It was likewise called Tor-Keren, Turris Regia; whence τρικεφαλος, from τρις, three, and κεφαλη, head.

**CERCLE,** in Heraldry. A cross cercle is a cross which, opening at the ends, turns round both ways like a ram's horn. See Cross.

**CERCIS,** the Judas Tree. See Botany Index.

**CERCOPITHECI,** in Natural History, the name given by Mr Ray to monkeys, or the class of apes with long tails. See Simia, Mammalia Index.

**CERDA,** John Lewis de la, a learned Jesuit of Toledo, wrote large commentaries on Virgil, which have been much esteemed; also several other works. He died in 1623, aged 80.

**CERDONIANS,** ancient heretics who maintained most of the errors of Simon Magus, Saturninus, and the Manichees. They took their name from their leader Cerdon, a Syrian, who came to Rome in the time of Pope Hyginus, and there abjured his errors; but in appearance only; for he was afterwards convicted of persisting in them, and accordingly cast out of the church again. Cerdon asserted two principles, the one good and the other evil; this last, according to him, was the creator of the world, and the god that appeared under the old law. The first, whom he called unknown, was the father of Jesus Christ; who, he taught, was incarnate only in appearance, and was not born of a virgin; nor did he suffer death but in appearance. He denied the resurrection, and rejected all the books of the Old Testament, as coming from an evil principle. Marcion, his disciple, succeeded him in his errors.

**CEREALIA,** in antiquity, feasts of Ceres, instituted by Triptolemus, son of Celsus king of Eleusine in Attica, in gratitude for his having been instructed by Ceres, who was supposed to have been his nurse, in the art of cultivating corn and making bread.

There were two feasts of this kind at Athens; the one called Eleusinia, the other, Thesmophoria. See the article Eleusinia. What both agreed in, and was common to all the cerealia, was, that they were celebrated with a world of religion and purity; so that it was esteemed a great pollution to meddle, on those days, in conjugal matters. It was not Ceres alone that was honoured here, but also Bacchus. The victims offered were hogs, by reason of the waste they make in the products of the earth; whether there was any wine offered or not, is matter of much debate among the critics. Plautus and Macrobius seem to countenance the negative side; Cato and Virgil the positive. Macrobius says, indeed, they did not offer wine to Ceres, but mulsum, which was a composition of wine and honey boiled up together; that the sacrifice... CER

ceremony made on the 21st December to that goddess and Hercules, was a pregnant sow, together with cakes and mulsum; and that this is what Virgil means by Mili Baccho. The cerealia passed from the Greeks to the Romans, who held them for eight days successively; commencing, as generally held, on the fifth of the ides of April. It was the women alone who were concerned in the celebration, all dressed in white: the men, likewise in white, were only spectators. They ate nothing till after sunset; in memory of Ceres, who in her search after her daughter took no repast but in the evening.

After the battle of Cannae, the desolation was so great at Rome, that there were no women to cele- brate the feast, by reason they were all in mourning; so that it was omitted that year.