tors at different periods, commencing with 280 B.C.; it
is known as the Alexandria version, while the name Septuagint, or LXX.,
was given to it on the ground of the tradition that it was the work of
70, or rather 72, Jews, who had, it is alleged, been Drought from
Palestine for the purpose, and were fabled, according to one tradition,
to have executed the whole in as many days, and, according to another, to
have each done the whole apart from the rest, with the result that the
version of each was found to correspond word for word with that of all
the others; it began with the translation of the Pentateuch and was
continued from that time till 130 B.C. by the translation of the rest,
the whole being in reality the achievement of several independent
workmen, who executed their parts, some with greater some with less
ability and success; it is often literal to a painful degree, and it
swarms with such pronounced Hebraisms, that a pure Greek would often fail
to understand it. It was the version current everywhere at the time of
the planting of the Christian Church, and the numerous quotations in the
New Testament from the Old are, with few exceptions, quotations from it.

SEPULVEDA, JUAN GINES, Spanish historian, born at Pozo-Blanco, near
Cordova; in 1536 became historiographer to Charles V. and tutor to the
future Philip II.; was subsequently canon of Salamanca; author of several
historical works, of which a "History of Charles V." is the most
important, a work characterised by broad humanistic proclivities unusual
in his day and country; _d_. 1574.

SERAGLIO, in its restricted sense applied in the East to a harem or
women's quarters in a royal household; the former residence of the sultan
of Turkey, occupies a beautiful site on the E. side of Constantinople, on
a projecting piece of land between the Golden Horn and the Sea of
Marmora, enclosing within its 3 m. of wall government buildings, mosques,
gardens, &c., chief of which is the harem, which occupies an inner
enclosure.

SERAING (34), a manufacturing town of Belgium, on the Meuse, 4 m.
SW. of Liege; noted for its extensive machine-shops (locomotives, &c.);
established in 1817 by John Cockerill, and now, with forges, coal-mines,
&c., giving employment to some 12,000 men.

SERAMPUR (36), a town of modern aspect in India, on the Hooghly, 13
m. N. of Calcutta; originally Danish, was purchased by the British in
1845; manufactures paper and mats, and is associat