ted and consigned to
Tartarus, at the gates of which the three brothers were placed (Hesiod,
_Theog._ 624, 639, 714). Other accounts make Briareus one of the assailants
of Olympus, who, after his defeat, was buried under Mount Aetna
(Callimachus, _Hymn to Delos_, 141). Homer mentions him as assisting Zeus
when the other Olympian deities were plotting against the king of gods and
men (_Iliad_ i. 398). Another tradition makes him a giant of the sea, ruler
of the fabulous Aegaea in Euboea, an enemy of Poseidon and the inventor of
warships (Schol. on Apoll. Rhod. i. 1165). It would be difficult to
determine exactly what natural phenomena are symbolized by the
Hecatoncheires. They may represent the gigantic forces of nature which
appear in earthquakes and other convulsions, or the multitudinous motion of
the sea waves (Mayer, _Die Giganten und Titanen_, 1887).

BRIBERY (from the O. Fr. _briberie_, begging or vagrancy, _bribe_, Mid.
Lat. _briba_, signifying a piece of bread given to beggars; the Eng.
"bribe" has passed through the meanings of alms, blackmail and extortion,
to gifts received or given in order to influence corruptly). The public
offence of bribery may be defined as the offering or giving of payment in
some shape or form that it may be a motive in the performance of functions
for which the proper motive ought to be a conscientious sense of duty. When
this is superseded by the sordid impulses created by the bribe, a person is
said to be corrupted, and thus corruption is a term sometimes held
equivalent to bribery. The offence may be divided into two great
classes--the one where a person invested with power is induced by payment
to use it unjustly; the other, where power is obtained by purchasing the
suffrages of those who can impart it. It is a natural propensity, removable
only by civilization or some powerful counteracting influence, to feel that
every element of power is to be employed as much as possible for the
owner's own behoof, and that its benefits should be conferred not on those
who best deserve them, but on those who will pay most for them. Hence
judicial corruption is an inveterate vice of imperfect civilization. There
is, perhaps no other crime on which the force of law, if unaided by public
opinion and morals, can have so little influence; for in other crimes, such
as violence or fraud, there is generally some person immediately injured by
the act, who can give his aid in the detection of the offende