Clitias See Cleitias
ditoridectomy or female circumcision or female genital mutilation Ritual surgical procedure ranging from drawing blood, to removing the clitoris alone, to infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision— removing the external genitals, joining the sides and leaving a small open¬ ing. Now often illegal, it dates to ancient times and purports to guard virginity and reduce sexual desire in traditional societies in many parts of the less-developed world. Infibulation, especially common in Sudan, Somalia, and Nigeria, is usually done by a midwife, often in unhygienic conditions. It may lead to severe bleeding, infection, exquisite pain, and
the 19th century, renowned for its
The clipper Flying Cloud
COURTESY OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM, MASS.
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420 I Clitunno River ► cloister
death; if not, urination and sexual intercourse can be painful and men¬ strual blood may be retained. Women are reinfibulated after childbirth.
Clitunno River \kle-'tun-no\ ancient Clitumnus. River, central Italy. It flows 37 mi (60 km) northwest to join a tributary of the Tiber River. A nearby spring was described by Virgil and Pliny the Younger and visited by the emperors Caligula and Flavius Honorius.
Clive (of Plassey), Robert, 1 st Baron (b. Sept. 29, 1725, Styche, Shropshire, Eng.—d. Nov. 22, 1774, London) British soldier and colonial administrator. In 1743 he was sent to Madras (Chennai) for the East India Company, where hostilities between it and the French East India Company allowed him to demonstrate his military skills. He made a fortune and returned to England in 1753 but was sent back to India in 1755. In 1757 his victory over the nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey made him the virtual master of Bengal. His first government, though tainted by cor¬ ruption and duplicity, was a model of generalship and statecraft. Back in England, he was elected to Parliament (1760) but failed to become a national statesman. He returned to India as governor and commander in chief of Bengal (1765-67). His reorganizing of the colony, including his fight against corruption, helped establish Britain’s power in India. He himself was attacked by Parliament on charges of corruption; though exonerated, he later committed suicide.
cloaca \klo-'a-k3\ In vertebrates, common chamber and outlet into which the intestinal, urinary, and genital tracts open. It is present in amphib¬ ians, reptiles, birds, some fishes (e.g., sharks), and monotreme mammals but is absent in placental mammals and most bony fishes. Certain animals (e.g., many reptiles and some birds, including ducks) have an accessory organ (penis) within the cloaca that is used to direct the sperm into the female’s cloaca. Most birds mate by joining their cloacas in a “cloacal kiss”; mus¬ cular contractions transfer the sperm from the male to the female.
dock Machine or electronic device that measures and records time. Both simple and elaborate clocks, as well as sundials, candle clocks, and sand¬ glasses, were used for measuring time in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The first mechanical clocks were weight-driven and perhaps were invented for use in monasteries, where the disciplined life required a strict rendering of time. The first European public clock that struck the hours was erected in Milan in 1335, and the oldest surviving clocks are in England (1386) and France (1389). The first domestic clocks appeared late in the 14th century. About 1500 Peter Henlein, a German locksmith,
A classic pendulum clock. The power to run the clock comes from a slowly falling weight (other mechanical clocks utilize a spring). The escapement prevents the weight from falling all at once, and the swinging pendulum regulates the rate at which the escapement allows the clock's wheels (gears) to turn. The time required for a complete swing (period) of the pendulum depends only on the pendulum's length: a 39-in. (990-mm) pendulum has a period of one second.
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began to make the first portable timepieces, small clocks driven by a spring. Christiaan Huygens invented pendulum clocks in 1656. Big Ben, the great clock at Westminster in London, was installed in 1859 and is the standard for all accurate tower pendulum clocks. The most accurate mechanical timekeepers (within a few thousandths of a second per day) are clocks with short pendulums (about 39 in. [or 990 mm]). In 1929 the vibration of a quartz crystal was first applied to timekeeping; the maxi¬ mum error of an observatory quartz-crystal clock is only a few ten- thousandths of a second per day. The first atomic clock went into operation in 1951. Atomic clocks, regulated by the natural periodic behaviour of a system of atoms (such as vibrations or emission of radiation), can have accuracies exceeding one billionth of a second per day, making them the most accurate clocks yet invented.
Clodion \klod-'yo n \ orig. Claude Michel (b. Dec. 20, 1738, Nancy, Fr.—d. March 29, 1814, Paris)
French sculptor. In 1755 he entered his uncle’s workshop in Paris, and later he became a student of Jean- Baptiste Pigalle. In 1759 he won the grand prize at the Royal Academy and embarked on a successful career, first in Rome and then in Paris, where he exhibited regularly at the Salon. He excelled at small statu¬ ettes and terra-cotta figures of nymphs, satyrs, and groups. After the French Revolution he changed his style to suit the Neoclassical taste for monumentality; he worked on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1805-06) and the Vendome Column
(1806-09).
Clodius Pulcher Vklo-de-os-'pol- kar\, Publius (b. c. 92—d. January,
52 bc, Bovillae, Latium) Roman politician. While fighting against Mithradates, he stirred up mutiny among the troops (68-67). In 62 he was accused of disguising himself as a female harpist to infiltrate a wom¬ en’s festival at Julius Caesar’s house.
Though Cicero gave damaging evidence against him, he was acquitted, but Caesar divorced his wife because she was alleged to have admitted Clodius to the ceremony. As tribune (58), Clodius passed laws to punish Cicero for executing without trial those implicated in Catiline’s con¬ spiracy, and Clodius had Cicero outlawed. Clodius’s political partisans engaged in street fighting that disrupted Roman elections for several years. He was killed by another faction in a running brawl on the Appian Way.
cloisonne \,kl6i-z3-'na\ Enameling technique. Delicate strips of gold, brass, silver, copper, or other metal wire are welded to a metal plate in the shape of a design, and the resulting cellular spaces are filled with vit¬ reous enamel paste that is fired, ground smooth, and polished. The earliest surviving examples are six 13th-century bc Mycenaean rings.
The technique reached its peak in the West during the Byzantine Empire.
Chinese cloisonne was widely pro¬ duced during the Ming and Qing dynasties; in Japan it was popular in the Edo and Meiji periods. See also ENAMELWORK.
cloister Four-sided enclosure sur¬ rounded by covered walkways and usually attached to a monastic or cathedral church; also, the walkways themselves. The earliest cloisters were open arcades, usually with
sloping wooden roofs. This form was Qpen arcaded doister of Saint . generally superseded in England by TrophTnle AdeS; Fr . a range of windows lighting a jeanroubier vaulted ambulatory (aisle). In south-
"Female Satyr Carrying Two Putti," terra-cotta statuette by Clodion; in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore