right bank also; remains of it have been found at some
25 ft. below the modern ground-level, the river-bed having risen
considerably. In the Second Punic War it was occupied by Fabius
Cunctator in 217 B.C., taken by Hannibal after a gallant defence by
troops from Praeneste and Perusia in the winter of 216-215, but
recaptured in the following year, serving the Romans as their base of
operations against Capua. It lost its independence and became a
_praefectura_. Caesar conducted a colony thither in 59 B.C., which was
renewed by Antony in 44 B.C. The veterans took Octavian's side after
Caesar's death, but it seems to have been united with Capua before the
time of Vespasian, and it does not occur in the list of independent
communities given by Pliny, who indeed (_Hist. Nat._ iii. 70) speaks of
the _morientis Casilini reliquiae_, and only its position at the
junction of the roads redeemed it from utter insignificance. (T. As.)

CASIMIR III., called "THE GREAT," king of Poland (1310-1370), the son of
Wladislaus Lokietek, king of Poland, and Jadwiga, princess of Kalisch,
was born at Kowal in Kujavia in 1310. Casimir belongs to that remarkable
group of late medieval sovereigns who may be called the fathers of
modern diplomacy, inasmuch as they relegated warfare to its proper place
as the instrument of politics, and preferred the council-chamber to the
battle-field. He was educated at the court of Charles Robert of Hungary,
who had married Casimir's beautiful sister Elizabeth, and who gave his
brother-in-law an excellent education under Italian masters. In his
youth Casimir was considered frivolous and licentious; while his sudden
flight from the field of Plowce, the scene of his father's great victory
over the Teutonic knights, argued but poorly for his personal courage.
When, therefore, he ascended the Polish throne in 1333, the future of
his country, which then consisted of little more than the lately
reunited provinces of Great and Little Poland, seemed dark indeed;
especially as she was still at war with the Teutonic Order and with John
of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, who claimed the crown of Poland also.
Fortunately Casimir was a man of penetrating genius. His father had been
a hero who trusted entirely to his sword, yet the heroic struggle of a
lifetime had barely sufficed to keep at bay the numerous and potent foes
with which Poland was environed. Casimir recognized from the first that
further fighting against treme