Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

SAL-
and energetically opposed the Protestant Reformation. Under
Wolfgang Dietrich many Protestant citizens were driven from
the town and their houses demolished. In spite, however, of
rigorous persecution the new faith spread in secret, especially
among the landward subjects of the archbishop, and a new
and more searching edict of expulsion was issued by Arch¬
bishop Von Firmian in 1727. The Protestants invoked the aid of
Frederick William I. of Prussia, who procured for them permission
to sell their goods and to emigrate ; and in 1731 and 1732 Salzburg
parted to Prussia with about 30,000 industrious and peaceful
citizens. About 6000 of these came from the capital.
By the peace of Luneville Salzburg was given to the archduke of
Austria and grand-duke of Tuscany in exchange for Tuscany ; and
its new owner was enrolled among the electoral princes. In the re¬
distribution following the peace of Pressburg in 1805, Salzburg fell
to Austria. Four years later it passed to Bavaria, but the peace of
Paris in 1814 restored it to Austria, to which it has since belonged.
Under the designation of a duchy the territory formed the depart¬
ment of Salzach in Upper Austria until 1849, when it was made a
separate crown-land, with the four departments of Salzburg, Zell,
Tamsweg, and St Johann. In 1861 the management of its affairs
was entrusted to a local diet, consisting of the governor, the arch¬
bishop, and twenty-five representatives. The area of the duchy is
2762 square miles and the population in 1880 was 163,570, almost
exclusively Roman Catholic and of German stock. (F. MU.)
SALZKAMMERGUT, a district in the south-west angle
of Upper Austria, between Salzburg and Styria, famous
for its fine scenery, forms a separate imperial domain
about 250 square miles in area, and with a population
of over 18,000. The beauty of its lofty mountains,
sequestered lakes, and green valleys has made it one of
the favourite tourist resorts of Europe, and has gained
for it the title of the “Austrian Switzerland”; but it owes
its name (literally “ salt-exchequer property ”) and its
economic importance to its extensive and valuable salt
mines. The chief lakes are the Traunsee or Lake of
Gmundeu, the Lake of Hallstatt, the Attersee or Kam-
mersee (the largest lake in Austria), the Mondsee, and the
St Wolfgang Lake. The principal mountains are the
Dachstein (9849 feet), Thorstein (9659 feet), the Todte
Gebirge with the summits of Priel (8238 feet) and others,
and the Hollengebirge (6371 feet). The Schafberg (5840
feet) or “Austrian Rigi” and the Traunstein (5548 feet),
isolated peaks among the lakes, are well-known tourist
points. In the very heart of the salt-yielding district lies
the fashionable spa of Ischl; but the capital of the
Salzkammergut is Gmunden, situated on the Traunsee at
the exit of the Traun, the chief river of the district.
Cattle-rearing and forestry are carried on to a certain
extent by the people, but between 6000 and 7000 of them
are engaged in the salt-mines and evaporating works,
which yield annually about 60,000 tons of salt. The sale
of the salt is an Austrian crown-monopoly. The most
important salt-works are at Ischl, Hallstatt, Ebensee, and
Aussee. See Salt.
SALZWEDEL, an ancient town of Prussian Saxony,
lies on the Jeetze, a tributary of the Elbe, 32 miles to the
north-west of Stendal. It is an industrial place of some
importance, with linen, cotton, and woollen manufactures,
carries on a brisk river trade in grain, and possesses a fine
Gothic church of the 13th century. But its chief claim
to notice lies in the fact that it was for about a century
(c. 1070-1170) the capital of the Old or North Mark
(also for a time called the “ Mark of Soltwedel ”), the
kernel of the Prussian state. The old castle, perhaps
founded by Charlemagne, was purchased in 1864 by the
king of Prussia, anxious to preserve this interesting relic.
Salzwedel was also a member of the Hanseatic League,
and at the beginning of the 16th century seems to have
engrossed great part of the inland commerce of North
Germany. The population in 1880 was 8780.
SAMANID DYNASTY, the name of the third among
those native dynasties which sprang up in the 9th and 10th
centuries in the eastern portions of Persia, and, although
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nominally provincial governors under the suzerainty of the
caliphs of Baghdad, succeeded in a very short time in estab¬
lishing an almost independent rule over the vast territories
round the Oxus and Jaxartes. The Ma’mfin, Hanin-al-
rashld’s son, to whose patronage the Tfihirid family owed
their supremacy in Khords&n and Transoxiana (820-872,
205-259 a.h.) appointed three sons of S&man, originally a
Tartar chief who claimed descent from the old S&sdnian
kings, governors of Her&t and some districts beyond the
Oxus; and these soon gained such an ascendency over all
rival clanships that in 872, when the Tdhirids were over¬
thrown by the Saffarids under the leadership of Ya'kub b.
Laith (868-878), they were strong enough to retain in
their family the governorship of Transoxiana, with the
official sanction of the caliph Mo'tamid (870-892), and to
establish a semi-royal court in Bokhdrd,, the seat of the
new Sdmdnid government. During the reign of Ya'kub’s
brother 'Amr b. Laith (878-900) Ismailb. Ahmad, Sdmdn’s
great-grandson (892-907, 279-295 a.h.), crossed the Oxus
with a powerful army, invaded the territory of the Saffdrids,
sent Amr as prisoner to Baghdad, and gradually extended
his rule over Khordsfin, Khw&rizm, Jurjdn, and the neigh¬
bouring countries. His successors, all renowned by the
high impulse they gave both to the patriotic feelings and
the national poetry of modern Persia (see Persia, vol. xviii,
p. 655 sq.), were Ahmad b. Isma'il (907-913, 295-301
a.h.) ; Nasr II. b. Ahmad, the patron and friend of the
great poet Rudagi (913-942, 301-331 a.h.); Nuh I. b.
Nasr (942-954, 331-343 a.h.); 'Abd al-Malik I. b. Nfih
(954-961, 343-350 a.h.); Mansur I. b. Nfih, whose vizier
Bal ami translated Tabari’s universal history into Persian
(961-976, 350-366 a.h.); Nfih II. b. Mansur, whose
court-poet Daklkl commenced the Shdhndma ’(976-997,
366-387 a.h.) ; Mansfir II. b. Nfih (997-998, 387-389
a.h. ); and Abd al-Mahk II. b. Nfih (999), with whom the
Sfimfinid dynasty came to a rather abrupt end. The
rulers of this powerful house, whose silver dirhems had
an extensive currency during the 10th century all over
the northern part of Asia, and were brought, through Rus¬
sian caravans, even so far as to Pomerania, Sweden, and
Norway, where S&mfinid coins have lately been found in
great number, suffered in their turn the fate they had pre¬
pared for their predecessors; they were overthrown by a
more youthful and vigorous race, that of Sabuktagln, which
founded the illustrious Ghaznawid dynasty and the Mussul¬
man empire of India. Under 'Abd al-Malik I. a Turkish
slave, Alptagln, had been entrusted with the government
of Bokhfirfi, but, showing himself hostile to 'Abd al-malik’s
successor Mansfir I., he was compelled to fly and to take
refuge in the mountainous regions of Ghazna, where he soon
established a semi-independent rule, to which, after his
death in 977 (367 a.h.), his son-in-law Sabuktagln, like¬
wise a former Turkish slave, succeeded. Nfih II., in order
to retain at least a nominal sway over those Afghan
territories, confirmed him in his high position and even
invested Sabuktagln’s son Mahmfid with the governorship
of Khorfisfin, in reward for the powerful help they had
given him in his desperate struggles with a confederation
of disaffected nobles of Bokhfirfi under the leadership of
Fd’ik and the troops of the Dailamites, a dynasty that had
arisen on the shores of the Caspian Sea and wrested
already from the hands of the Sfimfinids all their western
provinces. Unfortunately, Sabuktagln died in the same
year as Nfih II. (997, 387 a.h.), and Mahmfid, confronted
with an internal contest against his own brother Isma'il,
had to withdraw his attention for a short time from the
affairs in Khorasan and Transoxiana. This interval
sufficed for the old rebel leader Ffi’ik, supported by a strong
Tartar army under Ilekkh&n, to turn Nfih’s successor
Mansfir II. into a mere puppet, to concentrate all the
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