CONCORDIA

concordia, a roman goddess, the personification of peace and goodwill. several temples in her honour were erected at rome, the most ancient being one on the capitol, dedicated to her by camillus (367 b.c.), subsequently restored by livia, the wife of augustus, and consecrated by tiberius (a.d. 10). other temples were frequently built to commemorate the restoration of civil harmony. offerings were made to concordia on the birthdays of emperors, and concordia augusta was worshipped as the promoter of harmony in the imperial household. concordia was represented as a matron holding in her right hand a _patera_ or an olive branch, and in her left a _cornu copiae_ or a sceptre. her symbols were two hands joined together, and two serpents entwined about a herald's staff. concordia (mod. _concordia sagittaria_), an ancient town of venetia, in italy, 16 ft. above sea-level, 31 m. w. of aquileia, at the junction of roads to altinum and patavium, to opitergium (and thence either to vicetia and verona, or feltria and tridentum), to noricum by the valley of the tilaventus (tagliamento), and to aquileia. it was a mere village until the time of augustus, who made it a colony. under the later empire it was one of the most important towns of italy; it had a strong garrison and a factory of missiles for the army. the cemetery of the garrison has been excavated since 1873, and a large number of important inscriptions, the majority belonging to the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries, have been discovered. it was taken and destroyed by attila in a.d. 452. considerable remains of the ancient town have been found--parts of the city walls, the sites of the forum and the theatre, and probably that of the arms factory. the objects found are preserved at portogruaro, 11⁄4 m. to the n. the see of concordia was founded at an early period, and transferred in 1339 to portogruaro, where it still remains. the baptistery of concordia was probably erected in 1100. see ch. hulsen in pauly-wissowa, _realencyclopadie_, iv. (stuttgart, 1901) 830. (t. as.) concrete (lat. _concretus_, participle of _concrescere_, to grow together), a term used in various technical senses with the general significance of combination, conjunction, solidity. thus the building material made up of separate substances combined into one is known as concrete (see below). in mathematics and music, the adjective has been used as synonymous with "continuous" as opposed to "discrete," i.e. "separate," "discontinuous." this antithesis is no doubt influenced by the idea that the two words derive from a common origin, whereas "discrete" is derived from the latin _discernere_. in logic and also in common language concrete terms are those which signify persons or things as opposed to abstract terms which signify qualities, relations, attributes (so j. s. mill). thus the term "man" is concrete, while "manhood" and "humanity" are abstract, the names of the qualities implied. confusions between abstract and concrete terms are frequent; thus the word "relation," which is strictly an abstract term implying connexion between two things or persons, is often used instead of the correct term "relative" for people related to one another. concrete terms are further subdivided as singular, the names of things regarded as individuals, and general or common, the names which a number of things bear in common in virtue of their possession of common characteristics. these latter terms, though concrete in so far as they denote the persons or things which are known by them (see denotation), have also an abstract sense when viewed connotatively, i.e. as implying the quality or qualities in isolation from the individuals. the ascription of adjectives to the class of concrete terms, upheld by j. s. mill, has been disputed on the ground that adjectives are applied both to concrete and to abstract terms. hence some logicians make a separate class for adjectives, as being the names neither of things nor of qualities, and describe them as attributive terms.