Oscans
the name of an Italian people who at an early period occupied Campania, and were either closely allied to or the same race as the Ausones. Subsequently (about 423 B. c.) Samnites from the hilly districts to the N. overran the country and amalgamated with the inhabitants whom they had subjugated; and the names Osci and Oscan language were subsequently applied to all the other races and dialects whose origin was nearly or wholly the same. The Oscan language was not substantially different from the Latin, but only a ruder and more primitive form of the same central Italian tongue. By the victories of the Romans over the Samnites, and the conferring of the civitas on all the Italians (88 B. c.), an end was put to the official use of the Oscan tongue; nevertheless, in the time of Varro (1st century B. C.) it was still used by the people.
OSCAR I., JOSEPH FRANÇOIS BERNADOTTE, King of Sweden and Norway, son of Bernadotte (Charles XIV.); born in Paris, France, July 4, 1799. In 1823 he married Josephine, eldest daughter of Prince Eugène Beauharnais. During the reign of his father he was three times (in 1824, 1828, and 1833) viceroy of Norway, where he made himself popular by his good administration. He acceded to the throne in 1844. He took little part in foreign politics and resigned in favor of his eldest son in 1857. He died July 8, 1859.
OSCAR II., King of Sweden and Norway; born Jan. 21, 1829, a great-grandson of Napoleon I.'s famous general, Marshal Bernadotte, the first king of the new independent kingdom of Norway.
He ascended the throne in 1872, in succession to his brother, Charles XV. He was an excellent scholar and writer, and translated Goethe's "Faust" into Swedish.
Issued in 1888 a volume of minor poems under his nom de plume of "Oscar Frederik." He married, in 1857, the Princess Sophia of Nassau, by whom he had four sons. Norway withdrew from him in 1905, and he refused a scion of his OSCEOLA house to that throne, therefore she turned to Denmark. He died Dec. 8, 1907.