EPERJES  , a

town of Hungary, capital of the county of Sams, 190 M . N.E. of Budapest by rail . Pop . (1900) 13,098 . It is situated on the left bank of the river Tarcza, an affluent of the Theiss, and has been almost completely rebuilt since a great fire in 1887 . Eperjes is one of the oldest towns of Hungary, and is still partly surrounded by its old walls . It is the seat of a Greek-Catholic bishop, and possesses a beautiful cathedral built in the 18th century in late Gothic style . It possesses manufactures of cloth, table-linen and earthenware, and has an active trade in wine, linen, cattle and grain . About 2 M. to the south is S6var with important salt-works . In the same county, 28 m. by rail N. of Eperjes, is situated the old town of Bartfa (pop . 6098), which possesses a Gothic church from the 14th century, and an interesting town-hall, dating from the 15th century, and containing very valuable archives . In its neighbourhood, surrounded by pine forests, are the baths of Bartfa, with twelve mineral springs—iodate, ferruginous and alkaline—used for bathing and drinking .

About 6 m . N.W. of Eperjes is situated the

village of Vorosvagas, which contains the only opal mine in Europe . The opal was mined here 800 years ago, and the largest piece hitherto found, weighing 2940 carats and estimated to have a value of £175,000, is preserved in the Court Museum at Vienna . Eperjes was founded about the middle of the 12th century by a German colony, and was elevated to the rank of a royal free town in 1347 by Louis I . (the Great) . It was afterwards fortified and received special privileges . The Reformation found many early adherents here, and the town played an important part during the religious wars of the 17th century . It became famous by the so-called " butchery of Eperjes," a tribunal instituted by the Austrian general Caraffa in 1687, which condemned todeath and confiscated the property of a great number of citizens accused of Protestantism . During the 16th and the 17th centuries its German educational establishments enjoyed a wide reputation .