Browse the Dictionary

DACTYLI	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 See IDAeAN DACTYLI
DADUCHUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 See ELEUSINIA.
DAEDALION	Brother of Ceyx (italics>see CEYX), threw himself down from a rock on Parnassus for grief at the death of his daughter Chione, and was turned by the gods into a hawk.
DAEDALUS	The mythical Greek representative of all handi-work, especially of Attic and Cretan art. As such he was worshipped by the artists' guilds, especially in Attica. He was said to be the son of the Athenian Metion, son of Eupalamus (the ready-handed) and grandson of Erechtheus. He was supposed to have been the first artist who represented the human figure with open eyes, and feet and arms in motion. Besides being an excellent architect, he was said to have invented many implements, the axe for instance, the awl, and the bevel. His nephew and pupil (son of his sister Perdix) appeared likely to surpass him in readiness and originality. The invention of the saw, which he copied from the chinbone of a snake, of the potter's wheel, of the turning lathe, and of other things of the kind, was attributed to him. Daedalus was so jealous of him that he threw him from the Acropolis; and being detected in the act of burying the body, was condemned by the Areopagus, and fled to Crete to king Minos. Here, among other things, he made the labyrinth at Gnosus for the Minotaur. He and his son Icarus were themselves confined in it, because he had given Ariadne the clue with which she guided Theseus through the maze. But the father and son succeeded in escaping, and fled over the sea upon wings of wax feathers made by Daedalus. Icarus, however, approached too near to the sun, so that the wax melted, and he fell into the sea and was drowned. The sea was called after him the Icarian, and the island on which his body was thrown up and buried by Heracles, was called Icaria. Daedalus came to Camicus in Sicily, to king Cocalus, whose daughter loved him for his art, and slew Minos who came in pursuit of him. He was supposed to have died in Sicily, where buildings attributed to him were shown in many places, as also in Sardinia, Egypt and Italy, particularly at Cumae. In Greece a number of ancient woodtn images were supposed to be his work, in particular a statue of Heracles at Thebes, which Daedalus was said to have made in gratitude for the burial of Icarus.
DAEMON	Originally a term applied to deity in general, manifested in its active relation to human life, without special reference to any single divine personality. But as early as Hesiod the doemones appear as subordinates or servants of the higher gods. He gives the name specially to the spirits of the past age of gold, who are appointed to watch over men and guard them. In later times, too, the doemones were regarded as beings intermediate between the gods and mankind, forming as it were the retinue of the gods, representing their powers in activity, and entrusted with the fulfilment of their various functions. This was the relation, to take an instance, which the Satyrs and Sileni bore to Dionysus. But the popular belief varied with regard to many of these deities. Eros, e.g., was by many expressly designated a daemon, while by others he was worshipped as a powerful and independent deity. Another kind of doemones are those who were attached to individual men, attending them, like the Roman genius, from their birth onwards through their whole life. In later times two doemones, a good and bad, were sometimes assumed for every one. This belief was, however, not universal, the prevalent idea being that good and bad alike proceeded at different times from the daemon of each individual; and that one person had a powerful and benevolent, another a weak and malevolent daemon. Agatho-daemon (good daemon) was the name of the good spirit of rural prosperity and of vineyards.
DAMASTES	A monster living at Eleusis, in Attica, also called Procrustes, or the Stretcher. His custom was to lay his guests upon his bed, and if they were too short for it, to rack them to death, if too long, to cut off as much of their limbs as would make them short enough. He was slain by Theseus.
DANAE	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The daughter of Acrisius of Argos, who was shut up in a brazen tower by her father in consequence of an oracle which predicted that death would come to him from his daughter's son. Nevertheless, she bore to Zeus a son, Perseus, the god having visited her in the form of a shower of gold. She was then shut up with her son in a chest and thrown into the sea. Driven by the waves on to the island of Seriphos, she was kindly received by a fisherman named Dictys. His brother, Polydectes, the king of the island, wished to force her to marry him, but her son Perseus delivered her from him, and took her back to Greece. (See PERSEUS.)
DANAI	Properly the name of the inhabitants of Argos, from their old king Danaos, afterwards applied to the Greeks in general, especially the besiegers of Troy.
DANAIDES	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The fifty daughters of Danauss. See DANAUS.
DANAUS	The son of Belus, king of Egypt, and Anchirrhoe, and twin brother of Aegyptus. Aegyptus and his fifty sons drove Danaus and his fifty daughters from their home in the Egyptian Chemnis through Rhodes to Argos, the home of his ancestress Io (see Io). Here he took over the kingdom from Pelasgus or Gelanor, and after him the Achaeans of Argos bore the name of Danai. Danaus built the acropolis of Larissa and the temple of the Lycian Apollo, and taught the inhabitants of the waterless territory how to dig wells. His daughters also conferred benefits on the land by finding springs, especially Amymone, the beloved of Poseidon, who, for love ofher, created the inexhaustible fountain of Lerna. For this they were worshipped in Argos. The sons of Aegyptus at length appeared and forced Danaus to give them his daughters in marriage. At their father's command they stabbed their husbands at night, and buried their heads in the valley of Lerna. One only, Hypermnestra, disregarding her father's threats, spared her beloved Lynceus, and helped him to escape. Danaus accordingly set on foot a fighting match, and bestowed his remaining daughter on the victor. Afterwards, though against his will, he gave Lynceus his daughter and his kingdom. According to another story, Lynceus conquered his wife and throne for himself, and took vengeance for his brothers by killing Danaus and his daughtem. The Danaides (or daughters of Danaus) atoned for their bloody deed in the regions below by being condemned to pour water for ever into a vessel with holes in its bottom. This fable is generally explained by the hypothesis that the Danaides were nymphs of the springs and rivers of the land of Argos, which are filled to overflowing in the wet season, but dry up in summer. The tombstone of Danaus stood in the market at Argos. He was also worshipped in Rhodes as the founder of the temple of Athene in Lindos, and as the builder of the first fifty-oared ship, in which he fled from Egypt. The story of Danaus and his daughters is treated by Aeschylus in his Supplices. Lynceus and Hypermnestra had also a common shrine in Argos; their son was Abas, father of Acrisius and Proetus. The son of Amymone and Poseidon was Nauplius, founder of Nauplia, and father of Palamedes, OEax, and Nausimedon.
DANCING	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 As early as the Homeric age we find dancing an object of artistic cultivation among the Greeks. The sons and daughters of princes and nobles do not disdain to join in it, whether in religious festivals or at social gatherings. The Greek orchestike, or art of dancing, differed much from the modern. Its aim was to ennoble bodily strength and activity with grace and beauty. Joined with music and poetry, dancing among the Greeks embodied the very spirit of the art of music, mainly because the imitative element predominated in it. For its main aim was to make gesture represent feeling, passion and action; and consequently the Greek dance was an exercise riot only for the feet, but for the arms, hands and the whole body. The art at first observed the limits of a noble simplicity, but was perfected, as time went on, in many directions. At the same time it inevitably tended to become more artificial. As in athletics, so in imitative dancing, mechanical execution was largely developed. This was to a great extent displayed in exhibitions of scenes from the mythology, which formed a favourite entertainment at banquets. On the other hand, a prejudice arose against dancing on the part of any one but professionals. For a grown-up person to perform a dance, even at social entertainments, was regarded as an impropriety. The religious performances, especially, as bound up with the worship of Apollo and Dionysus, consisted mainly in choral dances, whose movement varied according to the character of the god and of the festival. Sometimes it was a solemn march round the altar, sometimes a livelier measure, in which there was a strong dash of imitation. This was especially the case at the festivals of Dionysus. It was from these, as is well known, that the Greek draina was developed, and accordingly the dances formed a part of all dramas, varying according to the character of the piece (see CHORUS). Indeed, there was an infinite variety in the forms of the Greek dance. Not only had almost every country district its own, but foreign ones were in course of time adopted. It must be noticed that in Greek society grown-up men and women were not allowed to dance together, but there were some dances which were performed together by the youth of both sexes. Among these was the Hormos, or chain-dance, performed by youths and maidens, holding their hands in a changing line, the youths moving in warlike measure, the girls with grace and softness. Another was the Geranos, or Crane. This dance was peculiar to Delos, and was said to have been first performed by Theseus after his deliverance from the Labyrinth, with the boys and girls whom he had rescued. Its elaborate complications were supposed to represent the mazes of the Labyrinth. At Sparta dances were practised, as a means of bodily training, by boys and girls. Among them two may be particularly mentioned: the Caryatis, performed in honour of Artemis of Caryaae, by the richest and noblest Spartan maidens; and the dances of boys, youths and men, at the festival of the Gymnopoedia, consisting in an imitation of various gymnastic exercises (see CARYATIDES). Among the Greek country dances was the Epilenioss, or dance of the wine-press, which imitated the actions of gathering and pressing the grape. There were also warlike dances, which were specially popular with the Dorians, and, like others, were partly connected with religious worship. One of the most celebrated of these was the Pyrrhiche (see PYRRHIC DANCE). Roman. Dancing never played such a part in the national life of the Romans as it did in that of the Greeks. It is true that the ancient Roman worship included dances of the priests (see SALII), and that the lower orders in the country were fond of dancing on festive occasions. But respectable Romans regarded it as inconsistent with their dignity. After the second Punic War, as Greek habits made their way into Italy, it became the fashion for young men and girls of the upper class to take lessons in dancing and singing. But dancing was never adopted in Rome as a necessary and effective instrument of education, nor was there any time when public dancing was allowed in society. Performances by professional artists, however (the longer the better), were a favourite entertainment, especially during the imperial period, when the art of mimic dancing attained an astonishing degree of perfection.
DAPHNE	A nymph, daughter of the Thessalian river-god Peneius, or according to another story, the Arcadian Ladon, was beloved both by Apollo and by Leucippus, the son of OEnomaus. The latter followed her in a woman's dress, but was discovered and killed by the nymphs at the instance of his rival. Pursued again by Apollo, the chaste maiden was, at her own entreaty, changed into a bay tree, the tree consecrated to Apollo.
DAPHNIS	A hero of the Sicilian shepherds, son of Hermes and of a nymph. A beautiful child, he was exposed by his mother in a grove of bay trees, brought up by nymphs and Pan, and taught by Pan to play the shepherd's flute. He had plighted his troth to a nymph, but breaking his word, he was punished by her with blindness, or (according to another story) turned into a stone. According to another fable, Aphrodite inflicted upon him a hopeless and fatal passion for a woman, because he had despised the love of a girl whom she had wished him to wed. Hermes took him up to heaven and created a fountain at the spot where he was taken. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. Daphnis was regarded as the inventor of bucolic poetry, and his fate was a favourite subjecit with bucolic poets. [See Theocritus, Idyll i.]
DARDANUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra, the father of the regal house of Troy. He left Arcadia, his mother's home, and went to the island of Samothrace. Here he set up the worship of the great gods, whose shrines, with the Palladium, his first wife Chryse had received as a gift from Athene at her marriage. Samothrace having been visited by a great flood, Dardanus sailed away with his shrines to Phrygia, where King Tencer gave him his daughter Bateia to wife, and land enough on Mount Ida to found the town of Dardania. His son by Bateia was Erichthonius, whom Homer describes as the wealthiest of mortals, and the possessor of horses of the noblest breed and most splendid training. The son of Erichthonius was Tros, father of Ilos, Assaracus and Ganymedes. From Ilos, the founder of Ilion or Troy, was descended Laomedon, father of Priam. From Assaracus sprang Capys, father of Anchises, and grandfather of Aeneas. Another story made Dardanus the native prince who welcomed Teucer on his arrival from Crete (see TEUCER).
DARES OF PHRYGIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 In Homer the priest of Hephaestus in Troy, supposed to have been the author of a pre-Homeric Iliad. It is doubtful whether there ever was any Greek work bearing this title, but a Latin piece of the 5th century A.D. (Daretis Phrygii De Excedio Troiae Historia), bearing a supposed dedication by Cornelius Nepos to Sallust, professes to be a translation of one. This absurd production, and the work of Dietys, was the chief source followed by the medipeval poets in their stories of the Trotian war (see DICTYS).
DARICUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A gold Persian coin, bearing the stamp of a crowned archer, current in Greece down to the Macedonian period. It was equal in value to the Attic gold stater, i.e. according to the present value of gold, 24 shillings. [See COINAGE, fig. 3.]
DEA DIA	A Roman goddess, probably identical with Aces Larentla, the ancient Roman goddess of the country. Her worship was provided for by the priestly collegium of the Fratres Arvales.
DEATH	In the Homeric poems Death is called the twin brother of Sleep. In Hesiod he is barn of Night without a father, with Ker (the goddess of mortal destiny), Moros (the fatal stroke of death), Hypnos, (sleep) and the Dreams. Hesiod represents Death, the hard-hearted one, hated by the immortal gods, as dwelling with his brother Sleep in the darkness of the West, whither the sun never penetrates either at his rising or his setting. On the chest of Cypselus at Olympia is a representation of Night, holding in each hand a sleeping boy; the one in the right hand being white, and symbolizing Sleep; the other in the left hand, black, and symbolizing Death. Euripides introduces Death on the stage in his Alcestis. He has a black garment and black wings, and a knife to cut off a lock of hair as an offering to the gods below. In works of art he appears as a beautiful boy or youth, sometimes with, sometimes without, wings, and often with his brother Sleep. He is usually in slumber, and holds a torch, either lowered, or reversed and extinguished.
DECEMVIRI	A collegium of ten officers or commissioners. Such were the commissioners named for making a comprehensive code of laws in 451 B.C., Decemviri Legibus Seribundis. The Decemviri Sacris Faciundis were a standing collegium of priests appointed to read and expound the Sibylline books. The Decemviri Litibus Iudicandis were also a standing collegium of iudices appointed for certain trials. Commissions of ten (decemviri agris dividundis and coloniis deducendis) were frequently, though not always, appointed for assignations of public land and the foundation of colonies.
DECURIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Originally a division consisting of ten persons, as for example, the three subdivisions of the turma of cavalry. Afterwards the word was applied to any division of a large whole, whether the number ten was implied or not. The iudices for instance, and most collegia were divided into decuriae (see APPARITOR).
DECURIO	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The president of a decuria, or the cavalry officers bearing the name (see TURMA).
DECURIO	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The members of the senate in municipal towns were also called decuriones (see MUNICIPIUM).
DEDICATIO	The consecration of a public sanctury. The pontifices had to draw up the deed of foundation. When they had signified that they deemed the act permissible, and the consent of the people (in later times of the emperor) had been obtained, the rite was performed in the presence of the whole collegium pontificum. The Pontifex Maximus, whose head was veiled, and with him the representative of the people, took hold of the doorpost with one hand, the former dictating, and the latter repeating after him, the formula of dedication. The people was represented usually by one of the two consuls, or a person, or a commission (generally of two persons) elected by the people on the recommendation of the senate. One of the persons forming the commission was generally the man who had vowed the dedication. The day on which the shrine was dedicated was regarded as the day of its foundation, and was inscribed in the calendar as a festival.
DEIANIRA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Daughter of OEneus king of Calydon, and Althaea. She was the wife of Heracles, whose death was brought about by her jealousy (see HERACLES).
DEIDAMIA	Daughter of Lycomedes, king of Seyros, and mother of Neoptolemus by Achilles.
DEIPHOBUS	Son of Priam and Hecuba, and one of the chief Trojan heroes, next to, Hector, after whose death he was the leader of the Trojan army. It was he and Paris who were said to have slain Achilles. In the later story he is the husband of Helen, after Paris' death, and is betrayed by her to Menelaus n the taking of Troy. According to Homer's account he was surprised by Odysseus and Menelaus in his own house, and overcome only after a hard struggle.
DELIA	The festival of Apollo held every five years at the island of Delos, and visited by ceremonial embassies from all the Greek cities.
DELPHIC ORACLE	A very ancient seat of prophecy at Delphi, originally called Pytho, and situated on the south-western spur of Parnassus in a valley of Phocis. In historical times the oracle appears in possession of Apollo; but the original possessor, according to the story, was Gaia (the Earth). Then it was shared by her with Poseidon, who gave up his part in it to Apollo in exchange for the island of Calauria, Themis, the daughter and successor of Gaia, having already given Apollo her share. According to the Homeric hymn to the Pythian Apollo, the god took forcible possession of the oracle soon after his birth, slaying with his earliest bow-shot the serpent Pytho, the son of Gaia, who guarded the spot. To atone for his murder, Apollo was forced to fly and spend eight years in menial service before he could return forgiven. A festival, the Septeria, was held every year, at which the whole story was represented: the slaying of the serpent, and the flight, atonement, and return of the god. Apollo was represented by a boy, both of whose parents were living. The dragon was symbolically slain, and his house, decked out in costly fashion, was burnt. Then the boy's followers hastily dispersed, and the boy was taken in procession to Tempe, along the road formerly followed by the god. Here he was purified and brought back by the same road , accompanied by a chorus of maidens singing songs of joy. The oracle proper was a cleft in the ground in the innermost sanctuary, from which arose cold vapours, which had the power of inducing ecstasy. Over the cleft stood a lofty gilded tripod of wood. On this was a circular, slab, upon which the seat of the prophetess was placed. The prophetess, called Pythia, was a maiden of honourable birth; in earlier times a young girl, but in a later age a woman of over fifty, still wearing a girl's dress, in memory of the earlier custom. In the prosperous times of the oracle two Pythias acted alternately, with a third to assist them. In the earliest times the Pythia ascended the tripod only once a year, on the birthday of Apollo, the seventh of the Delphian spring month Bysios. But in later years she prophesied every day, if the day itself and the sacrifices were not unfavourable. These sacrifices were offered by the supplicants, adorned with laurel crowns and fillets of wool. Having prepared herself by washing and purification, the Pythia entered the sanctuary, with gold ornaments in her hair, and flowing robes upon her; she drank of the water of the fountain Cassotis, which flowed into the shrine, tasted the fruit of the old bay tree standing in the chamber, and took her seat. No one was present but a priest, called the Prophetes, who explained the words she uttered in her ecstasy, and put them into metrical form, generally hexameters. In later times the votaries were contented with answers in prose. The responses were often obscure and enigmatical, and couched in ambiguous and metaphorical expressions, which themselves needed explanation. The order in which the applicants approached the oracle was determined by lot, but certain cities, as Sparta, had the right of priority. The reputation of the oracle stood very high throughout Greece until the time of the Persian wars, especially among the Dorian tribes, and among them re-eminently the Spartans, who had stood from of old in intimate relation with it. On all important occasions, as the sending out of colonies, the framing of internal legislation or religious ordinances, the god of Delphi was consulted, and that not only by Greeks but by foreigners, especially the people of Asia and Italy. After the Persian wars the influence of the oracle declined, partly in consequence of the growth of unbelief, partly from the mistrust excited by the partiality and venality of the priesthood. But it never fell completely into discredit, and from time to time its position rose again. In the first half of the 2nd century A.D. it had a revival, the result of the newly awakened interest in the old religion. It was abolished at the end of the 4th century A.D. by Theodosius the Great. The oldest stone temple of Apollo was attributed to the mythical architects, Trophonius and Agamedes. It was burnt down in 548 B.C., when the Alcmaeonidae, at that time in exile from Athens, undertook to rebuild it for the sum of 300 talents, partly taken from the treasure of the temple, and partly contributed by all countries inhabited by Greeks and standing in connexion with the oracle. They put the restoration into the hands of the Corinthian architect Spintharus, and carried it out in a more splendid style than was originally agreed upon, building the front of Parian marble instead of limestone. The groups of sculpture in the pediments represented, on the eastern side, Apollo with Artemis, Leto, and the Muses; on the western side, Dionysus with the Thyiades and the setting sun; for Dionysus was worshipped here in winter during the imagined absence of Apollo. These were all the work of Praxias and Androsthenes, and were finished about 430 B.C. The temple was, on account of its vast extent, a hypaethral building; that is, there was no roof over the space occupied by the temple proper. The architecture of the exterior was Doric, of the interior Ionic, as may still be observed in the surviving ruins. On the walls of the entrance-hall were short texts written in gold, attributed to the Seven Wise Men. One of these was the celebrated "Know Thyself." In the temple proper stood the golden statue of Apollo, and in front of it the sacrificial hearth with the eternal fire. Near this was a globe of marble covered with fillets, the Omphalos or centre of the earth. In earlier times two eagles stood at its side, representing the two eagles which fable said had been sent out by Zeus at the same moment from the eastern and western ends of the world. These eagles were carried off in the Phocian war, and their place filled by two eagles in mosaic on the floor. Behind this space was the inner shrine, lying lower, in the form of a cavern over the cleft in the earth. Within the spacious precincts (peribolos), stood a great number of chapels, statues, votive offerings and treasure-houses of the various Greek states, in which they deposited their gifts to the sanctuary, especially the tithes of the booty taken in war. Here, too, was the council chamber of the Delphians. Before the entrance to the temple was the great altar for burnt-offerings, and the golden tripod, dedicated by the Greeks after the battle of Plataea, on a pedestal of brass, representing a snake in three coils. [The greater part of this pedestal now stands in the Hippodrome, or Atmeidan, at Constantinople.] Besides the treasures accumulated in the course of time, the temple had considerable property in land, with a population consisting mainly of slaves (hierodouloi), bound to pay contributions and to render service to the sanctuary. The management of the property was in the hands of priests chosen from the noble Delphian families, at their head the five Hosioi or consecrated ones. Since the first spoliation of the temple by the Phocians in 355 B.C., it was several times plundered on a grand scale. Nero, for instance, is said to have carried off 500 bronze statues. Yet some 3,000 statues were to be seen there in the time of the elder Pliny. [See an article on the Delphic temple by Professor Middleton, Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix 282-322.]
DELPHINIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A festival held at Athens in honour of Apollo as the god of spring. The Delphinion was a sanctuary of the Delphian Apollo at Athens. (See EPHETAe.)
DEMETER	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Daughter of Cronus and Rhea. Her name signifies Mother Earth, the meaning being that she was goddess of agriculture and the civilization based upon it. Her children are, by Iasion, a son Plutus, the god of riches, and by her brother Zeus, a daughter Persephone. Round Demeter and this daughter centre her worship and the fables respecting her. Hfid6s carries off Persephone, and Demeter wanders nine days over the earth seeking her, till on the tenth day she learns the trutb from the all-seeing sun. She is wrath with Zeus for permitting the act of violence, and she visits Olympus and wanders about among men in the form of an old woman under the name of Deo or the Seeker, till at length, at Elensis, in Attica, she is kindly received at the house of king Celeus, and finds comfort in tend ing his newly born son Demophoon. Surprised by his mother in the act of trying to make the child immortal by putting it in the fire, she reveals her deity, and causes a temple to he built to her, in which she gives herself up to her grief. In her wrath she makes the earth barren, so that man kind are threatened with destruction by famine, as she does not allow the fruit of the earth to spring up again until her daughter is allowed to spend two-thirds of the year with her. On her return to Olympus she leaves the gift of corn, of agriculture, and of her holy mysteries with her host, as a token of grateful recollection. She sends Triptolemus the Eleusinian round the world on her chariot, drawn by serpents, to diffuse the knowledge of agriculture and other blessings accompanying it, the settlement of fixed places of abode, civil order, and wedlock. Thus Demeter was worshipped as the goddess of agriculture and foundress of law, order, and especially of marriage, in all places where Greeks dwelt, her daughter being usually associated with her. (See THESMOPHORIA.) The most ancient seat of her worship was Athens and Eleusis, where the Rharian plain was solemnly ploughed every year in memory of the first sowing of wheat. She was also much worshipped in Sicily, which from its fertility was accounted one of her favourite places of abode (see ELEUSINIA). As the goddess of fertility, Demeter was in many regions associated with Poseidon, the god of fertilizing water. This was particularly the case in Arcadia, where Poseidon was regarded as the father of Persephone. She was also joined with Dionysus, the god of wine, and, as mother of Persephone and goddess of the earth, to which not only the seed, but the dead are committed, she is connected with the lower world under the name of Chthonia. In later times she was often confused with Gaia and Rhea, or Cybele. Besides fruit and honeycombs, the cow and the sow were offered to her, both as emblems of productivity. Her attributes are poppies and ears of corn (also a symbol of fruitfulness), a basket of fruit and a little pig. Other emblems had a mystic significance, as the torch and the serpent, as living in the earth, and as symbolizing a renewal of life by shedding its skin. The Romans identified her with their own Ceres.
DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS	(of Phalerum, on the coast S.W. of Athens). He was born about 345 B.C., was a pupil of Theophrastus, and an adherent of the Peripatetic school. He was distinguished as a statesman, orator and scholar. His reputation induced Cassander to put him at the head of the Athenian state in 317 B.C. For ten years he administered its affairs, and so thoroughly won the affection of his fellow-citizens that they erected numerous statues to him, as many as 360, according to the accounts, On the approach of Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 B.C., he was deposed, and through the efforts of his opponents condemned to death by the fickle populace. On this he fled to Egypt, to the court of Ptolemy the First, who received him kindly and availed himself of his counsel. Thus Demetrius is credited with having suggested the foundation of the celebrated Alexandrian library. But Ptolemy withdrew his favour from him and banished him to Upper Egypt, where he died in 283 B.C. from the bite of a venomous snake. He was very active as, a writer, and his stay in Egypt gave him plenty of leisure to indulge his taste; but only a few fragments of his works have survived. An essay On Rhetorical Expression, formerly attributed to him, was in reality from the hand of a Demetrius who lived in the 1st century A.D. As an orator Demetrius is said to have been attractive rather than powerful. He was supposed to have been the first speaker who gave rhetorical expression an artificial character, and also the first who introduced into the rhetorical schools the habit of practising speaking upon fictitious themes, juristic or political.
DEMINUTIO CAPITIS	(diminution of civil rights and legal capacity.) This was the term by which the Romans denoted degradation into an inferior civil condition, through the loss of the rights of freedom, citizenship or family. The extreme form of it, deminutio capitis maxima, was entailed by the loss of freedom, which involved the loss of all other rights. This would occur if a Roman citizen were taken prisoner in war, or given up to the enemy for having violated the sanctity of an ambassador, or concluding a treaty not approved of by the people. Or again if he was sold into slavery, whether by the State for refusing military service, or declining to state the amount of his property at the census, or by his creditors for debt. If a prisoner of war returned home, or if the enemy refused to accept him when given up to them, his former civil rights were restored. The intermediate stage, deminutio capitis media or minor, consisted in loss of civil rights consequent on becoming citizen of another state, or on a decree of exile confirmed by the people, or (in imperial times) on deportation. Restoration of the civil status was possible if the foreign citizenship were given up, or if the decree of exile were cancelled. The lowest grade (deminutio capitis minima) was the loss of hitherto existing family rights by emancipation (which involved leaving the family), adoption, or (in the case of a girl) by marriage.
DEMIURGI	A general term among the Greeks or tradesmen, among whom they included artists and physicians. In old times they formed, at Athens, the third order, the other two being the Eupatridae and Geomori (see these names). In some states demiurgi was the name of the public officials; in the Achaean League, for instance, the ten demiurgi were among the highest officers of the confederacy.
DEMOCRATIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Greek term for the form of constitution in which all citizens had the right of taking part in the government. This right was not always absolutely equal. Sometimes classes were formed on a property qualification, and civil rights conferred accordingly (see TIMOCRATIA); but no class in this case was absolutely excluded from a share in the government, and it was possible to rise from one class to another. Sometimes provision was made by law to prevent any person taking part in the administration but such as had proved their worth and capacity. In the absence of such limitations the democracy, as Plato in his Republic and Aristotle in his Politics observed, soon degenerated into a mob-government (ochlocratia), or developed into a despotism.
DEMOCRITUS	A Greek philosopher born at Abdera in Thrace about 460 B.C. His father, who had entertained king Xerxes for some time during his expedition against Greece, left him a very considerable property, which he spent in making long journeys into Egypt and Asia. On his return he held aloof from all public business, and devoted himself entirely to his studies. He was more than a hundred years old at his death, and left behind him a number of works on ethics, physics, astronomy, mathematics, art, and literature, written in an attractive and animated manner. We have the titles of some of his writings; but only scanty fragments remain. Democritus was the most learned Greek before Aristotle. In the history of philosophy he has a special importance, as the real founder of what is called the Atomic Theory, or the doctrine that the universe was formed out of atoms. It is true that his master Leucippus had already started the same idea. According to this theory there are in the universe two fundamental principles, the Full and the Void. The Full is formed by the atoms, which are primitive bodies of like quality but different form, innumerable, indivisible, indestructible. Falling forever through the infinite void, the large and heavier atoms overtake and strike upon the smaller ones, and the oblique and circular motions thence arising are the beginning of the formation of the world. The difference of things arises from the fact that atoms differ in number, size, form and arrangement. The soul consists of smooth round atoms resembling those of fire; these are the nimblest, and in their motion, penetrating the whole body, produce the phenomena of life. The impressions on the senses arise from the effect produced in our senses by the fine atoms which detach themselves from the surface of things. Change is in all cases nothing but the union or separation of atoms. The ethics of Democritus are based on the theory of happiness, and by happiness the means the serenity of the mind, undisturbed by fear or by anything else. The control of the appetites, attainable by temperance and self-culture, is the necessary condition of this. To do good for its own sake, without the influence of fear or hope, is the only thing which secures inward contentment. The system of Epicurus is, of all other ancient systems, the most closely connected with that of Democritus.
DEMOPHOON	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Celeus of Eleusis and Metanira. He was tended in infancy by Demeter, when, in her search for Persephone, she came to Eleusis in the form of an old woman. Demeter found comfort in the care of the child, and wished to confer immortality on him by anointing him with ambrosia and holding him at night over the fire. The interference of the mother, however, prevented the fulfilment of her design (see DEMETER). Triptolemus in some versions takes the place of Demophoon (see TRIPTOLEMUS).
DEMOPHOON	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Theseus and Phaedra. With his brother Acamas he was committed by Theseus to Elephenor, prince of the Abantes in Eubaea. This was at the time when Theseus, on his return from the lower regions, found Menestheus in possession of the sovereignty of Attica, and was anxious to emigrate to Scyros. In the post-Homeric story Demophoon and Acamas march to Troy with their protector Elephenor. After the conquest of the city they liberate their grandmother Aethra, and take possession again of their father's kingdom, as Menestheus, who in Homer is the chief of the Athenians before Troy, had fallen there (see AeTHRA). When Diomedes was thrown upon the coast of Attica on his return from Troy, and began to plunder it in ignorance of where he was, Demophoon took the Palladium from him. Subsequently he protected the children of Heracles against the persecutions of Eurystheus, and killed the latter in battle. On his return from Troy he had betrothed himself to Phyllis, daughter of the king of Thrace. On the day appointed for the marriage he did not appear, and Phyllis hanged herself and was changed into a tree.
DEMOS	A Greek word meaning: (1) the people, either in contrast with a despot or the nobility, or as the depository of supreme power. (2) a district or region. Thus in the Athenian state the demes were the hundred administrative districts formed by Clisthenes, of which ten were contained in each of the ten tribes or phylae. The demes were named after the small towns and hamlets, and sometimes from distinguished families living there and owning property at the time of the division. In course of time the number of the demes increased through extension and division, so that in the age of Augustus it amounted to 174. According to the original arrangement all persons who belonged to a deme lived in its precincts. The descendants belonged to the same demes as their ancestors, even though they neither lived nor owned property there. To pass from one deme to another was only possible by adoption. To own property in a strange deme it was necessary to pay a special tax to it. As every citizen was obliged to belong to a deme, the complete official description of him included the name of his deme as well as of his father. Every deme had certain common religious rites, presided over by special priests. The demotae, or members of a deme, had also a common property, a common chest for receiving the rents and taxes, common officers with a demarchus at their head, and common meetings for the discussion of common interests, elections, and so forth. At these meetings the names of the young citizens of eighteen years old were written in the registers of the deme, and after two years were enrolled in the lists of persons qualified to take part in the meetings. It was also at these assemblies that the regular revision of the lists of Athenian citizens took place.
DEMOSTHENES
DENARIUS
DEPORTATIO	Banishment to a specified locality, generally an island. This form of exile was devised under the early Roman emperors. It involved loss of civil rights, and generally also of property.
DEUCALION	In Greek mythology, the son of Prometheus and Clymene, husband of Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus, monarch of Phthia in Thessaly. Zeus having resolved to destroy the degenerate race of mankind by a great flood, Deucalion, by the advice of his father, built a wooden chest, in which he rescued only himself and his wife from the general destruction. After nine days be landed on Mount Parnassus and sacrificed to Zeus Phyxios (who sends help by flight). Inquiring of the oracle of Themis at Delphi how the human race could be renewed, be received answer that Pyrrha and he should veil their heads, and throw behind them the bones of their mother. They understood the priestess to refer to stones, which they accordingly threw behind them; and the stones of Deucalion turned into men, those of Pyrrha into women. With this new race Deucalion founded a kingdom in Locris, where the grave of Pyrrha was shown. That of Deucalion was said to be visible at Athens in the ancient temple of the Olympian Zeus, which he was supposed to have built.
DEVERRA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 One of the three goddesses worshipped among the Italian tribes. She was supposed to protect new-born children and their mothers against disturbance from the god Silvanus (see PICUMNUS).
DEVOTIO	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A religious ceremony, by virtue of which a general, whose army was in distress, offered up as an atonement to the gods below, and a means of averting their wrath, the army, city, and land of the enemy; or some soldier in the Roman army; or even himself, as was the case with the Decli. The general, standing on a spear and with veiled head, repeated a solemn formula dictated to him by the Pontifex. If the city and land of the enemy were offered, the gods were solemnly invited to burn the land or city (See EVOCATIO). The fate of the devoted person was left in the hands of the gods. If he survived, an image at least seven feet high was buried in the ground and a bloody sacrifice offered over it; he was meanwhile hold incapable in future of performing any other religious rite, either on his own behalf or on that of the state.
DIADEM	The white fillet round the brow which was the emblem of sovereignty from the time of Alexander the Great. Caesar refused it when offered him by Antonius, and it was not, in consequence, worn by the Roman emperors, except in a few cases. But when the seat of government was removed to Byzantium, Constantine adopted the Greek emblem of royalty.
DIAETETAE	Public arbitrators, to whom the parties in a private suit might apply if they wished to avoid a trial before the Heliastae. For this object a considerable number of citizens 60 years of age were nominated. The received no salary, but a feet of a drachma (about 8d.) from each party, and as much from the complainant for every adjournment. In case of misconduct they could be called to account. The Diaetetae were assigned to the parties by lot by the magistrate who (according to the character of the case) would have presided in the court of the Heliaea. To this magistrate (in case the parties did not appeal to the Heliaea against it), the Diaetetes handed in the sentence he had delivered as the result of his investigation, to have it signed and published, and thus made legal. The name of Diaetetae was also given to private arbitrators named by agreement between the parties on the understanding that their decision was to be accepted without appeal.
DIANA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 An ancient Italian deity, whose name is the feminine counterpart of Ianus. She was the goddess of the moon, of the open air, and open country, with its mountains, forests, springs and brooks, of the chase, and of childbirth. In the latter capacity she, like Juno, bore the second title of Lucina. Thus her attributes were akin to those of the Greek Artemis, and in the course of time she was completely identified with her and with Hecate, who resembled her. The most celebrated shrine of Diana was at Aricia in a grove (nemus), from which she was sometimes simply called Nemorensis. This was on the banks of the modern lake of Nemi, which was called the mirror of Diana. Here a male deitynamed Virbius was worshipped with her,a god of the forest and the chase. He was in later times identified with Hippolytus, the risen favourite of Artemis, and the oldest priest of the sanctuary (Rex Nemorensis). He was said to have originated the custom of giving the priest's office to a runaway slave, who broke off a branch from a particular tree in the precincts, and slew his predecessor in office in single combat. In consequence of this murderous custom the Greeks compared Diana of Aricia with the Tauric Artemis, and a fable arose that Orestes bad brought the image of that god into the grove. Diana was chiefly worshipped by womell, who prayed to her for happiness in marriage or childbirth. The most considerable temple of Diana at Rome was in the Aventine, founded by Servius Tullius as the sanctuary of the Latin confederacy. On the day of its foundation (August 13) the slaves had a holiday. This Diana was completely identified with the sister of Apollo, and worshipped simply as Artemis at the Secular Games. A sign of the original difference however remained. Cows were offered to the Diana of the Aventine, and her temple adorned with cows, not with stags' horns, but it was the doe which was sacred to Artemis (see ARTEMIS).
DIASIA	A festival of atonement held by the whole population of Attica, on the 23rd of Anthesterion (February to March), to Zeus Meilichios (the Zeus of propitiatory offerings). The offerings were bloodless, and consisted chiefly of cakes.
DIAZOMATA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The broad passages in the Greek theatre, which horizontally divided the successive row of seats into two or three flights (see THEATRE.)
DICAEARCHUS	A Greek philosopher and author, a disciple of Aristotle. He was born at Messana in Sicily, but lived mostly in Greece, and especially in the Peloponnese. He was the author of many works on geography, history, politics" and philosophy. One of his most important works was The Life of Hellas, in three books, which contained an account of the geography of Greece, its political development and the condition of its various states, its public and private life, its theatre, games, religions, etc. Only fragments of it remain. [The De Re Publica of Cicero is supposed, with good reason, to be founded upon a work by Dicaearchus.] A badly written description of Greece, in 150 iambic senarii, bears the name of Dicaearchus, but (as the acrostic at the beginning shows) is really from the band of a certain Dionysius, son of Calliphon. Three interesting and not unimportant fragments of a work on The Cities of Greece have also been wrongly attributed to him. Their real author appears to have been an unknown writer named Heraclides, who flourished 280 B.C.
DICE	Games with dice were of high antiquity and very popular among the Greeks. They were usually played on a board with a vessel called a tower (pyrgos, turricula, fritillus, etc.), narrower at the top than at the bottom, and fitted inside with gradually diminishing shelves. There were two kinds of games. In the first, three dice (kybos, tessera), and in later times two were used. These were shaped like our dice and were marked on the opposite sides with the dote 1-6, 2-5, 3-4. The game was decided by the highest throw, and each throw had a special name. The best (3 or 4 x 6) was called Aphrodite or Venus, the worst (3 x 1) the dog (kyon or canis). In the second, four dice (astragalos or talus) were used, made of the bones of oxen, sheep or goats, or imitations of them in metal or ivory. They had four long sides, two of which, one concave and the other convex, were broad, and the other two narrow, one being more contracted than the other, and two pointed ends, on which they could not stand, and which therefore were not counted. The two broad sides were marked 3 and 4; of the narrow sides the contracted one was marked 6, and the wider one 1, so that 2 and 5 were wanting. As in the other game, so here, every possible throw had its name. The luckiest throw (Venus) was four different numbers, 1, 3, 4, 6; the unluckiest (canis) four aces. Dicing as a game of hazard was early forbidden in Rome, and only allowed at the Saturnalia. The penalty was a fine and infamia. The aediles were responsible for preventing dicing in taverns. If a private individual allowed it in his house, he had no legal remedy for any irregularities that might occur. In spite of this, dicing was quite common at drinking bouts, especially under the empire. Indeed some emperors, e.g. Claudius, were passionate players. Others however did their best to check the evil. Justinian went so far as to allow a claim for the recovery of money lost at play.
DICTATOR	The Latin term for a magistrate appointed for special emergencies, after auspices duly taken by the consuls on the commission of the senate. The dictator was never eapgointed for more than six months. The first instance of the appointment occurred in 501 B.C. The dictator was usually, though not always, chosen from the number of consulares or men who had hold the office of consul. No plebeian was elected before 356 B.C. He was always nominated for a particular or specified purpose, on the fulfilment of which he laid down his office. He combined the supreme judicial with the supreme military power, and there was, originally, no appeal against his proceedings, even the veto of the tribunes being powerless against him. He was entirely irresponsible for his acts, and could therefore not be called to account on the expiration of his term of office. His insignia were the sella curulis, toga proetexta, and 24 lictors, who represented the lictors of two consuls, and who even in the city bore axes in their bundle of rods, as a sign of the unlimited power of life and death. His assistant was the magister equitum (master of the horse), who was bound absolutely to obey his commands, and whom he had to nominate immediately after his own election. The original function of the dictator was military; but after 363 B.C. a dictator was occasionally chosen, in the absence of the consuls, for other purposes than dealing with external danger or internal troubles; especially to hold the games or religious festivities. The office gradually passed out of use, though not legally abolished. The last military dictator was appointed in 206 B.C., the last absolutely in 202 B.C. The dictatorships of Sulla and Caesar, who was named perpetual dictator not long before his death, were anti-republican and unconstitutional. After Caesar was murdered in 44 B.C., the office was abolished for ever by a law of Marcus Antonius.
DICTYMNA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A goddess of the sea, worshipped in Crete. (See BRITOMARTIS.)
DICTYS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Dictys of Gnossos in Crete. Alleged to have been the companion of Idomeneus in the Trojan war, and author of a diary recording his experiences therein. The diary, written in Phoenician on palm leaves, was said to have been found in a leaden box in his grave in the time of Nero, and to have been translated into Greek at that emperor's command. The existence of this Greek version was doubted, but a certain Lucius Septimius, of the 4th century A.D., gave out his Dictys Cretensis Ephemeris De Bello Troiano as a translation of it. This book, and the equally absurd one of Dares (see DARES), were the chief authorities followed by the mediaeeval poets who handled the story of Troy.
DICTYS	A poor fisherman on the island of Seriphus, who gave welcome to Danae and her son Perseus.
DIDASCALIA	A Greek word meaning (1) The performance of a drama. (2) The pieces brought forward for performance at a dramatic entertainment. (3) A board hung up in the theatre, with short notices as to the time and place of the contest, the competing poets, their plays and other successes, perhaps also the Choregi, and the most celebrated actors. These, documents, so important for the history of the drama, were first collected and arranged by Aristotle, whose example was followed by the Alexandrian scholars Callimachus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and others. From these writings, also called didascaliae, but now unfortunately lost, come the scanty notices preserved by grammarians and scholiasts upon the particular tragedies and comedies. Following the example of the Greeks the Romans provided the dramas of their own poets with didascaliae, as for instance those attached to the comedies of Terence and the Stichus of Plautus.
DIDO	Properly a surname of the Phoenician goddess of the moon, the wandering Astarte, who was also the goddess of the citadel of Carthage. The name of this goddess and some traits of her story were transferred to Elissa, daughter of the Tyrian king Mutton (the Belus or Agenor of the Greeks). Elissa came from Tyre to Africa, where she founded Carthage. She, was flying from her brother Pygmalion, the murderer of her husband and paternal uncle Sicharbaal or Sicharbas (called in Greek Acerbas and in Latin Sychaeus). To escape wedding the barbarian king Iarbas she erected a funeral pyre and stabbed herself upon it. According to the later story, followed or invented by Vergil, the tragedy was due to her despair at her desertion by Aeneas.
DIDYMUS	One of the most celebrated, Greek scholars of antiquity. He was born, at Alexandria in 63 B.C., but lived and taught in Rome. He was one of the chief representatives of the school of Aristarchus. He is said to have been the author of more than 3,500 works, and from his own industry and gigantic power of work was called Chalkenteros (the man with bowels of brass). Homer was the chief subject of his researches. His greatest work was a treatise of extraordinary care upon Aristarchus' edition of Homer, extracts from which are preserved in the Venetian Scholia to Homer. He wrote commentaries, not only on Homer, but on Hesiod, the lyric and dramatic poets, and the Attic orators, besides monographs and works of reference on literary history. The most valuable part of the information handed down in the grammatical lexicons and commentaries of the Byzantines is to be referred to him.
DIIPOLIA	A festival celebrated in Athens on the 14th Scirophorion (June to July), to Zeus as the protector of the city. It was also called Buphonia, from the sacrifice of an ox connected with it. A labouring ox was led to the altar of Zeus in the Acropolis, which was strewn with wheat and barley. As soon as the ox touched the consecrated grain, he was punished by a blow on the neck from an axe, delivered by a priest of a particular family, who instantly threw away the axe and took to flight. In his absence the axe was brought to judgment in the Prytaneum, and condemned, as a thing polluted by murder, to be thrown into the sea. To kill a labouring ox, the trusty helper of man, was rigidly forbidden by custom. In the exceptional sacrifice of one at this festival, the ancient custom may be regarded as on the one hand excusing the slaughter, and on the other insisting that it was, nevertheless, equivalent to a murder.
DILECTUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The levying of soldiers for military service among the Romans. In the republican age all the citizens who were liable to service assembled in the Capitol on the day previously notified by the Consuls in their edictum, or proclamation. The twenty-four tribuni militum were first divided among the four legions to be levied. Then one of the tribes was chosen by lot, and the presence of the citizens ascertained by calling the names according to the lists of the several tribes. The calling was always opened with names of good omen (see OMEN). If a man did not appear, he would be punished according to circumstances, by a fine, confiscation of property, corporal punishment, even by being sold into slavery. Four men of equal age and bodily capacity were ordered to come forward, and distributed among the four legions, then another four, and so on, that each legion got men of equal quality. As the proceeding was the same with the other tribes, each legion had a quarter of the levy for each tribe. No one man was excused (vacatio) from service unless he was over 46 years of age, or bad served the number of campaigns prescribed by law, twenty in the infantry, ten in the cavalry, or held a city office or priesthood, or had a temporary or perpetual dispensation granted on account of special business of state. In ancient times the levy of the cavalry followed that of the infantry, in later times it preceded it. On the oath taken after the levy see SACRAMENTUM. About the year 100 B.C. Marius procured the admission of the capite censi, or classes without property, to military service (see PROLETARII). After this the legions were chiefly made up out of this class by enlistment; and though the liability to common military service still existed for all citizens, the wealthy citizens strove to relieve themselves of it, the more so, as after Marius the time of service was extended from twenty campaigns to twenty years. In 89 B.C. the Roman citizenship was extended to all the inhabitants of Italy, and all, therefore, became liable to service. The levies were in consequence not held exclusively in Rome, but in all Italy, by conquisitores. These functionaries, though they continued to use the official lists of qualified persons, assumed more and more the character of recruiting officers. They were ready to grant the vacatio, or exemption, for money or favour, and anxious to get hold of volunteers by holding out promises. The legal liability to military service continued to exist in imperial times, but after the time of Augustus it was only enforced in regard to the garrison at Rome, and on occasions of special necessity. The army had become a standing one, and even outside of Italy, except when a special levy of now legions was made, the vacancies caused by the departure of the soldiers who had served their time were filled up by volunteers. The levy was carried out by imperial commissioners (dilectatores), whose business it was to test the qualifications of the recruits. These were, Roman citizenship-for only citizens were allowed to serve, whether in the legions, or in the guard and other garrison cohorts of Rome (Cohortes Urbanae)-physical capacity, and a certain height, the average of which was 5 feet 10 inches under the empire. For the republican age we have no information on this point.
DINARCHUS	The last of the ten great Attic orators. He was born at Corinth about 361 B.C., and came early to Athens, where he became the pupil and friend of Theophrastus and Demetrius of Phalerum. After B.C. 336, and especially after the death of the great orators, he acquired wealth and reputation by writing speeches for others. He was involved in the ruin of his patron, Demetrius, and in 307 went into voluntary exile at Chalcis in Euboea. It was fifteen years before he obtained permission to return, through the good offices of Theophrastus. Robbed of his property by the treachery of a friend, and nearly blind, he died at Athens, more than 70 years old. His speeches, which were very numerous (there were at least fifty-eight), are all lost, except three on the trial of Harpalus, one of which is directed against Demosthenes. They do not give a favourable idea of his powers. In the opinion of the ancients his style had no individuality, but was an unsuccessful imitation, at one time of Lysias, at another of Hyperides, at another of Demosthenes.
DINOCRATES	A Greek architect, a native of Macedonia, who flourished in the second half of the 4th century B.C., and was thus a contemporary of Alexander the Great. On the commission of Alexander he superintended the foundation of Alexandria, and erected the funeral pyre of Hephaestion, celebrated for its boldness and splendour. He is also said to have restored the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, burnt down by Herostratus. An idea of the boldness of his conceptions may be gathered from the fact that he proposed to represent Mount Athos in human form, with a city in one hand, and in the other a vessel from which the waters of the mountain flowed into the sea.
DINOLOCHUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 See COMEDY.
DIOCLETIAN, EDICT OF	[An edict published by the Emperor Diocletian about 303 A.D., directing those engaged in the sale of provisions not to exceed certain fixed prices in times of scarcity. It is preserved in an inscription in Greek and Latin on the outer wall of the cella of a temple at Stratonicea (Eski-hissar) in Caria. It states the price of many varieties of provisions, and these inform us of their relative value at the time. The provisions specified include not only the ordinary food of the people, but also a number of articles of luxury. Thus mention is made of several kinds of honey, of hams, sausages, salt and fresh-water fish, asparagus and beans, and even pernae Menapicae (Westphalian hams). At the time when the edict was published the denarius was obviously much reduced in value, that coin appearing as the equivalent of a single oyster. The inscription was first copied by Sherard in 1709; it has been elaborately edited by M. Waddington, with new fragments and a commentary, 1864; and by Mommsen in the third volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latindrum. Portions of the Greek copy and the Latin preamble were found at Plataea in 1888-9 during the explorations of the American School of Classical Archaeology. In 1890, during the excavations of the British School of Archaeology, several hundred lines of the Greek version of the decree were discovered at Megalopolis, including a list of pigments with their prices. It has been edited anew by Mommsen and Blumner, 1893. - J. E. S.]
DIODORUS	surnamed Siculus, or the Sicilian. A Greek historian, native of Agyrion, in Sicily, who lived in the times of Julius Caeesar and Augustus. After thirty years preparation, based upon the results yielded by long travels in Asia and Europe, and the use of the plentiful materials supplied by residence in Rome, he wrote his Bibliotheca, an Universal History in 40 books, extending over a period of some 1,100 years, from the oldest time to 60 B.C. In the first six books he treated the primitive history and mythology of the Egyptians, the natives of Asia, and Africa, slid the Hellenes. The next eleven embraced the period from the Trojan war to the death of Alexander the Great. The remaining 23 brought the history down to the beginning of Caesar's struggle with Gaul. We still possess books 1-5 and 11-20 (from the Persian War under Xerxes to 302 B.C.), besides fragments, partly considerable, of the other books. In the early books his treatment is ethnographical; but from the seventh book onwards, in the strictly historical part of his work, he writes like an annalist narrating all the events of one year at a time, with emphasis on the more important ones. It is obvious that this proceeding must rob the history of all its inner connection. He has other weaknesses. He is incapable of seizing the individual characteristics either of nations or of individuals, and contents himself with giving anecdotes and unconnected details. He follows his authorities blindly, without any attempt to criticize their statements. Then his work falls far short of the ideal which he himself sets up in his introduction. But it is none the less of great value as being one of the main authorities for many parts of ancient history, especially that affecting Sicily. In his style Diodorus aims at clearness and simplicity.
DIOGENES LAERTIUS	A Greek author, who flourished about 150 A.D., the author of a work, in ten books, on the lives and doctrines of celebrated Greek philosophers. It is an uncritical compilation from books of earlier and later date, but the richness of the material gathered from lost writings gives it inestimable value for the history of philosophy. Books 1-7 embrace the Ionic philosophers from Thales onwards, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics down to Chrysippus. Books 8, 9 treat of the philosophers whom he includes under the name of Italian, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, the Eleatics and Atomists, Protagoras, Pyrrho and Epicurus, to the last of whom the whole tenth book is devoted.
DIOGENIANUS	A Greek grammarian of Heraclea. In the middle of the 2nd century A.D. he made extracts in five books from the great collection of stories compiled about a century before by Pamphilus. These extracts form the foundation of the lexicon of Hesichius. A collection of proverbs made by him is preserved in an abridged form.
DIOMEDES	A Roman writer on grammar of the last part of the 4th century A.D. He was the author of an Ars Grammatica, in three books, founded on the same ancient authorities as the work of his contemporary Charisius, with whom lie often agrees verbatim. His third book derives special value from the notices on literary history taken from Suetonius.
DIOMEDES	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Ares and Cyrene king of the Bistones. (See HERACLES.)
DIOMEDES	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Tydeus and Deipyle, and one of the Epigoni. After the death of his maternal grandfather Adrastus, king of Argos, he led 80 ships against Troy, accompanied by his trusty companions Sthenelus and Euryalus. He appears in Homer, like his father, as a bold, enterprising hero, and a favourite of Athene. In the battle which took place during the absence of Achilles she enables him not only to vanquish all mortals who came in his way, Aeneas among them, but to attack and wound Ares and Aphrodite. On his meeting with Glaucus in the thick of battle, see GLAUCUS 4. When the Achaeans fly from the field, he throws himself boldly in the path of Hector, and is only checked by the lightning of Zeus, which falls in front of his chariot. In the night after the unsuccessful battle he goes out with Odysseus to explore, kills Dolon, the Trojan ap and murders the sleeping Rhesus, king of Thrace, who had just come to Troy, with twelve of his warriors. In the post-Homeric story, he makes his way again, in company with Odysseus, by an underground passage into the acropolis of Troy, and thence steals the Palladium. This, according to one version, he carried to Argos; according to another, it was stolen from him by the Athenian king, Demophoon, on his landing in Attica. After the destruction of Troy, according to Homer, he came safe home on the fourth day of his journey. His wife, Aegiale or Aegialeia (daughter or granddaughter of Adrastus), was, according to the later legend, tempted to unfaithfulness by Aphrodite in revenge for the wounds inflicted on her by Diomedes. To escape the fate of Agamemnon, Diomedes fled from Argos to Aetolia, his father's home, and there avenged his old grandfather OEneus on his oppressors. Hence he was driven by a storm to Italy, to king Daunus of Apulia, who helps him in war against the Messapians, marries his daughter Euippe, and extends his dominion over the plain of Apulia (called after him Campi Diomedei). According to one story, he died in Daunia, in another he returned to Argos, and died there; in a third, he disappeared in the islands in the Adriatic, named, after him, Insulae Diomedeae, his companions being changed into the herons that live there, the birds of Diomedes. Diomedes was worshipped as a hero not only in Greece, but on the Italian coast of the Adriatic, where his name had in all probability become confused in worship with those of the native deities of horse-taming and navigation. The foundation of the Apulian city of Argyrippa (later called Arpi) was specially attributed to him. In his native city, Argos, his shield was carried through the streets with the Palladium at the festival of Athene, and his statue washed in the river Inachus.
DIOMEIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 An Athenian festival in honour of Heracles. (See HERACLES.)
DION	Dio Cassius (or Cassius Dio) Cocceianus. A Greek historian, grandson of Dio Chrysostomos, born at Nicaea, in Bithynia, 155 A.D. He came early to Rome with his father, Cassius Apronianus, a senator and high official. Here he received a careful education. In about 180 A.D. he became a member of the senate, and he was a long time in practice as an advocate. In 194 he was praetor, and afterwards consul. As proconsul he administered in succession the provinces of Africa, Dalmatia, and Pannonia. The strict order which he had maintained in Pannonia had drawn upon him the hatred of the undisciplined praetorians, who demanded his life. Alexander Severus, however, not only shielded him, but nominated him his colleague in the consulship of 229. At the same time he allowed him, for the sake of his own personal safety, to live outside Rome during his term of office. When this had expired the emperor, in consequence of his age and weak health, gave him leave to quit the public service and retire to his native city, where he ended his days. Here he completed his great work on Roman history, from the arrival of Aencas in Italy, to his own consulship in 229 A.D. This he had undertaken at the divine command, communicated to him in a dream. He spent twenty-two years upon it, ten on the preparation, and twelve on the execution. It contained 80 books, divided into decades. It gives only a sketch of the history down to Caesar, but treats the empire in detail, special care being bestowed upon the events contemporary with the writer. Of the first thirty-five books we have only fragments; book 36 (the wars with the pirates and with Mithridates) is mutilated at the beginning; books 37-54 (down to the death of Agrippa) are tolerably complete; books 55-60, which come down to Claudius, are imperfect. The rest are preserved only in fragments, and in the extracts made by Ionnes Xiphilinos, a Byzantine monk of the 12th century. These begin with book 35. The model taken by Dio for imitation was Polybius, whom he only distantly resembles. He often repels the reader by his crawling flattery, his affected dislike of the republican champions, such as Cicero, Brutus, and Cassius, and his gross superstition. But his book is a work of enormous industry, and of great importance, especially for the history of his own time. His narrative is, generally speaking, clear and vivid, and his style is careful.
DION	Dio Chrysostomus, Cocceius. A Greek rhetorician and philosopher, born of a respectable family at Prusa, in Bithynia, about the middle of the 1st century A.D. He began his career by devoting himself to rhetoric. Driven from his native country by domestic intrigues, he lived for a long time in Egypt, where he obtained the favour of the future emperor Vespasian. Afterwards he lived in Rome under Domitian, until he was banished from Italy and Bithynia for his friendship with a person in high place who had incurred the suspicion of the emperor. The period of his banishment he spent, according to the command of the Delphic, oracle, in distant travels through the northern regions of the Roman empire, as far as the Borysthenes, or Dnieper, and the Getae. All this time he was studying philosophy, to which he had previously been avorse, in spite of his friendship with Apollonius of Tyana, His leaning was in the direction of Stoicism. On the accession of his friend Cocceius Nerva (from whom he took the name Cocceius), he returned to Rome, where he spent the remainder of his days, with the exception of a short stay in Prusa. He was greatly honoured both by Nerva and his successor Trajan. His contemporaries called him Chrysostomos ("Golden mouth"), from his powers as a speaker, which he often displayed in public in Rome and elsewhere. Eighty of his speeches survive. They should rather be called essays on topics of philosophy, morals, and politics. He has talent, and refinement, and healthy moral tone. In his style he imitates the best models, especially Plato and Demosthenes, and his writings are on the whole; in spite of many defects, among the best literary productions of that age.
DIONE	In Greek mythology, the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, or, according to another account, of UrInus and Gaia. By Zeus she was mother of Aphrodite, who was herself called Dione. At Dodona she was worshipped in Hera's place as the wife of Zeus. Her name, indeed, expresses in a feminine form the attributes of Zeus, just as the Latin Juno does those of Jupiter, When the oracle of Dodona lost its former importance, Dione was eclipsed by Hera as the wife of Zeus, and came to be regarded as a nymph of Dodona.
DIONYSIUS	Dionysius of Alexandria. A Greek poet of the 2nd century A.D. Two hymns of his have survived, one to the Muse Calliope, the other to Apollo. A special interest attaches to them from the fact that the principle of their composition has been preserved in ancient musical notation.
DIONYSIUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Dionysius Periegetes, or the describer of the earth. A Greek poet whose precise country and date have not been ascertained; it is certain only that he did not live earlier than the imperial age of Rome. His surviving work is a Descriptio Orbis Terrarum, or description of the earth, written in well-turned hexameters, and founded mainly on Eratothenes. This was much read, and translated into Latin by Avienus and Priscian (see these names). To the later Greeks he was the geographer par excellence. The ancient scholia to his book, a paraphrase, and the commentary by Eustathius, testify to the interest which it excited. (On another author of a geographical poem of the same name, see DICAeARCHUS.)
DIONYSIUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A Greek logographos. (See LOGOGRAPHI.)
DIONYSIUS	Dionysius Thrax, or the Thracian. A Greek scholar, so called because his father was a Thracian. He lived at Alexandria, and was a disciple of Aristarchus. About 100 B.C. he wrote the first scientific Greek grammar in existence, on which a high value was set in antiquity. The work has come down to us, though not in its original form.
DIONYSIUS	Dionysius of Hallicarnassus. A Greek scholar and historian. He came to Rome about 30 B.C., and lived there for twenty-two years, probably as a professor of rhetoric, enjoying the society of many men of note. In these circumstances he devoted himself to studying the Roman language and literature, the historical literature in particular. The result of his studies was his Roman Antiquities, finished about 8 B.C., in all probabihty not long before his death. This was a history of Rome from the mythical age to the Punic Wars, with which the work of Polybius begins. There were twenty books, of which we have 1-9 in a complete state, 10 and 11 in great part, but the rest only in fragments. The intention of its author was to give the Greeks a more correct and more favourable idea of the Roman people, and the growth of its power, and thus to reconcile them to the Roman yoke. With this view he sets forth the wisdom and the good qualities of the founders of Rome. The book is founded on a thorough study of the authorities, and, in spite of its rhetorical tone and of many other defects, forms one of our chief sources of information upon ancient Roman history in its internal and external development. The other remaining works of Dionysius are partly on rhetoric, partly on literary criticism. The rhetorical works are: (a) On the Arrangement of Words, or on the different styles of Greek prose structure; (b) a treatise on rhetoric, which has certainly not come down to us in its original form. The critical writings are essays on the ancient Greek classics, particularly the orators, and among them Demosthenes; but also on Aristotle, Plato, and Thucydides. They are in part thrown into the form of letters to contemporary Romans of repute.
DIONYSUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 sometimes Dionysus (Greek). The god of luxuriant fertility, especially as displayed by the vine; and therefore the god of wine. His native place, according to the usual tradition, was Thebes, where he was born to Zeus by Semele, the daughter of Cadmus. Semele was destroyed by the lightning of her lover, and the child was born after six months. Zeus accordingly sewed it up in his thigh till ripe for birth and then gave it over to Ino, the daughter of Semele. (See ATHAMAS.) After her death Hermes took the boy to the nymphs of Mount Nysa, or according to another version, to the Hyades of Dodona, who brought him up, and hid him in a cave away from the anger of Hera. It cannot be ascertained where Mount Nysa was originally supposed to be. In later times the name was transferred to many places where the vine was cultivated, not only in Greece, but in Asia, India, and Africa. When grown up, Dionysus is represented as planting the vine, and wandering through the wide world to spread his worship among men, with his wine-flushed train (thiasos), his nurses and other nymphs, Satyrs, Sileni, and similar woodland deities. Whoever welcomes him kindly, like Icarius in Attica, and CEneus in Aetolia, receives the gift of wine; but those who resist him are terribly punished. For with all his appearance of youth and softness, he is a mighty and irresistible god, strong to work wonders. A whole series of fables is apparently based upon the tradition that in many places, where a serious religious ritual existed, the dissolute worship of Dionysus met with a vigorous resistance. (See LYCURGUS, MINYADAe, PENTHEUS, PRCETUS.) This worship soon passed from the continent of Greece to the wine-growing islands, and flourished pre-eminently at Naxos. Here it was, according to the story, that the god wedded Ariadne. In the islands a fable was current that he fell in with some Tyrrhenian pirates who took him to their ship and put him in chains. But his fetters fell off, the sails and the mast were wreathed in vine and ivy, the god was changed into a lion, while the seamen throw themselves madly into the sea and were turned into dolphins. In forms akin to this the worship of Dionysus passed into Egypt and far into Asia. Hence arose a fable founded on the story of Alexander's campaigns, that the god passed victoriously through Egypt, Syria, and India as far as the Ganges, with his army of Sileni, Satyrs, and inspired women, the Maenades or Bacchantes, carrying their wands (thyrsi) crowned with vines and ivy. Having thus constrained all the world to the recognition of his deity, and having, with Heracles, assisted the gods, in the form of a lion, to victory in their war with the Giants, he was taken to Olympus, where, in Homer, he does not appear. From Olympus be descends to the lower world, whence he brings his mother, who is worshipped with him under the name of Thyone (the wild one), as Leto was with Apollo and Artemis. From his mother he is called Thyoneus, a name which, with others of similar meaning, such as Bacchus, Bromios, Evios, and Iacchos, points to a worship founded upon a different conception of his nature. In the myth with which we have been hitherto concerned, the god appears mainly in the character and surroundings of joy and triumph. But, as the god of the earth, Dionysus belongs, like Persophone, to the world below as well as to the world above. The death of vegetation in winter was represented as the flight of the god into hiding from the sentence of his enemies, or even as his extinction, but he returned again from obscurity, or rose from the dead, to new life and activity. In this conexion he was called Zagreus ("Torn in pieces") and represented as a son of Zeus and his daughter Persephone, or sometimes of Zeus and Demeter. In his childhood he was torn to pieces by the Titans, at the command of the jealous Hera. But every third year, after spending the interval in the lower world, he is born anew. According to the Orphic story, Athene brought her son's heart to Zeus, who gave it to Semele, or swallowed it himself, whereupon the Theban or younger Dionysus was born. The grave of Dionysus was shown at Delphi in the inmost shrine of the temple of Apollo. Secret offerings were brought thither, while the women who were celebrating the feast woke up Licnites; in other words, invoked the new-born god cradled in a winnowing fan, on the neighbouring mountain of Parnassus. Festivals of this kind, in celebration of the extinction and resurrection of the deity, were held by women and girls only, amid the mountains at night, every third year, about the time of the shortest day. The rites, intended to express the excess of grief and joy at the death and reappearance of the god, were wild even to savagery, and the women who performed them were hence known by the expressive names of Bacchae, Maenads, and Thyiades. They wandered through woods and mountains, their flying locks crowned with ivy or snakes, brandishing wands and torches, to the hollow sounds of the drum, and the shrill notes of the flute, with wild dances, and insane cries and jubilation. The victims of the sacrifice, oxen, goats, even fawns and roes from the forest, were killed, torn in pieces and eaten raw, in imitation of the treatment of Zagreus by the Titans. Thrace, and Macedonia, and Asiatic Greece were the scene of the wildest orgies; indeed Thrace seems to be the country of their birth. In Asiatic Greece, it should be added, the worship of Dionysus-Zagreus came to be associated with the equally wild rites of Rhea (Cybele), and Atys, and Sabus or Sabazius. (See SABAZIUS.) In Greece Proper the chief seats of these were Parnassus, with Delphi and its neighbourhood, Baeotia, Argos, and Laconia, and in Baeotia and Laconia especially the mountains Chitaeron and Taygetus. They were also known in Naxos, Crete, and other islands. They seem to have been unknown in Attica, though Dionysus was worshipped at the Eleusinian mysteries with Persephone and Demeter, under the name of Iacchos, as brother or bridegroom of Persephone. But the Attic cycle of national festivals in honour of Dionysus represents the idea of the ancient and simple Hellenic worship, with its merry usages. Here Dionysus is the god who gives increase and luxuriance to vineyard and tree. For he is a kindly and gentle power, terrible only to his enemies, and born for joy and blessing to mankind. His gifts bring strength and healing to the body, gladness and forgetfulness of care to the mind, whence he was called Lyaeos, or the loosener of care, They are ennobling in their effects, for they require tending, and thus keep men employed in diligent labour; they bring them together in merry meetings, and inspire them to music and poetry. Thus it is to the worship of Dionysus that the dithyramb and the drama owe their origin and development. In this way Dionysus is closely related, not only to Demeter, Aphrodite, Eros, the Graces and the Muses, but to Apollo, because he inspires men to prophesy. The most ancient representation of Dionysus consists of wooden images with the phallus, as the symbol of generative power. In works of art he is sometimes represented as the ancient Indian Dionysus, the conqueror of the East. In this character he appears, as in the Vatican statue called Sardanapalus, of high stature, with a luxuriant wealth of hair on head and chin (comp. fig. 1). Sometimes again, as in numerous statues which have survived, he is a youth of soft and feminine shape, with a dreamy expression, his long, clustering hair confined by a fillet or crown of vine or ivy, generally naked, or with a fawn or panther skin thrown lightly over him. He is either reposing or leaning idly back with the Thyrsos, grapes, or a cup in his hand (fig. 2). Often, too, he is surrounded by the fauns of his retinue, Maenads, Satyrs, Sileni, Centaurs, etc., or by Nymphs, Muses, Cupids, indeed in the greatest possible number and variety of situations. (See the engravings.) Besides the vine, ivy, and rose, the panther, lion, lynx, ox, goat, and dolphin were sacred to him. His usual sacrifices were the ox and the goat. In Italy the indigenous god Liber, with a feminine Libera at his side, corresponded to the Greek god of wine. Just as the Italian Ceres was identified with Demeter, so these two deities were identified with Dionysus, or Iakchos, and Persephone, with whom they were worshipped under their native name, but with Greek rites, in a temple on the Aventine. (See CERES.) Liber or Bacchus, like Dionysus, had a country and an urban festival. The country festivities were held, with unrestrained merriment, at the time of grape-gathering and straining off the wine. The urban festival held in Rome on the 17th March, was called Liberalla. Old women, crowned with ivy, sold cheap cakes (liba) of meal, honey, and oil, and burnt them on little pans for the purchasers. The boys took their toga virilis or toga libera on this day, and offered sacrifice on the Capitol. Side by side with this public celebration, a secret worship, the Bacchanalia, found its way to Rome and into the whole of Italy. The Bacchanatia were celebrated by men and women, in Italy outside the cities, in Rome in the sacred enclosure of Stimula or Semele. They were accompanied with such shameless excesses that in 186 B.C. they were put down, with unsparing severity, by a decree of the senate.
DIOPHANTUS	A Greek mathematician of Alexandria, who flourished probably about 360 B.C. He was the author of an Arithmetica in thirteen books, of which littlemore than the first six still remain. The book is the only Greek work upon algebra. Diophantus was the most considerable arithmetician in Greek antiquity.
DIOSCORIDES	A Greek physician and man of science. He flourished about the middle of the 1st century A.D., and was the author of a work De Materia Medica in five books. For nearly 1700 years this book was the chief authority for stu- dents of botany and the science of healing. Two short essays on specifies against vegetable and animal poisons (Alexipharmaca and Theriaca) are appended to it as the sixth and seventh books: but these are probably from the hand of a later Dioscorides of Alexandria. A work on family medicine is also attributed to him, but is not genuine.
DIOSCURI	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 i.e. sons of Zeus, the horsetamer Castor, and Polydeuces (Lat. Pollux) the master of the art of boxing. In Homer they are represented as the sons of Leda and Tyndareos, and called in consequence Tyndaridae, as dying in the time between the rape of Helen and the Trojan War, and as buried in their father-city Lacedaemon. But even under the earth they were alive. Honoured of Zeus, they live and die on alternate days and enjoy the prerogatives of godhead. In the later story sometimes both, sometimes only Polydeuces is the descendant of Zeus. (See LEDA.) They undertake an expedition to Attica, where they set free their sister Helena, whom Theseus has carried off. They take part in the expedition of the Argonauts. (See AMYCUS.) Castor, who had been born mortal, falls in a contest with Idas and Lynceus, the sons of their paternal uncle Aphareus. The fight arose, according to one version, in a quarrel over some cattle which they had carried off; according to another, it was about the rape of two daughters of another uncle Leucippus, Phoebe and Hilaira, who were betrothed to the sons of Aphareus. On his brother's death Polydeuces, the immortal son of Zeus, prays his father to let him die too. Zeus permits him to spend alternately one day among the gods his peers, the other in the lower world with his beloved brother. According to another story Zeus, in reward for their brotherly love, sets them in the sky as the constellation of the Twins, or the morning and evening star. They are the ideal types of bravery and dexterity in fight. Thus they are the tutelary gods of warlike youth, often sharing in their contests, and honoured as the inventors of military dances and melodies. The ancient symbol of the twin gods at Lacedaemon was two parallel beams, joined by cross-pieces, which the Spartans took with them into war. They were worshipped at Sparta and Olympia with Heracles and other heroes. At Athen too they were honoured as gods under the name of Anakes (Lords Protectors). At sea, as in war, they lend their aid to men. The storm-tossed mariner sees the sign of their beneficent presence in the flame at the mast-head. He prays, and vows to them the sacrifice of a white lamb, and the storm soon ceases. (See HELENA.) The rites of hospitality are also under their protection. They are generally represented with their horses Xanthus and Cyllarus, as in the celebrated colossal group of Monte Cavallo in Rome. Their characteristic emblem is an oval helmet crowned with a star. The worship of Castor and Pollux was from early times current among the tribes of Italy. They enjoyed especial honours in Tusculum and Rome. In the latter city a considerable temple was built to them near the Forum (414 B.C.) in gratitude for their appearance and assistance at the battle of the Lake Regillus twelve years before. In this building, generally called simply the temple of Castor, the senate of ten held its sittings. It was in their honour, too, that the solemn review of the Roman equites was held on the 15th July. The names of Castor and Pollux, like that of Hercules, were often in use as familiar expletives, but the name of Castor was invoked by women only. They were worshipped as gods of the sea, particularly in Ostia, the harbour town of Rome. Their image is to be seen stamped on the reverse of the oldest Roman silver coins. (See COINAGE.)
DIPHILUS	A poet of the new Attic comedy, a native of Sinope, and contemporary of Menander. He is supposed to have written some 100 pieces, of which we have the titles and fragments of about 50. The Casina and Rudens of Plautus are modelled on two of Diphilus' plays; and Terence has adopted some scenes from one of them in his Adelphi. Diphilus took his subjects both from common life and from mythology. Both the judgments passed on him in antiquity, and his remaining fragments, justify us in recognising him as one of the most gifted poets of his age.
DIPOENUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A Greek sculptor, born in Crete, who flourished in Argos and Sicyon about 550 B.C. In conjunction with his countryman Scyllis he founded an influential school of sculpture in the Peloponnesus. (See SCULPTURE.)
DIPTEROS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 An architectural epithet descriptive of a temple surrounded by a double line of columns. (See TEMPLE.)
DIPTYCHON	This Greek word was applied in antiquity to a pair of writing tablets fastened together by rings, so that the inner sides, covered with wax, lay one upon the other. They were fastened sometimes by a strap, on the side opposite to the rings: sometimes by a string passed through two holes in the middle, and secured, if necessary, by seals at the back. (See the engravings under WRITING MATERIALS.) Two or more of the tablets (Triptycha, Polyptycha) were sometimes joined in the same way. They were used for notes, letters, and documents. Under the Empire much fancy and expense were lavished on them, the outer side being sometimes made of gold, silver, or magnificently carved ivory. This was especially the case after it became the fashion for consuls, and other high officials, to give presents of diptycha when entering upon office. For the diplomas made out on bronze diptycha for soldiers who had served their time, see MISSIO.
DIS PATER	The ruler of the world below, worshipped by the Romans as the god who corresponded to the Greek Pluto. His worship, like that of Proserpina, was first introduced in the early days of the Republic, at the command of the Sibylline books. Dis Pater had a chapel near the altar of Saturnus, and a subterranean altar on the Campus Martius in common with Proserpina. This was only opened when, as at the secular games, sacrifices were offered to both. The victims offered thus were black animals.
DISCUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The name was also applied to the oil-disk of a lamp. (See ILLUMINATION.)
DISCUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A flat piece of stone, or metal, shaped like a bean to fit the palm of the hand. As far back as the age of Homer it was a common thing for men to contend in throwing the discus, and the exercise was a favourite one in the paloestroe or gymnasia of Greece in historical times. It was represented at the great festivals, but as part of the pentathlon, not as an independent exhibition (see GYMNASTICS. The thrower grasped the discus-the size and weight of which would vary according to circumstances-with the fingers of his right hand, with which he held the edge, letting the whole rest on the inner surface of the hand and lower arm. He then raised his arm backwards as far as the shoulder, and threw the disk forward in an arch. The longest throw won the prize. The exercise was taken up by the Romans under the Empire. It was a favourite subject with artists, the most celebrated statue of a Discobolos being that of Myron (see cut, under MYRON).
DIUS FIDIUS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The god of oaths and protector of the laws of hospitality and international dealing. (See SANCUS.)
DIVINATIO	In this language of Roman law, divinatio meant the legal inquiry for deciding who, among many advocates proposing themselves, was the fittest to undertake a prosecution, and the speeches by which the various advocates tried to make good their competency for the task.
DIVINATIO	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 In general the word is applied to all prophecy or foretelling in the simplest sense of the word. Among the Romans prophecy was based, not on inspiration, as with the Greeks, but on the observation of definite signs, such as the omen (or voice), the prodigies and the auspices taken note of by the augurs (see AUGURES). The science of the haruspices (or the foretelling of events from the inspection of the carcases of sacrificial victims) was a later importation from Etruria. The ancient Romans were not familiar with the divinatio from sortes or lots, which was common in many parts of Italy. The Sibylline books threw no light on future events. (See SIBYLS.) Towards the end of the republican period the sciences of the augurs and haruspices lost their significance, and the Greek oracles, in the various forms of their craft, with the Chaldaean astrology, came into vogue, and carried the fashion in the society of the Empire. (Cp. MANTIC ART.)
DODONA	In Epirus. The ancient seat of the oracle of Zeus and Dione, who was worshipped here as his wife instead of Hera. The oldest sanctuary of the god was an oak tree, with a spring at its foot, sacred to Zeus, and probably mephitic. The will of Zeus was ascertained from the rustling of the oak leaves by the priests, whom Homer calls Selloi, and their grey- headed priestesses called Peleiades. In later times oracles were taken at Dodona from lots, and from the ringing of an iron basin. In front of this basin there stood an iron statue of a boy, with a whip formed of three chains, from which hung some buttons which touched the basin. If the whip moved in the breeze, the buttons sounded against the basin. The oracle of Dodona had in early times the greatest name of all; but in later times, though it never lost its reputation, it was eclipsed by that of Delphi. It was still consulted, mainly indeed by the neighbouring populations, but sometimes also by the states of Athens and Sparta. It was in existence in the 2nd century A.D., and does not seem to have disappeared before the 4th.
DOKIMASIA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The name used at Athens to denote the process of ascertaining the capacity of the citizens for the exercise of public rights and duties. If, for instance a young citizen was to be admitted among the Ephebi (see EPHEBI), he was examined in an assembly of his district, to find out whether he was descended on both sides from Athenian citizens, and whether he possessed the physical capacity for military service. All officials too, even the members of the senate, had to submit to an examination before entering upon their office. The purpose of this was to ascertain, not their actual capacity for the post, which was pre-supposed in all candidates, but their descent from Athenian citizens, their life and character, and (in the case of some offices which involved the administration of large sums) even the amount of their property. The examination was carried on in public by the archons in the presence of the senate, and any one present had the right to raise objections. If such objections were held to be valid, the candidate was rejected; but he had the right of appeal to the decision of a court, which would take cognizance of the matter in judicial form. On the other hand, if be were accepted, any one who thought his claims insufficient had the right of instituting judicial proceedings against him. If the decision was adverse, he would lose his office, and was further liable to punishment varying according to the offence charged against him, which might be, for instance, that of unlawfully assuming the rights of a citizen. A speaker in a public assembly might thus be brought before a court by any citizen, for no one not possessed of the full right of citizenship could legally address the people. The question might thus be raised whether the orator were not actually atimos, or guilty of an offence which involved atimia.
DONATIVUM
DONATUS	A Roman scholar and rhetorician of about the middle of the 4th century [smallCaps>A.D., and tutor of Jerome. He was the author of a Latin grammar (Ars Grammatica) in three books. This was much commented on by Servius, Pompeius, and others. His Ars Minor,, or short catechism on the eight parts of speech, survived long after the Middle Ages as the chief manual for elementary instruction. These works survive in their original form. He also wrote a valuable commentary on Terence, which we possess in an imperfect shape, the notes on the Heauton Timorumenos being lost, and not in its original form. [He was also the author of a lost commentary on Vergil, which is often alluded to contemptuously by Servius.]
DONATUS	A commentator on the Aeneid of Vergil, who probably lived in the 4th or early 5th century A.D. His work, which is mostly a prose paraphrase, survives in great part, but is of little value.-H.N.]
DORIS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Daughter of Oceanus, wife of the sea-god Nereus, and mother of the Nereides. (See OCEANUS, NEREUS.)
DOSITHEUS	A grammarian who flourished towards the end of the 4th century A.D. He wrote a Latin grammar for Greek boys, with a literal Greek translation, which was not fully completed. With this was bound up (whether by Dositheus himself is uncertain) a miscellany of very various contents by another author. This comprises (1) anecdotes of the Emperor Hadrian, (2) fables of Aesop, (3) an important chapter on jurisprudence, (4) mythological stories from Hyginus, (5) an abridgment of the Iliad, (6) an interesting collection of words and phrases from ordinary conversation.
DRACHMA
DRACO	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The standard of the Roman cohort. (See SIGNUM.)
DRACONTIUS	A Latin poet who lived and practised as an advocate at Carthage towards the end of the 5th century A.D. He was man of real poetic gifts and considerable reading, but his style is spoiled by rhetorical exaggeration and false taste. His surviving works are; (1) a number of short epics upon subjects taken from the old mythology and school-room rhetoric. (2) An apologetic poem (Satisfactio) addressed in the form of an elegy to Guthamund, king of the Vandals, whose wrath he had excited by writing a panegyric on a foreign prince. (3) A Christian didactic poem in three books. This is a really poetical treatment of the story of the creation.
DRAMA
DRAMA	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Greece. In Athens the production of plays was a state affair, not a private undertaking. It formed a great part of the religious festival of the Dionysia, in which the drama took its rise (see DIONYSIA; and it was only at the greater Dionysia that pieces could be performed during the author's lifetime. The performances lasted three days, and took the form of musical contests, the competitors being three tragic poets with their tetralogies, and five comic poets with one piece each. The authority who superintended the whole was the archon, to whom the poets had to bring their plays for reading, and apply for a chorus. If the pieces were accepted and the chorus granted, the citizens who were liable for the Choregia undertook at their own cost to practise and furnish for them one chorus each. (See LEITOURGIA.) The poets whose plays were accepted received an honorarium from the state. The state also supplied the regular number of actors, and made provision for the maintenance of order during the performances. At the end of the performance a certain number of persons (usually five), was chosen by lot from a committee nominated by the senate, to award the prizes (Agonothetoe), and bound them by oath to give their judgment on the plays, the choregi, and the actors. The poet who won the first prize was presented with a crown in the presence of the assembled multitude-the highest distinction that used to be conferred on a dramatic author at Athens. The victorious choregus also received a crown, with the permission to dedicate a votive offering to Dionysus. This was generally a tripod, which was set up either in the theatre, or in the temple of the deity, or in the " Street of Tripods," so named from this custom, an inscription being put on it recording the event (fig. 1). The actors in the successful play received prizes of money, besides the usual honoraria. From the time of Sophocles the actors in a play were three in number. They had to represent all the parts, those of women included, which involved their changing their costume several times during the performance. The three actors were distinguished as Protagonistes, Deuteragonistes, and Tritagonistes, according to the importance of their parts. If the piece required a fourth actor, which was seldom the case, the choregus had to provide one. The choregus had also to see to the position and equipment of the personoemutoe. In earlier times it is possible that the persons engaged in the representation did not make a business of their artp but performed gratuitously, as the poets down to the time of Sophocles appeared on the stage. But the dramatic art gradually became a profession, requiring careful preparation, and winning general respect for its members as artists. The chief requirements for the profession were distinctness and correctness of pronunciation, especially in declamatory passages, and an unusual power of memory, as there was no prompter in a Greek theatre. An actor had also to be thoroughly trained in singing, melodramatic action, dancing, and play of gesture. The latter was especially necessary, as the use of masks precluded all play of feature. The actors were, according to strict rule, assigned to the poets by lot; yet a poet generally had his special protagonistes, on whose peculiar gifts he had his eye in writing the dramatic pieces. The Athenian tragedies began to be known all over the Hellenic world as early as the time of Aeschylus. The first city, outside of Attica, that had a theatre was Syracuse, where Aesebylus brought out some of his own plays. Scenic contests soon began to term part of the religious festivals in various Greek cities, and were celebrated in honour of other deities besides Dionysus. It was a habit of Alexander the Great to celebrate almost every considerable event with dramatic exhibitions, and after him this became the regular custom. A considerable increase in the number of actors was one consequence of the new demand. The actors called themselves artists of Dionysus, and in the larger cities they formed permanent societies (synodoi) with special privileges, including exemption from military service, and security in person and property. These companies had a regular organization, presided over by a priest of their patron-god Dionysus, annually elected from among their members. A treasurer and officers completed the staff. At the time of the festivals the societies sent out their members in groups of three actors, with a manager, and a flute-player, to the different cities. This business was especially lively in Ionia and on the Euxine the societies of Teos, being the most distinguished. The same arrangement was adopted in Italy, and continued to exist under the Roman Empire. The universal employment of masks was a remarkable peculiarity of costume (see MASKS). It naturally excluded all play of feature, but the masks corresponded to the general types of character, as well as to the special types indicated by the requirements of the play. Certain conventionalities were observed in the colour of the hair. Goddesses and young persons had light hair, gods and persons of riper age, dark brown; aged persons, white; and the deities of the lower world, black. The height of the masks and top-knots varied with the age of the actors, and the parts they took. Their stature was considerably heightened in tragedies by the high boot (see COTHURNUS), and the defects in oportion corrected by padding, and the use of a kind of gloves. The conventionalities of costume, probably as fixed by Aeschylus, maintained themselves as long as Greek tragedies were performed at all. Men and women of high rank wore on the stage a variegated or richly embroidered long-sleeved chiton, reaching to the feet, and fastened with a girdle as high as the breast. The upper garment, whether himation or chlamys, was long and splendid, and often embroidered with gold. Kings and queens had a purple train, and a white himation with a purple border; soothsayers, a netted upper garment reaching to the feet. Persons in misfortune, especially fugitives, appeared in soiled garments of grey, green, or blue; black was the symbol of mourning, and so on. In the Satyric Drama the costumes of the heroic characters resembled in all essentials what they wore in the tragedies, although, to suit the greater liveliness of the action, the chiton was shorter and the boot lower. In the Old Comedy the costumes were taken as nearly as possible from actual life, but in the Middle and New Comedy they were conventional. The men wore a white coat; youths, a purple one; slaves, a motley with mantle to match; cooks, an unbleached double mantle; peasants, a fur or shaggy coat, with wallet and staff; panders, a coloured coat and motley over-garment. Old women appeared in sky-blue or dark yellow, priestesses and maidens in white; courtesans, in motley colours, and so on. The members of the chorus were masked and dressed in a costume corresponding to the part assigned them by the poet. (On their dress in the Satyric Drama, see SATYRIC DRAMA.) The chorus of the comedy caricatured the ordinary dress of the tragic chorus. Sometimes they represented animals, as in the Frogs and Birds of Aristophanes. In the Frogs they wore tight dresses of frog-colour, and masks with a mouth wide open; in the Birds, large beaks, bunches of feathers, combs, and so on, to imitate particular birds. (See plate in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. ii, Plate xiv B, copied in Haigh's Attic Theatre, p. 267.)
DREAMS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 According to Hesiod, Dreams are the children of Night, and brothers and sisters of Death and Sleep. Like these they are represented in the Odyssey as dwelling in the far West, near Oceanus, in the neighbourhood of the sunset and the kingdom of the dead. Deceptive dreams issue from a gate of ivory, true dreams through a gate of horn. The gods above, especially Hermes, have authority over these dream-gods, and send sometimes one, sometimes another, to mankind. On some occasions they create dream-figures themselves, or appear in person under different shapes, in the chamber of the sleeper. The spirits of the departed, too, so long as they are not in the kingdom of Hades, have the power of appearing to the sleeper in dreams. These, the ideas of the Homeric age, survived in the later popular belief. Later poets call dreams the sons of Sleep, and give them separate names. Morpheus, for instance, only appears in various human forms. Ikelos, called also Phobetor, or Terrifyer, assumes the shapes of all kinds of animals as well as that of man: Phantasos only those of inanimate objects. A god of dreams was subsequently worshipped, and represented in works of art, sometimes with Sleep, sometimes alone. He was honoured especially at the seats of dream-oracles and the health-resorts of Asclepius. (See ARTEMIDORUS, 2; INCURATIO; and MANTIC ART.)
DUOVIRI OR DUUMVIRI	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A board or commission of 2 men, as e.g. the duoviri capitales perduellionis, or duoviri sacrorum (see SIBYLS), duoviri viis purgandis (see VIGINTI SEX VIRI, 6). In colonies and municipia, the title was borne by the two highest officials, who represented the the authority of the Roman consuls. (See MUNICIPIUM.)
DURIS	A Greek historian, a native of Samos, and a disciple of Theophrastus. For some time he was despot of Samos. In the first half of the 3rd century B.C. he wrote, besides other historical works, a comprehensive history, in twenty-three books, of Greece and Macedonia, from 370 to at least 281 B.C. He was also the author of Annals of Samos, in at least twelve books. Nothing but fragments of his writings remain, which show that they were no more than uncritical collections of material carelessly treated.
DURIS	Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A vase-painter; see VASES.
Back to Dictionary Browse