Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dinard" to "Dodsworth, Roger"
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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dinard" to "Dodsworth, Roger"
Author: Various
Release date: June 4, 2010 [eBook #32689]
Most recently updated: January 6, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "DINARD" TO "DODSWORTH, ROGER" ***
Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Letters topped by Macron are represented as [=x].
(5) Letters with a dot below are represented as [x.].
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
Article DIPLOMATIC: "Of later date was the Ars dictaminis of
Bernard of Chartres of the 12th century." Omitted a superfluous '('.
Article DIPTERA: "they are simply Cyclorrhapha much modified owing
to parasitism, and in view of the closely similar mode of
reproduction in the tsetse-flies the special designation Pupipara
should be abandoned." 'similar' amended from 'similiar'.
Article DIPTERA: "The famous Tertiary beds at Florissant, Colorado,
have yielded a considerable number of remarkably well-preserved
Tipulidae." 'of' amended from 'or'.
Article DIRECTORS: "They have to carry on the company's business,
to extend and consolidate it, and to do this they must have a free
hand and a large discretion to deal with the exigencies of the
commercial situation." 'commercial' amended from 'commerical'.
Article DIVERS: "But so exhausting is the work, and so severe the
strain on the system, that, after a number of dives in deep water,
the men often become insensible, and blood sometimes bursts from
nose, ears and mouth." 'sometimes' amended from 'sometime'.
Article DIVORCE: "It is interesting to compare these provisions as
to children with the practice at present under English law, which
in this respect reflects so closely the spirit of the law of Rome."
'children' amended from 'childern'.
Article DLUGOSZ, JAN: "The office of administering the cardinal's
estate was a very ungrateful one, for the family resented the
liberal benefactions of their kinsman to the Church and the
university, and accused Dlugosz of exercising undue influence".
'university' amended from 'univesity'.
Article DOCK: "The basins of such ports are always accessible for
vessels of the draught they provide for; but they require most
efficient protection, and, unlike tidal ports, they are not able on
exceptional occasions to admit a vessel of larger draught than the
basins have been formed to accommodate." 'on' amended from 'to'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME VIII, SLICE V
Dinard to Dodsworth
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
DINARD DISSECTION
DINDIGUL DISSENTER
KARL WILHELM DINDORF DISSOCIATION
D'INDY, PAUL-MARIE-VINCENT DISSOLUTION
DINEIR DISTAFF
DINGELSTEDT, FRANZ VON DISTILLATION
DINGHY DISTRACTION
DINGLE DISTRESS
DINGO DISTRIBUTION
DINGWALL DISTRICT
DINKA DISTYLE
DINKELSBÜHL DITHMARSCHEN
DINNER DITHYRAMBIC POETRY
DINOCRATES DITTERSBACH
DINOFLAGELLATA DITTERSDORF, KARL DITTERS VON
DINOTHERIUM DITTO
DINWIDDIE, ROBERT DITTON, HUMPHRY
DIO CASSIUS DIU
DIOCESE DIURETICS
DIO CHRYSOSTOM DIURNAL MOTION
DIOCLETIAN DIVAN
DIOCLETIAN, EDICT OF DIVER
DIODATI, GIOVANNI DIVERS and DIVING APPARATUS
DIODORUS CRONUS DIVES-SUR-MER
DIODORUS SICULUS DIVIDE
DIODOTUS DIVIDEND
DIOGENES DIVIDIVI
DIOGENES APOLLONIATES DIVINATION
DIOGENES LAËRTIUS DIVINING-ROD
DIOGENIANUS DIVISION
DIOGNETUS, EPISTLE TO DIVORCE
DIOMEDES (Greek legend) DIWANIEH
DIOMEDES (Latin grammarian) DIX, DOROTHEA LYNDE
DION DIX, JOHN ADAMS
DIONE DIXON, GEORGE
DIONYSIA DIXON, HENRY HALL
DIONYSIUS (pope) DIXON, RICHARD WATSON
DIONYSIUS (tyrant of Syracuse) DIXON, WILLIAM HEPWORTH
DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITICUS DIXON
DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS DIZFUL
DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSENSIS DJAKOVO
DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES DLUGOSZ, JAN
DIONYSIUS TELMAHARENSIS DMITRIEV, IVAN IVANOVICH
DIONYSIUS THRAX DNIEPER
DIONYSUS DNIESTER
DIOPHANTUS DOAB
DIOPSIDE DOANE, GEORGE WASHINGTON
DIOPTASE DOBBS FERRY
DIORITE DOBELL, SYDNEY THOMPSON
DIP DÖBELN
DIPHENYL DOBERAN
DIPHILUS DÖBEREINER, JOHANN WOLFGANG
DIPHTHERIA DOBREE, PETER PAUL
DIPLODOCUS DÖBRENTEI, GABOR
DIPLOMACY DOBRITCH
DIPLOMATIC DOBRIZHOFFER, MARTIN
DIPOENUS and SCYLLIS DOBROWSKY, JOSEPH
DIPPEL, JOHANN KONRAD DOBRUDJA
DIPSOMANIA DOBSINA
DIPTERA DOBSON, HENRY AUSTIN
DIPTERAL DOBSON, WILLIAM
DIPTYCH DOCETAE
DIR DOCHMIAC
DIRCE DOCK
DIRECT MOTION DOCK (botany)
DIRECTORS DOCK (marine and river engineering)
DIRECTORY DOCKET
DIRGE DOCK WARRANT
DIRK DOCKYARDS
DIRSCHAU DOCTOR
DISABILITY DOCTORS' COMMONS
DISCHARGE DOCTRINAIRES
DISCHARGING ARCH DOCUMENT
DISCIPLE DODD, WILLIAM
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST DODDER
DISCLAIMER DODDRIDGE, PHILIP
DISCOUNT DODDS, ALFRED AMÉDÉE
DISCOVERY DODECAHEDRON
DISCUS DODECASTYLE
DISINFECTANTS DÖDERLEIN, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG
DISMAL DODGE, THEODORE AYRAULT
DISORDERLY HOUSE DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE
DISPATCH DODO
DISPENSATION DODONA
DISPERSION DODS, MARCUS
D'ISRAELI, ISAAC DODSLEY, ROBERT
DISS DODSWORTH, ROGER
DINARD, a seaside town of north-western France, in the department of
Ille-et-Vilaine. The town, which is the chief watering-place of
Brittany, is situated on a rocky promontory at the mouth of the Rance
opposite St Malo, which is about 1 m. distant. It is a favourite resort
of English and Americans as well as of the French, its attractions being
the beauty of its situation, the mildness of the climate and the good
bathing. It has two casinos and numerous luxurious hotels and elegant
villas. Together with the adjoining watering-place of St Enogat, Dinard
has a population of 4882 (1906).
DINDIGUL, a town of British India, in the Madura district of Madras, 880
ft. above the sea, 40 m. from Madura by rail. Pop. (1901) 25,182.
Dindigul has risen into importance as the centre of a trade in tobacco
and manufacture of cigars, which are exported to England. There are two
large European cigar factories here. The town has manufactures of silk,
muslin and blankets, and an export trade in hides and cardamoms; and
there is a large native Christian population, with two churches. The
ancient fort, well preserved, stands on a rock rising 350 ft. above the
town; this was formerly a position of great strategic importance,
commanding passes into Madura from Coimbatore, and figured prominently
in the military operations of the Mahrattas in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and of Hyder Ali in 1755 seq., being thrice captured by the
British (1767, 1783, 1790). After the two first captures it was restored
to Hyder Ali under treaty; after the third it was ceded to the East
India Company.
KARL WILHELM DINDORF (1802-1883), German classical scholar, was born at
Leipzig on the 2nd of January 1802. From his earliest years he showed a
strong taste for classical studies, and after completing F. Invernizi's
edition of Aristophanes at an early age, and editing several grammarians
and rhetoricians, was in 1828 appointed extraordinary professor of
literary history in his native city. Disappointed at not obtaining the
ordinary professorship when it became vacant in 1833, he resigned his
post in the same year, and devoted himself entirely to study and
literary work. His attention had at first been chiefly given to
Athenaeus, whom he edited in 1827, and to the Greek dramatists, all of
whom he edited separately and combined in his _Poetae scenici Graeci_
(1830 and later editions). He also wrote a work on the metres of the
Greek dramatic poets, and compiled special lexicons to Aeschylus and
Sophocles. He edited Procopius for Niebuhr's _Corpus_ of the Byzantine
writers, and between 1846 and 1851 brought out at Oxford an important
edition of Demosthenes; he also edited Lucian and Josephus for the Didot
classics. His last important editorial labour was his _Eusebius of
Caesarea_ (1867-1871). Much of his attention was occupied by the
republication of Stephanus's _Thesaurus_ (Paris, 1831-1865), chiefly
executed by him and his brother Ludwig, a work of prodigious labour and
utility. His reputation suffered somewhat through the imposture
practised upon him by the Greek Constantine Simonides, who succeeded in
deceiving him by a fabricated fragment of the Greek historian Uranius.
The book was printed, and a few copies had been circulated, when the
forgery was discovered, just in time to prevent its being given to the
world under the auspices of the university of Oxford. Shortly after the
death of his brother, he lost all his property and his library by rash
speculations. He died on the 1st of August 1883.
His brother LUDWIG (1805-1871) was born at Leipzig on the 3rd of January
1805, and died there on the 6th of September 1871. He never held any
academical position, and led so secluded a life that many doubted his
existence, and declared that he was a mere pseudonym. The important
share which he took in the edition of the _Thesaurus_ is nevertheless
authenticated by his own signature to his contributions. He also
published valuable editions of Polybius, Dio Cassius and other Greek
historians.
D'INDY, PAUL-MARIE-THÉODORE-VINCENT (1851- ), French musical composer,
was born in Paris, on the 27th of March 1851. He studied composition and
the organ at the Paris Conservatoire under César Franck, and obtained
the grand prize offered by the city of Paris in 1885 with _Le Chant de
la Cloche_, a dramatic legend after Schiller. His principal works,
beside the above, are the symphonic trilogy _Wallenstein_, the symphonic
works entitled _Saugefleurie_, _La Forêt enchantée_, _Istar_, _Symphonie
sur un air montagnard français_; overture to _Anthony and Cleopatra_;
_Ste Marie Magdeleine_, a cantata; _Attendez-moi sous l'orme_, a one-act
opera; _Fervaal_, a musical drama in three acts. Vincent d'Indy is
perhaps the most prominent among the disciples of César Franck. Imbued
with very high aims, he was always guided by a lofty ideal, and few
musicians have attained so complete a mastery over the art of
instrumentation. His music, however, lacks simplicity, and can never
become popular in the widest sense. His opera _Fervaal_, which is styled
"action musicale", is constructed upon the system of _Leit-motifs_. Its
legendary subject recalls both _Parsifal_ and _Tristan_, and the music
is also suggestive of Wagnerian influence. D'Indy can scarcely be
considered so typical a representative of modern French music as his
juniors Alfred Bruneau, the composer of _Le Rêve_, _L'Attaque du
moulin_, _Messidor_, or Gustave Charpentier, the author of _Louise_, who
chose subjects of modern life for their operatic works.
DINEIR, a small town in Asia Minor, built amidst the ruins of
Celaenae-Apamea, near the sources of the Maeander (Menderes). It is the
terminus of the Smyrna-Aidin-Dineir railway. Pop. 1400. (See APAMEA.)
DINGELSTEDT, FRANZ VON (1814-1881), German poet and dramatist, was born
at Halsdorf, in Hesse Cassel, on the 30th of June 1814. Having studied
at the university of Marburg, he became in 1836 a master at the Lyceum
in Cassel, from which he was transferred to Fulda in 1838. In 1839 he
produced a novel, _Unter der Erde_, which obtained considerable success,
and in 1841 published the book by which he is best remembered, the
_Lieder eines kosmopolitischen Nachtwächters_. These poems, animated as
they are by a spirit of bitter opposition to everything that savours of
despotism, were an effective contribution to the political poetry of the
day. The popularity of this book determined Dingelstedt to take up a
literary career, and in 1841 he obtained an appointment on the staff of
the _Augsburger allgemeine Zeitung_. In 1843, however, the satirist of
German princes accepted, to the general surprise, the appointment of
private librarian to the king of Württemberg, and in the same year he
married the celebrated Bohemian opera singer, Jenny Lutzer. In 1845 he
published a volume of poems, some of which, treating of modern life,
possessed great literary rather than strictly poetical merit. A
subsequent collection, published in 1852, attracted little attention.
The success of his tragedy _Das Haus der Barneveldt_ (1850) obtained for
him the position of intendant at the court theatre at Munich, where he
soon became the centre of literary society. He incurred, however, the
animosity of the Jesuit clique at the court, and in 1856 was suddenly
dismissed on the most frivolous charges. A similar position was offered
to him at Weimar through the influence of Liszt, and he remained there
until 1867. His administration was most successful, and he especially
distinguished himself by presenting all Shakespeare's historical plays
upon the stage in an unbroken cycle. In 1867 he became director of the
court opera house in Vienna, and in 1872 of the Hofburgtheater, a
position he held until his death on the 15th of May 1881. Among his
other works may be noticed an autobiographical sketch of his Munich
career, entitled _Münchener Bilderbogen_ (1879), _Die Amazone_, an art
novel of considerable merit (1869), translations of several of
Shakespeare's comedies, and several writings dealing with questions of
practical dramaturgy. He was ennobled in 1867 by the king of Bavaria and
in 1876 was created _Freiherr_ by the emperor of Austria.
Dingelstedt's _Sämtliche Werke_ appeared in 12 vols. (1877-1878), but
this edition is far from complete. On his life see, besides the
autobiography mentioned above, J. Rodenberg, _Heimaterinnerungen an F.
Dingelstedt_ (Berlin, 1882), and by the same author, _F. Dingelstedt,
Blätter aus seinem Nachlass_ (2 vols., 1891). Also an essay by A.
Stern in _Zur Literatur der Gegenwart_ (Leipzig, 1880).
DINGHY, or DINGEY (from the Hindu _d[=e]ng[=i]_ a small boat, the
diminutive of _denga_, a sloop or coasting vessel), a boat of greatly
varying size and shape, used on the rivers of India; the term is applied
also, in certain districts, to a larger boat used for coasting purposes.
The name was adopted by the merchantmen trading with India, and is now
generally used to designate the small extra boat kept for general
purposes on a man-of-war or merchant vessel, and also, on the Thames,
for small pleasure boats built for one or two pairs of sculls.
DINGLE, a seaport and market town of county Kerry, Ireland, in the west
parliamentary division, the terminus of the Tralee and Dingle railway.
Pop. (1901) 1786. This may be considered the most westerly town in the
United Kingdom unless Knightstown at Valencia Island be excepted; it
lies on the south side of the northernmost of the great promontories
which protrude into the Atlantic on the south-western coast of Ireland,
on the fine natural harbour of Dingle Bay, in a wild hilly district
abundant in relics of antiquity. The town, which is the centre of a
considerable fishing industry, especially in mackerel, was in the 16th
century of no little importance as a seaport; it had also a noted
manufacture of linen. It was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and
returned two members to the Irish parliament until the Union.
DINGO, a name applied apparently by Europeans to the warrigal, or native
Australian dog, the Canis dingo of J. F. Blumenbach. The dingo is a
stoutly-built, rather short-legged, sandy-coloured dog, intermediate in
size between a jackal and a wolf, and measuring about 51 in. in total
length, of which the tail takes up about eleven. In general appearance
it is very like some of the pariah dogs of India and Egypt; and, except
on distributional grounds, there is no reason for regarding it as
specifically distinct from such breeds. Dingos, which are found both
wild and tame, interbreed freely with European dogs introduced into the
country, and it may be that the large amount of black on the back of
many specimens may be the result of crossing of this nature.
The main point of interest connected with the dingo relates to its
origin; that is to say, whether it is a member of the indigenous
Australian fauna (among which it is the only large placental mammal), or
whether it has been introduced into the country by man. There seems to
be no doubt that fossilized remains of the dingo occur intermingled with
those of the extinct Australian mammals, such as giant kangaroos, giant
wombats and the still more gigantic _Diprotodon_. And since remains of
man have apparently not yet been detected in these deposits, it has been
thought by some naturalists that the dingo must be an indigenous
species. This was the opinion of Sir Frederick McCoy, by whom the
deposits in question were regarded as probably of Pliocene age. A
similar view is adopted by D. Ogilvy in a _Catalogue of Australian
Mammals_, published at Sydney in 1892; the writer going however one step
further and expressing the belief that the dingo is the ancestor of all
domesticated dogs. The latter contention cannot for a moment be
sustained; and there are also strong arguments against the indigenous
origin of the dingo. That the animal now occurs in a wild state is no
argument whatever as to its being indigenous, seeing that a domesticated
breed introduced by man into a new country abounding in game would
almost certainly revert to the wild state. The apparent absence of human
remains in the beds yielding dingo teeth and bones (which are almost
certainly not older than the Pleistocene) is of only negative value, and
liable to be upset by new discoveries. Then, again (as has been pointed
out by R. I. Pocock in the first part of the _Kennel Encyclopaedia_,
1907), the absence of any really wild species of the typical group of
the genus _Canis_ between Burma and Siam on the one hand and Australia
on the other is a very strong argument against the dingo being
indigenous, seeing that, whether brought by man or having travelled
thither of its own accord, the dingo must have reached its present
habitat by way of the Austro-Malay archipelago. If it had followed that
route in the course of nature, it is inconceivable that it would not
still be found on some portions of the route. On the supposition that
the dingo was introduced by man, we have now fairly decisive evidence
that the native Australian, in place of being (as formerly supposed) a
member of the negro stock, is a low type of Caucasian allied to the
Veddahs of Ceylon and the Toalas of Celebes. Consequently the Australian
natives must be presumed to have reached the island-continent by way of
Malaya; and if this be admitted, nothing is more likely than that they
should have been accompanied by pariah dogs of the Indian type.
Confirmation of this is afforded by the occurrence in the mountains of
Java of a pariah-like dog which has reverted to an almost completely
wild condition; and likewise by the fact that the old voyagers met with
dogs more or less similar to the dingo in New Guinea, New Zealand and
the Solomon and certain other of the smaller Pacific islands. On the
whole, then, the most probable explanation of the case is that the dingo
is an introduced species closely allied to the Indian pariah dog.
Whether the latter represents a truly wild type now extinct, cannot be
determined. If so, all pariahs should be classed with the Australian
warrigal under the name of _Canis dingo_. If, on the other hand,
pariahs, and consequently the dingo, cannot be separated specifically
from the domesticated dogs of western Europe, then the dingo should be
designated _Canis familiaris dingo_. (R. L.*)
DINGWALL, a royal and police burgh and county town of the shire of Ross
and Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2519. It is situated near the head
of Cromarty Firth where the valley of the Peffery unites with the
alluvial lands at the mouth of the Conon, 18½ m. N.W. of Inverness by
the Highland railway. Its name, derived from the Scandinavian
_Thingvöllr_, "field or meeting-place of the _thing_," or local
assembly, preserves the Norse origin of the town; its Gaelic designation
is Inverpefferon, "the mouth of the Peffery." The 18th-century town
house, and some remains of the ancient mansion of the once powerful
earls of Ross still exist. There is also a public park. An obelisk, 57
ft. high, was erected over the grave of the 1st earl of Cromarty. The
town belongs to the Wick district group of parliamentary burghs. It is a
flourishing distributing centre and has an important corn market and
auction marts. Some shipping is carried on at the harbour at the mouth
of the Peffery, about a mile below the burgh. Branch lines of the
Highland railway run to Strathpeffer and to Strome Ferry and Kyle of
Lochalsh (for Skye). Alexander II. created Dingwall a royal borough in
1226, and its charter was renewed by James IV. On the top of Knockfarrel
(Gaelic, _cnoc_, hill; _faire_, watch, or guard), a hill about 3 m. to
the west, is a large and very complete vitrified fort with ramparts.
DINKA (called by the Arabs _Jange_), a widely spread negro people
dwelling on the right bank of the White Nile to about 12° N., around the
mouth of the Babr-el-Ghazal, along the right bank of that river and on
the banks of the lower Sobat. Like the Shilluk, they were greatly
harried from the north by Nuba-Arabic tribes, but remained comparatively
free owing to the vast extent of their country, estimated to cover
40,000 sq. m., and their energy in defending themselves. They are a tall
race with skins of almost blue black. The men wear practically no
clothes, married women having a short apron, and unmarried girls a
fringe of iron cones round the waist. They tattoo themselves with tribal
marks, and extract the lower incisors; they also pierce the ears and lip
for the attachment of ornaments, and wear a variety of feather, iron,
ivory and brass ornaments. Nearly all shave the head, but some give the
hair a reddish colour by moistening it with animal matter. Polygamy is
general; some headmen have as many as thirty or more wives; but six is
the average number. They are great cattle and sheep breeders; the men
tend their beasts with great devotion, despising agriculture, which is
left to the women; the cattle are called by means of drums. Save under
stress of famine cattle are never killed for food, the people subsisting
largely on durra. The Dinkas reverence the cow, and snakes, which they
call "brothers." Their folklore recognizes a good and evil deity; one of
the two wives of the good deity created man, and the dead go to live
with him in a great park filled with animals of enormous size. The evil
deity created cripples. The Dinka came, in 1899, under the control of
the Sudan government, justice being administered as far as possible in
accord with tribal custom. A compendium of Dinka laws was compiled by
Captain H. D. E. O'Sullivan.
See G. A. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_ (1874); W. Junker,
_Travels in Africa_, Eng. edit. (London, 1890-1892); _The
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905).
DINKELSBÜHL, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the
Wörnitz, 16 m. N. from Nördlingen, on the railway to Dombühl. Pop. 5000.
It is an interesting medieval town, still surrounded by old walls and
towers, and has an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches. Notable
is the so-called _Deutsches Haus_, the ancestral home of the counts of
Drechsel-Deufstetten, a fine specimen of the German renaissance style of
wooden architecture. There are a Latin and industrial school, several
benevolent institutions, and a monument to Christoph von Schmid
(1768-1854), a writer of stories for the young. The inhabitants carry on
the manufacture of brushes, gloves, stockings and gingerbread, and deal
largely in cattle.
Fortified by the emperor Henry I., Dinkelsbühl received in 1305 the same
municipal rights as Ulm, and obtained in 1351 the position of a free
imperial city, which it retained till 1802, when it passed to Bavaria.
Its municipal code, the _Dinkelsbuhler Recht_, published in 1536, and
revised in 1738, contained a very extensive collection of public and
private laws.
DINNER, the chief meal of the day, eaten either in the middle of the
day, as was formerly the universal custom, or in the evening. The word
"dine" comes through Fr. from Med. Lat. _disnare_, for _disjejunare_, to
break one's fast (_jejunium_); it is, therefore, the same word as Fr.
_déjeuner_, to breakfast, in modern France, to take the midday meal,
_dîner_ being used for the later repast. The term "dinner-wagon,"
originally a movable table to hold dishes, is now used of a two-tier
sideboard.
DINOCRATES, a great and original Greek architect, of the age of
Alexander the Great. He tried to captivate the ambitious fancy of that
king with a design for carving Mount Athos into a gigantic seated
statue. This plan was not carried out, but Dinocrates designed for
Alexander the plan of the new city of Alexandria, and constructed the
vast funeral pyre of Hephaestion. Alexandria was, like Peiraeus and
Rhodes (see HIPPODAMUS), built on a regular plan; the streets of most
earlier towns being narrow and confused.
DINOFLAGELLATA, so called by O. Bütschli (= the CILIOFLAGELLATA of E.
Claparide and H. Lachmann), a group of Protozoa, characterized as
Mastigophora, provided with two flagella, the one anterior extended in
locomotion, the other coiled round its base, or lying in a transverse
groove. The body is bounded by a firm pellicle, often supplemented by an
armour ("lorica") of cuticular cellulose plates, with usually a marked
longitudinal groove from which the anterior flagellum springs, and an
oblique or spiral transverse groove for the second flagellum. In
_Polykrikos_ (fig. 2, 9) there are eight transverse grooves each with
its flagellum. The armour-plates are often exquisitely sculptured, and
may be produced into spines or perpendicular plates to give greater
surface extension, as we find in other plankton organisms. The cortical
plasma may protrude pseudopodia in the longitudinal groove; it contains
trichocysts in several species, true nematocysts in _Polykrikos_. It
contains chromatophores in many species, coloured by a mixed lipochrome
pigment which appears to be distinct from diatomin. The endoplasm is
ramified between alveoli; it contains a large nucleus (in _Polykrikos_
there are eight nuclei, accompanied by smaller, more numerous bodies
regarded by O. Butschli as micro-nuclei). Besides the other spaces are
definite rounded or oval vacuoles with a permanent pellicular wall
termed by Schutt "pusules"; these open by a duct or ducts into the
longitudinal groove. They enlarge and diminish, and are possibly
excretory like the "contractile vacuoles" of other Protista; though it
has been suggested that by their communication with the medium they
subserve nutrition. Nutrition is of course holozoic or saprophytic in
the colourless forms, holophytic in the coloured; but these divergent
methods are exhibited by different species of the same genus, or even by
individuals of one and the same species under different conditions.
Binary fission has been widely observed, both in the active condition or
after loss of the flagella: it differs from that of true Flagellates in
not being longitudinal, but transverse or oblique (fig, 2, 2). Repeated
fission (brood-formation) within a cyst has also been observed, as in
_Pyrocystis_ and _Ceratium_; and possibly the chains of _Ceratium_ and
other (fig. 2, 5 and 6) genera are due to the non-separation of the
brood-cells. Conjugation of adults has been observed in several species,
the most complete account being that of Zederbauer on _Ceratium
hirundinella_ (marine): either mate puts forth a tube which meets and
opens into that of the other (as in some species of _Chlamydomonas_ and
Desmids); the two cell-bodies fuse in this tube, and encyst to form a
resting zygospore. The Dinoflagellates are relatively large for
Mastigophora, many attaining 50 µ (1/500") in length. The majority are
marine; but some genera (_Ceratium_, _Peridinium_) include fresh-water
species. Many are highly phosphorescent and some by their abundance
colour the water of the sea or pool which they dwell in. Like so many
coloured Protista, they frequently possess a pigmented "eye-spot" in
which may be sunk a spheroidal refractive body ("lens").
[Illustration: After F. Schutt in Engler and Prantl's
_Pflanzenfamilien_, by permission of Wm Engelmann.
FIG. 1.--_Peridinium divergens_ showing longitudinal and transverse
grooves in which lie the respective flagella l.f., t.f.; s.p., large
"sack pusule" discharging through a tube by pore o'; c.p., "collective
pusule discharging at o, and surrounded by a ring of formative" or
"daughter pusules"; n, nucleus.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.
From Delage and Hérouard's _Traité de zoologie concrete_, by permission
of Schleicher Frères.
1. Modified from Schütt, _Ornithoceras_.
2. Diagram of transverse fission of a Dinoflagellate.
3. After Schutt, _Exuviaeella_.
4. After Stein, _Prorocentrum_.
5, 6. _Ceratium_, single and series.
7. _Pouchetia fusus_ (Schutt).
8. _Citharistes_.
9. After Butschli, _Polykrikos_.]
The affinities of the Dinoflagellata are certainly with those
Cryptomonadine Flagellates which possess two unequal flagella; the
zoospores or young of the Cystoflagellates are practically colourless
Dinoflagellates.
1. _Gymnodiniaceae_: body naked, or with a simple cellulose or
gelatinous envelope; both grooves present. _Pyrocystis_ (Murray),
often encysted, spherical or crescentic, becoming free within cyst
wall, and escaping whole or after brood-divisions as a form like
_Gymnodinium_; _Gymnodinium_ (Stein); _Hemidinium_ (Stein);
_Pouchetia_ (Schütt) (fig. 2, 7) with complex eye-spot; to this group
we may refer _Polykrikos_ (Bütschli) (fig. 2, 9), with its metameric
transverse grooves and flagella.
2. _Prorocentraceae_ (Schütt) ( = the Adinida of Bergh); body
surrounded by a firm shell of two valves without a girdle band;
transverse groove absent; transverse flagellum coiled round base of
longitudinal. _Exuviaeella_ (Cienk.) (fig. 2, 3); _Prorocentrum_
(Ehrb.) (fig. 2, 4).
3. _Peridiniaceae_ (Schütt); body with a shell of plates, a girdle
band along the transverse groove, in which the transverse flagellum
lies. Genera, _Peridinium_ (Ehrb.) (fig. 1), fresh-water and marine;
_Ceratium_ (Schrank) (fig. 2, 5, 6), fresh-water and marine;
_Citharistes_ (Stein); _Ornithoceras_ (Claparède and Lachmann) (fig.
2, 1).
LITERATURE.--R. S. Bergh, "Der Organismusder Cilioflagellaten,"
_Morphol. Jahrbuch_, vii. (1881); F. von Stein, _Organismus der
Infusionsthiere_, Abth. 3, 2. Hälfte; _Die Naturgeschichte der
arthrodelen Flagellaten_ (1883); Bütschli, "Mastigophora" (in Bronn's
_Thierreich_, i. Abth. 2), 1881-1887; G. Pouchet, various observations
on Dinoflagellates, _Journal de l'anatomie et de la physiologie_
(1885, 1887, 1891); F. Schütt, "Die Peridineen der Plankton
Expedition" (_Ergebnisse d. Pl. Exed._ i. Th. vol. iv. 1895); and
"Peridiniales" in Engler and Prantl's _Pflanzenfamilien_, vol. i. Abt.
2 b. (1896); Zederbauer, _Berichte d. deutschen botanischen
Gesellschaft_, vol. xx. (1900); Delage and Hérouard, _Traité de
zoologie concrète_, vol. i. _La Cellule et les protozoaires_ (1896).
(M. HA.)
DINOTHERIUM, an extinct mammal, fossil remains of which occur in the
Miocene beds of France, Germany, Greece and Northern India. These
consist chiefly of teeth and the bones of the head. An entire skull,
obtained from the Lower Pliocene beds of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt, in
1836, measured 4½ ft. in length and 3 ft. in breadth, and indicates an
animal exceeding the elephant in size. The upper jaw is apparently
destitute of incisor and canine teeth, but possesses five molars on each
side, with a corresponding number in the jaw beneath. The most
remarkable feature, however, consists in the front part of the lower jaw
being bent downwards and bearing two tusk-like incisors also directed
downwards and backwards. _Dinotherium_ is a member of the group
Proboscidea, of the line of descent of the elephants.
DINWIDDIE, ROBERT (1693-1770), English colonial governor of Virginia,
was born near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1693. From the position of customs
clerk in Bermuda, which he held in 1727-1738, he was promoted to be
surveyor-general of the customs "of the southern ports of the continent
of America," as a reward for having exposed the corruption in the West
Indian customs service. In 1743 he was commissioned to examine into the
customs service in the Barbadoes and exposed similar corruption there.
In 1751-1758 he was lieutenant-governor of Virginia, first as the deputy
of Lord Albemarle and then, from July 1756 to January 1758, as deputy
for Lord Loudon. He was energetic in the discharge of his duties, but
aroused much animosity among the colonists by his zeal in looking after
the royal quit-rents, and by exacting heavy fees for the issue of
land-patents. It was his chief concern to prevent the French from
building in the Ohio Valley a chain of forts connecting their
settlements in the north with those on the Gulf of Mexico; and in the
autumn of 1753 he sent George Washington to Fort Le Boeuf, a newly
established French post at what is now Waterford, Pennsylvania, with a
message demanding the withdrawal of the French from English territory.
As the French refused to comply, Dinwiddie secured from the reluctant
Virginia assembly a grant of £10,000 and in the spring of 1754 he sent
Washington with an armed force toward the forks of the Ohio river "to
prevent the intentions of the French in settling those lands." In the
latter part of May Washington encountered a French force at a spot
called Great Meadows, near the Youghiogheny river, in what is now
south-western Pennsylvania, and a skirmish followed which precipitated
the French and Indian War. Dinwiddie was especially active at this time
in urging the co-operation of the colonies against the French in the
Ohio Valley; but none of the other governors, except William Shirley of
Massachusetts, was then much concerned about the western frontier, and
he could accomplish very little. His appeals to the home government,
however, resulted in the sending of General Edward Braddock to Virginia
with two regiments of regular troops; and at Braddock's call Dinwiddie
and the governors of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
met at Alexandria, Virginia, in April 1755, and planned the initial
operations of the war. Dinwiddie's administration was marked by a
constant wrangle with the assembly over money matters; and its obstinate
resistance to military appropriations caused him in 1754 and 1755 to
urge the home government to secure an act of parliament compelling the
colonies to raise money for their protection. In January 1758 he left
Virginia and lived in England until his death on the 27th of July 1770
at Clifton, Bristol.
_The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of
Virginia_ (1751-1758), published in two volumes, at Richmond, Va., in
1883-1884, by the Virginia Historical Society, and edited by R. A.
Brock, are of great value for the political history of the colonies in
this period.
DIO CASSIUS (more correctly CASSIUS DIO), COCCEIANUS (c. A.D. 150-235),
Roman historian, was born at Nicaea in Bithynia. His father was Cassius
Apronianus, governor of Dalmatia and Cilicia under Marcus Aurelius, and
on his mother's side he was the grandson of Dio Chrysostom, who had
assumed the surname of Cocceianus in honour of his patron the emperor
Cocceius Nerva. After his father's death, Dio Cassius left Cilicia for
Rome (180) and became a member of the senate. During the reign of
Commodus, Dio practised as an advocate at the Roman bar, and held the
offices of aedile and quaestor. He was raised to the praetorship by
Pertinax (193), but did not assume office till the reign of Septimius
Severus, with whom he was for a long time on the most intimate footing.
By Macrinus he was entrusted with the administration of Pergamum and
Smyrna; and on his return to Rome he was raised to the consulship about
220. After this he obtained the proconsulship of Africa, and again on
his return was sent as legate successively to Dalmatia and Pannonia. He
was raised a second time to the consulship by Alexander Severus, in 229;
but on the plea of ill health soon afterwards retired to Nicaea, where
he died. Before writing his history of Rome ([Greek: Rhômaika] or
[Greek: Rhômaikê Historia]), Dio Cassius had dedicated to the emperor
Severus an account of various dreams and prodigies which had presaged
his elevation to the throne (perhaps the [Greek: Enodia] attributed to
Dio by Suidas), and had also written a biography of his
fellow-countryman Arrian. The history of Rome, which consisted of
eighty books,--and, after the example of Livy, was divided into
decades,--began with the landing of Aeneas in Italy, and was continued
as far as the reign of Alexander Severus (222-235). Of this great work
we possess books 36-60, containing the history of events from 68
B.C.-A.D. 47; books 36 and 55-60 are imperfect. We also have part of 35
and 36-80 in the epitome of John Xiphilinus, an 11th-century Byzantine
monk. For the earlier period the loss of Dio's work is partly supplied
by the history of Zonaras, who followed him closely. Numerous fragments
are also contained in the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Dio's
work is a most important authority for the history of the last years of
the republic and the early empire. His industry was great and the
various important offices he held afforded him ample opportunities for
historical investigation. His style, though marred by Latinisms, is
clearer than that of his model Thucydides, and his narrative shows the
hand of the practised soldier and politician; the language is correct
and free from affectation. But he displays a superstitious regard for
miracles and prophecies; he has nothing to say against the arbitrary
acts of the emperors, which he seems to take as a matter of course; and
his work, although far more than a mere compilation, is not remarkable
for impartiality, vigour of judgment or critical historical faculty.
The best edition with notes is that of H. S. Reimar (1750-1752), new
ed. by F. G. Sturz (1824-1836); text by I. Melber (1890 foll.), with
account of previous editions, and U. P. Boissevain (1895-1901);
translation by H. B. Foster (Troy, New York, 1905 foll.), with full
bibliography; see also W. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen
Litteratur_ (1898), p. 675; E. Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa's
_Realencyclopadie_, iii. pt. 2 (1899); C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in
das Studium der alten Geschichte_ (1895).
DIOCESE (formed on Fr. _diocèse_, in place of the Eng. form
_diocess_--current until the 19th century--from Lat. _dioecesis_, med.
Lat. variant _diocesis_, from Gr. [Greek: dioikêsis], "housekeeping,"
"administration," [Greek: dioikein], "to keep house," "to govern"), the
sphere of a bishop's jurisdiction. In this, its sole modern sense, the
word diocese (_dioecesis_) has only been regularly used since the 9th
century, though isolated instances of such use occur so early as the
3rd, what is now known as a diocese having been till then usually called
a _parochia_ (parish). The Greek word [Greek: dioikêsis], from meaning
"administration," came to be applied to the territorial circumscription
in which administration was exercised. It was thus first applied e.g. to
the three districts of Cibyra, Apamea and Synnada, which were added to
Cilicia in Cicero's time (between 56 and 50 B.C.). The word is here
equivalent to "assize-districts" (Tyrrell and Purser's edition of Cicero
_Epist. ad fam._ iii. 8. 4; xiii. 67; cf. Strabo xiii. 628-629). But in
the reorganization of the empire, begun by Diocletian and completed by
Constantine, the word "diocese" acquired a more important meaning, the
empire being divided into twelve dioceses, of which the
largest--Oriens--embraced sixteen provinces, and the
smallest--Britain--four (see ROME: _Ancient History_; and W. T. Arnold,
_Roman Provincial Administration_, pp. 187, 194-196, which gives a list
of the dioceses and their subdivisions). The organization of the
Christian church in the Roman empire following very closely the lines of
the civil administration (see CHURCH HISTORY), the word diocese, in its
ecclesiastical sense, was at first applied to the sphere of
jurisdiction, not of a bishop, but of a metropolitan.[1] Thus Anastasius
Bibliothecarius (d. c. 886), in his life of Pope Dionysius, says that he
assigned churches to the presbyters, and established dioceses
(_parochiae_) and provinces (_dioeceses_). The word, however, survived
in its general sense of "office" or "administration," and it was even
used during the middle ages for "parish" (see Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.
"Dioecesis" 2).
The practice, under the Roman empire, of making the areas of
ecclesiastical administration very exactly coincide with those of the
civil administration, was continued in the organization of the church
beyond the borders of the empire, and many dioceses to this day preserve
the limits of long vanished political divisions. The process is well
illustrated in the case of English bishoprics. But this practice was
based on convenience, not principle; and the limits of the dioceses,
once fixed, did not usually change with the changing political
boundaries. Thus Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, complains that not only
his metropolitanate (_dioecesis_) but his bishopric (_parochia_) is
divided between two realms under two kings; and this inconvenient
overlapping of jurisdictions remained, in fact, very common in Europe
until the readjustments of national boundaries by the territorial
settlements of the 19th century. In principle, however, the subdivision
of a diocese, in the event of the work becoming too heavy for one
bishop, was very early admitted, e.g. by the first council at Lugo in
Spain (569), which erected Lugo into a metropolitanate, the consequent
division of diocese being confirmed by the king of the second council,
held in 572. Another reason for dividing a diocese, and establishing a
new see, has been recognized by the church as duly existing "if the
sovereign should think fit to endow some principal village or town with
the rank and privileges of a city" (Bingham, lib. xvii. c. 5). But there
are canons for the punishment of such as might induce the sovereign so
to erect any town into a city, solely with the view of becoming bishop
thereof. Nor could any diocese be divided without the consent of the
primate.
In England an act of parliament is necessary for the creation of new
dioceses. In the reign of Henry VIII. six new dioceses were thus created
(under an act of 1539); but from that time onward until the 19th century
they remained practically unchanged. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners
Act 1836, which created two new dioceses (Ripon and Manchester),
remodelled the state of the old dioceses by an entirely new adjustment
of the revenues and patronage of each see, and also extended or
curtailed the parishes and counties in the various jurisdictions.
By the ancient custom of the church the bishop takes his title, not from
his diocese, but from his see, i.e. the place where his cathedral is
established. Thus the old episcopal titles are all derived from cities.
This tradition has been broken, however, by the modern practice of
bishops in the United States and the British colonies, e.g. archbishop
of the West Indies, bishop of Pennsylvania, Wyoming, &c. (see BISHOP).
See Hinschius, _Kirchenrecht_, ii. 38, &c.; Joseph Bingham, _Origines
ecclesiasticae_, 9 vols. (1840); Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.
"Dioecesis"; _New English Dictionary_ (Oxford, 1897), s. "Diocese."
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For exceptions see Hinschius ii. p. 39, note 1.
DIO CHRYSOSTOM (c. A.D. 40-115), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was born
at Piusa (mod. _Brusa_), a town at the foot of Mount Olympus in
Bithynia. He was called Chrysostom ("golden-mouthed") from his
eloquence, and also to distinguish him from his grandson, the historian
Dio Cassius; his surname Cocceianus was derived from his patron, the
emperor Cocceius Nerva. Although he did much to promote the welfare of
his native place, he became so unpopular there that he migrated to Rome,
but, having incurred the suspicion of Domitian, he was banished from
Italy. With nothing in his pocket but Plato's _Phaedo_ and Demosthenes'
_De falsa legatione_, he wandered about in Thrace, Mysia, Scythia and
the land of the Getae. He returned to Rome on the accession of Nerva,
with whom and his successor Trajan he was on intimate terms. During this
period he paid a visit to Prusa, but, disgusted at his reception, he
went back to Rome. The place and date of his death are unknown; it is
certain, however, that he was alive in 112, when the younger Pliny was
governor of Bithynia.
Eighty orations, or rather essays on political, moral and philosophical
subjects, have come down to us under his name; the _Corinthiaca_,
however, is generally regarded as spurious, and is probably the work of
Favorinus of Arelate. Of the extant orations the following are the most
important:--_Borysthenitica_ (xxxvi.), on the advantages of monarchy,
addressed to the inhabitants of Olbia, and containing interesting
information on the history of the Greek colonies on the shores of the
Black Sea; _Olympica_ (xii.), in which Pheidias is represented as
setting forth the principles which he had followed in his statue of
Zeus, one passage being supposed by some to have suggested Lessing's
_Laocoon_; _Rhodiaca_ (xxxi.), an attack on the Rhodians for altering
the names on their statues, and thus converting them into memorials of
famous men of the day (an imitation of Demosthenes' _Leptines_); _De
regno_ (i.-iv.), addressed to Trajan, a eulogy of the monarchical form
of government, under which the emperor is the representative of Zeus
upon earth; _De Aeschylo et Sophocle et Euripide_ (lii.), a comparison
of the treatment of the story of Philoctetes by the three great Greek
tragedians; and _Philoctetes_ (lix.), a summary of the prologue to the
lost play by Euripides. In his later life, Dio, who had originally
attacked the philosophers, himself became a convert to Stoicism. To this
period belong the essays on moral subjects, such as the denunciation of
various cities (Tarsus, Alexandria) for their immorality. Most pleasing
of all is the _Euboica_ (vii.), a description of the simple life of the
herdsmen and huntsmen of Euboea as contrasted with that of the
inhabitants of the towns. _Troica_ (xi.), an attempt to prove to the
inhabitants of Ilium that Homer was a liar and that Troy was never
taken, is a good example of a sophistical rhetorical exercise. Amongst
his lost works were attacks on philosophers and Domitian, and _Getica_
(wrongly attributed to Dio Cassius by Suïdas), an account of the manners
and customs of the Getae, for which he had collected material on the
spot during his banishment. The style of Dio, who took Plato and
Xenophon especially as his models, is pure and refined, and on the whole
free from rhetorical exaggeration. With Plutarch he played an important
part in the revival of Greek literature at the end of the 1st century of
the Christian era.
Editions: J. J. Reiske (Leipzig, 1784); A. Emperius (Brunswick, 1844);
L. Dindorf (Leipzig, 1857), H. von Arnim (Berlin, 1893-1896). The
ancient authorities for his life are Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 7;
Photius, _Bibliotheca_, cod. 209; Suidas, s.v.; Synesius, [Greek:
Diôn]. On Dio generally see H. von Arnim, _Leben und Werke des Dion
von Prusa_ (Berlin, 1898); C. Martha, _Les Moralistes sous l'empire
romain_ (1865); W. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_
(1898), § 520; J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_ (2nd
ed., 1906); W. Schmid in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, v. pt. 1
(1905). The _Euboica_ has been abridged by J. P. Mahaffy in _The Greek
World under Roman Sway_ (1890), and there is a translation of _Select
Essays_ by Gilbert Wakefield (1800).
DIOCLETIAN (GAIUS AURELIUS VALERIUS DIOCLETIANUS) (A.D. 245-313), Roman
emperor 284-305, is said to have been born at Dioclea, near Salona, in
Dalmatia. His original name was Diocles. Of humble origin, he served
with high distinction and held important military commands under the
emperors Probus and Aurelian, and accompanied Carus to the Persian War.
After the death of Numerianus he was chosen emperor by the troops at
Chalcedon, on the 17th of September 284, and slew with his own hands
Arrius Aper, the praefect of the praetorians. He thus fulfilled the
prediction of a druidess of Gaul, that he would mount a throne as soon
as he had slain a wild boar (_aper_). Having been installed at
Nicomedia, he received general acknowledgment after the murder of
Carinus. In consequence of the rising of the Bagaudae in Gaul, and the
threatening attitude of the German peoples on the Rhine, he appointed
Maximian Augustus in 286; and, in view of further dangers and
disturbances in the empire, proclaimed Constantius Chlorus and Galerius
Caesars in 293. Each of the four rulers was placed at a separate
capital--Nicomedia, Mediolanum (Milan), Augusta Trevirorum (Trier),
Sirmium. This amounted to an entirely new organization of the empire, on
a plan commensurate with the work of government which it now had to
carry on. At the age of fifty-nine, exhausted with labour, Diocletian
abdicated his sovereignty on the 1st of May 305, and retired to Salona,
where he died eight years afterwards (others give 316 as the year of his
death). The end of his reign was memorable for the persecution of the
Christians. In defence of this it may be urged that he hoped to
strengthen the empire by reviving the old religion, and that the church
as an independent state over whose inner life at least he possessed no
influence, appeared to be a standing menace to his authority. Under
Diocletian the senate became a political nonentity, the last traces of
republican institutions disappeared, and were replaced by an absolute
monarchy approaching to despotism. He wore the royal diadem, assumed the
title of lord, and introduced a complicated system of ceremonial and
etiquette, borrowed from the East, in order to surround the monarchy and
its representative with mysterious sanctity. But at the same time he
devoted his energies to the improvement of the administration of the
empire; he reformed the standard of coinage, fixed the price of
provisions and other necessaries of daily life, remitted the tax upon
inheritances and manumissions, abolished various monopolies, repressed
corruption and encouraged trade. In addition, he adorned the city with
numerous buildings, such as the thermae, of which extensive remains are
still standing (Aurelius Victor, _De Caesaribus_, 39; Eutropius ix. 13;
Zonaras xii. 31).
See A. Vogel, _Der Kaiser Diocletian_ (Gotha, 1857), a short sketch,
with notes on the authorities; T. Preuss, _Kaiser Diocletian und seine
Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1869); V. Casagrandi, _Diocleziano_ (Faenza, 1876); H.
Schiller, _Gesch. der römischen Kaiserzeit_, ii. (1887); T. Bernhardt,
_Geschichte Roms von Valerian bis zu Diocletians Tod_ (1867); A. J.
Mason, _The Persecution of Diocletian_ (1876); P. Allard, _La
Persécution de Dioclétien_ (1890); V. Schultze in Herzog-Hauck's
_Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie_, iv. (1898); Gibbon.
_Decline and Fall_, chaps. 13 and 16; A. W. Hunzinger, _Die
Diocletianische Staatsreform_ (1899); O. Seeck, "Die Schatzungsordnung
Diocletians" in _Zeitschrift für Social- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte_
(1896), a valuable paper with notes containing references to sources;
and O. Seeck, _Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt_, vol. i.
cap. 1. On his military reforms see T. Mommsen in _Hermes_, xxiv., and
on his tariff system, Diocletian, Edict of.
DIOCLETIAN, EDICT OF (_De pretiis rerum venalium_), an imperial edict
promulgated in A.D. 301, fixing a maximum price for provisions and other
articles of commerce, and a maximum rate of wages. Incomplete copies of
it have been discovered at various times in various places, the first
(in Greek and Latin) in 1709, at Stratonicea in Caria, by W. Sherard,
British consul at Smyrna, containing the preamble and the beginning of
the tables down to No. 403. This partial copy was completed by W. Bankes
in 1817. A second fragment (now in the museum at Aix in Provence) was
brought from Egypt in 1809; it supplements the preamble by specifying
the titles of the emperors and Caesars and the number of times they had
held them, whereby the date of publication can be accurately determined.
For other fragments and their localities see _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_ (iii., 1873, pp. 801 and 1055; and supplement i, 1893, p.
1909); special mention may be made of those of Elatea, Plataea and
Megalopolis. Latin being the official language all over the empire,
there was no official Greek translation (except for Greece proper), as
is shown by the variations in those portions of the text of which more
than one Greek version is extant. Further, all the fragments come from
the provinces which were under the jurisdiction of Diocletian, from
which it is argued that the edict was only published in the eastern
portion of the empire; certainly the phrase _universo orbi_ in the
preamble is against this, but the words may merely be an exaggerated
description of Diocletian's special provinces, and if it had been
published in the western portion as well, it is curious that no traces
have been found of it. The articles mentioned in the edict, which is
chiefly interesting as giving their relative values at the time, include
cereals, wine, oil, meat, vegetables, fruits, skins, leather, furs,
foot-gear, timber, carpets, articles of dress, and the wages range from
the ordinary labourer to the professional advocate. The unit of money
was the denarius, not the silver, but a copper coin introduced by
Diocletian, of which the value has been fixed approximately at 1/5th of
a penny. The punishment for exceeding the prices fixed was death or
deportation. The edict was a well-intended but abortive attempt, in
great measure in the interests of the soldiers, to meet the distress
caused by several bad harvests and commercial speculation. The actual
effect was disastrous: the restrictions thus placed upon commercial
freedom brought about a disturbance of the food supply in non-productive
countries, many traders were ruined, and the edict soon fell into
abeyance.
See Lactantius, _De mortibus persecutorum_, vii., a contemporary who,
as a Christian, writes with natural bias against Diocletian; T.
Mommsen, _Das Edict Diocletians_ (1851); W. M. Leake, _An Edict of
Diocletian_ (1826); W. H. Waddington, _L'Édit de Dioclétien_ (1864),
and E. Lépaulle, _L'Édit de maximum_ (1886), both containing
introductions and ample notes; J. C. Rolfe and F. B. Tarbell in
_Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens_, v.
(1892) (Plataea); W. Loring in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xi.
(1890) (Megalopolis); P. Paris in _Bulletin de correspondance
hellénique_, ix. (1885) (Elatea). There is an edition of the whole by
Mommsen, with notes by H. Blümner (1893).
DIODATI, GIOVANNI (1576-1649), Swiss Protestant divine, was born at
Geneva on the 6th of June 1576, of a noble family originally belonging
to Lucca, which had been expatriated on account of its Protestantism. At
the age of twenty-one he was nominated professor of Hebrew at Geneva on
the recommendation of Theodor Beza. In 1606 he became professor of
theology, in 1608 pastor, or parish minister, at Geneva, and in the
following year he succeeded Beza as professor of theology. As a preacher
he was eloquent, bold and fearless. He held a high place among the
reformers of Geneva, by whom he was sent on a mission to France in 1614.
He had previously visited Italy, and made the acquaintance of Paolo
Sarpi, whom he endeavoured unsuccessfully to engage in a reformation
movement. In 1618-1619 he attended the synod of Dort, and took a
prominent part in its deliberations, being one of the six divines
appointed to draw up the account of its proceedings. He was a thorough
Calvinist, and entirely sympathized with the condemnation of the
Arminians. In 1645 he resigned his professorship, and died at Geneva on
the 3rd of October 1649. Diodati is chiefly famous as the author of the
translation of the Bible into Italian (1603, edited with notes, 1607).
He also undertook a translation of the Bible into French, which appeared
with notes in 1644. Among his other works are his _Annotationes in
Biblia_ (1607), of which an English translation (_Pious and Learned
Annotations upon the Holy Bible_) was published in London in 1648, and
various polemical treatises, such as _De fictitio Pontificiorum
Purgatorio_ (1619); _De justa secessione Reformatorum ab Ecclesia
Romana_ (1628); _De Antichristo_, &c. He also published French
translations of Sarpi's _History of the Council of Trent_, and of Edwin
Sandys's _Account of the State of Religion in the West_.
DIODORUS CRONUS (4th century B.C.), Greek philosopher of the Megarian
school. Practically nothing is known of his life. Diogenes Laërtius (ii.
111) tells a story that, while staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter,
Diodorus was asked to solve a dialectical subtlety by Stilpo. Not being
able to answer on the spur of the moment, he was nicknamed [Greek: ho
Kronos] (the God, equivalent to "slowcoach") by Ptolemy. The story goes
that he died of shame at his failure. Strabo, however, says (xiv. 658;
xvii. 838) that he took the name from Apollonius, his master. Like the
rest of the Megarian school he revelled in verbal quibbles, proving that
motion and existence are impossible. His was the famous sophism known as
the [Greek: Kyrieyôn]. The impossible cannot result from the possible; a
past event cannot become other than it is; but if an event, at a given
moment, had been possible, from this possible would result something
impossible; therefore the original event was impossible. This problem
was taken up by Chrysippus, who admitted that he could not solve it.
Apart from these verbal gymnastics, Diodorus did not differ from the
Megarian school. From his great dialectical skill he earned the title
[Greek: ho dialektikos], or [Greek: dialektikôtatos], a title which was
borne by his five daughters, who inherited his ability.
See Cicero, _De Fato_, 6, 7, 9; Aristotle, _Metaphysica_, [theta] 3;
Sext. Empiric., _adv. Math._ x. 85; Ritter and Preller, _Hist. philos.
Gr. et Rom._ chap. v. §§ 234-236 (ed. 1869); and bibliography appended
to article MEGARIAN SCHOOL.
DIODORUS SICULUS, Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily, lived in
the times of Julius Caesar and Augustus. From his own statements we
learn that he travelled in Egypt between 60-57 B.C. and that he spent
several years in Rome. The latest event mentioned by him belongs to the
year 21 B.C. He asserts that he devoted thirty years to the composition
of his history, and that he undertook frequent and dangerous journeys in
prosecution of his historical researches. These assertions, however,
find little credit with recent critics. The history, to which Diodorus
gave the name [Greek: bibliothêkê historikê] (_Bibliotheca historica_,
"Historical Library"), consisted of forty books, and was divided into
three parts. The first treats of the mythic history of the non-Hellenic,
and afterwards of the Hellenic tribes, to the destruction of Troy; the
second section ends with Alexander's death; and the third continues the
history as far as the beginning of Caesar's Gallic War. Of this
extensive work there are still extant only the first five books,
treating of the mythic history of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians
and Greeks; and also the 11th to the 20th books inclusive, beginning
with the second Persian War, and ending with the history of the
successors of Alexander, previous to the partition of the Macedonian
empire (302). The rest exists only in fragments preserved in Photius and
the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The faults of Diodorus
arise partly from the nature of the undertaking, and the awkward form of
annals into which he has thrown the historical portion of his narrative.
He shows none of the critical faculties of the historian, merely setting
down a number of unconnected details. His narrative contains frequent
repetitions and contradictions, is without colouring, and monotonous;
and his simple diction, which stands intermediate between pure Attic and
the colloquial Greek of his time, enables us to detect in the narrative
the undigested fragments of the materials which he employed. In spite of
its defects, however, the _Bibliotheca_ is of considerable value as to
some extent supplying the loss of the works of older authors, from which
it is compiled. Unfortunately, Diodorus does not always quote his
authorities, but his general sources of information were--in history and
chronology, Castor, Ephorus and Apollodorus; in geography, Agatharchides
and Artemidorus. In special sections he followed special
authorities--e.g. in the history of his native Sicily, Philistus and
Timaeus.
_Editio princeps_, by H. Stephanus (1559); of other editions the best
are: P. Wesseling (1746), not yet superseded; L. Dindorf (1828-1831);
(text) L. Dindorf (1866-1868, revised by F. Vogel, 1888-1893 and C. T.
Fischer, 1905-1906). The standard works on the sources of Diodorus are
C. G. Heyne, _De fontibus et auctoribus historiarum Diodori_, printed
in Dindorf's edition, and C. A. Volquardsen, _Die Quellen der
griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor_ (1868); A. von
Mess, _Rheinisches Museum_ (1906); see also L. O. Bröcker,
_Untersuchungen über Diodor_ (1879), short, but containing much
information; O. Maass, _Kleitarch und Diodor_ (1894- ); G. J.
Schneider, _De Diodori fontibus_, i.-iv. (1880); C. Wachsmuth,
_Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte_ (1895); GREECE;
_Ancient History_, "Authorities."
DIODOTUS, Seleucid satrap of Bactria, who rebelled against Antiochus II.
(about 255) and became the founder of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom
(Trogus, _Prol._ 41; Justin xli. 4, 5, where he is wrongly called
Theodotus; Strabo xi. 515). His power seems to have extended over the
neighbouring provinces. Arsaces, the chieftain of the nomadic (Dahan)
tribe of the Parni, fled before him into Parthia and here became the
founder of the Parthian kingdom (Strabo l.c.). When Seleucus II. in 239
attempted to subjugate the rebels in the east he seems to have united
with him against the Parthians (Justin xli. 4, 9). Soon afterwards he
died and was succeeded by his son Diodotus II., who concluded a peace
with the Parthians (Justin l.c.). Diodotus II. was killed by another
usurper, Euthydemus (Polyb. xi. 34, 2). Of Diodotus I. we possess gold
and silver coins, which imitate the coins of Antiochus II.; on these he
sometimes calls himself Soter, "the saviour." As the power of the
Seleucids was weak and continually attacked by Ptolemy II., the eastern
provinces and their Greek cities were exposed to the invasion of the
nomadic barbarians and threatened with destruction (Polyb. xi. 34, 5);
thus the erection of an independent kingdom may have been a necessity
and indeed an advantage to the Greeks, and this epithet well deserved.
Diodotus Soter appears also on coins struck in his memory by the later
Graeco-Bactrian kings Agathocles and Antimachus. Cf. A. v. Sallet, _Die
Nachfolger Alexanders d. Gr. in Baktrien und Indien_; Percy Gardner,
_Catal. of the Coins of the Greek and Scythian Kings of Bactria and
India_ (Brit. Mus.); see also BACTRIA. (ED. M.)
DIOGENES, "the Cynic," Greek philosopher, was born at Sinope about 412
B.C., and died in 323 at Corinth, according to Diogenes Laërtius, on the
day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon. His father, Icesias, a
money-changer, was imprisoned or exiled on the charge of adulterating
the coinage. Diogenes was included in the charge, and went to Athens
with one attendant, whom he dismissed, saying, "If Manes can live
without Diogenes, why not Diogenes without Manes?" Attracted by the
ascetic teaching of Antisthenes, he became his pupil, despite the
brutality with which he was received, and rapidly excelled his master
both in reputation and in the austerity of his life. The stories which
are told of him are probably true; in any case, they serve to
illustrate the logical consistency of his character. He inured himself
to the vicissitudes of weather by living in a tub belonging to the
temple of Cybele. The single wooden bowl he possessed he destroyed on
seeing a peasant boy drink from the hollow of his hands. On a voyage to
Aegina he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Crete to a
Corinthian named Xeniades. Being asked his trade, he replied that he
knew no trade but that of governing men, and that he wished to be sold
to a man who needed a master. As tutor to the two sons of Xeniades, he
lived in Corinth for the rest of his life, which he devoted entirely to
preaching the doctrines of virtuous self-control. At the Isthmian games
he lectured to large audiences who turned to him from Antisthenes. It
was, probably, at one of these festivals that he craved from Alexander
the single boon that he would not stand between him and the sun, to
which Alexander replied "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
On his death, about which there exist several accounts, the Corinthians
erected to his memory a pillar on which there rested a dog of Parian
marble. His ethical teaching will be found in the article CYNICS (q.v.).
It may suffice to say here that virtue, for him, consisted in the
avoidance of all physical pleasure; that pain and hunger were positively
helpful in the pursuit of goodness; that all the artificial growths of
society appeared to him incompatible with truth and goodness; that
moralization implies a return to nature and simplicity. He has been
credited with going to extremes of impropriety in pursuance of these
ideas; probably, however, his reputation has suffered from the undoubted
immorality of some of his successors. Both in ancient and in modern
times, his personality has appealed strongly to sculptors and to
painters. Ancient busts exist in the museums of the Vatican, the Louvre
and the Capitol. The interview between Diogenes and Alexander is
represented in an ancient marble bas-relief found in the Villa Albani.
Rubens, Jordaens, Steen, Van der Werff, Jeaurat, Salvator Rosa and Karel
Dujardin have painted various episodes in his life.
The chief ancient authority for his life is Diogenes Laërtius vi. 20;
see also Mayor's notes on Juvenal, _Satires_, xiv. 305-314; and
article CYNICS.
DIOGENES APOLLONIATES (c. 460 B.C.), Greek natural philosopher, was a
native of Apollonia in Crete. Although of Dorian stock, he wrote in the
Ionic dialect, like all the _physiologi_ (physical philosophers). There
seems no doubt that he lived some time at Athens, where it is said that
he became so unpopular (probably owing to his supposed atheistical
opinions) that his life was in danger. The views of Diogenes are
transferred in the _Clouds_ (264 ff.) of Aristophanes to Socrates. Like
Anaximenes, he believed air to be the one source of all being, and all
other substances to be derived from it by condensation and rarefaction.
His chief advance upon the doctrines of Anaximenes is that he asserted
air, the primal force, to be possessed of intelligence--"the air which
stirred within him not only prompted, but instructed. The air as the
origin of all things is necessarily an eternal, imperishable substance,
but as soul it is also necessarily endowed with consciousness." In fact,
he belonged to the old Ionian school, whose doctrines he modified by the
theories of his contemporary Anaxagoras, although he avoided his
dualism. His most important work was [Greek: Peri physeôs] (_De
natura_), of which considerable fragments are extant (chiefly in
Simplicius); it is possible that he wrote also Against the Sophists and
_On the Nature of Man_, to which the well-known fragment about the veins
would belong; possibly these discussions were subdivisions of his great
work.
Fragments in F. Mullach, _Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum_, i.
(1860); F. Panzerbieter, _Diogenes Apolloniates_ (1830), with
philosophical dissertation; J. Burnet, _Early Greek Philosophy_
(1892); H. Ritter and L. Preller, _Historia philosophiae_ (4th ed.,
1869), §§ 59-68; E. Krause, _Diogenes von Apollonia_ (1909). See
IONIAN SCHOOL.
DIOGENES LAËRTIUS (or LAËRTIUS DIOGENES), the biographer of the Greek
philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the
town of Laërte in Cilicia, and by others from the Roman family of the
Laërtii. Of the circumstances of his life we know nothing. He must have
lived after Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 200), whom he mentions, and
before Stephanus of Byzantium (c. A.D. 500), who quotes him. It is
probable that he flourished during the reign of Alexander Severus (A.D.
222-235) and his successors. His own opinions are equally uncertain. By
some he was regarded as a Christian; but it seems more probable that he
was an Epicurean. The work by which he is known professes to give an
account of the lives and sayings of the Greek philosophers. Although it
is at best an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, its value, as
giving us an insight into the private life of the Greek sages, justly
led Montaigne to exclaim that he wished that instead of one Laërtius
there had been a dozen. He treats his subject in two divisions which he
describes as the Ionian and the Italian schools; the division is quite
unscientific. The biographies of the former begin with Anaximander, and
end with Clitomachus, Theophrastus and Chrysippus; the latter begins
with Pythagoras, and ends with Epicurus. The Socratic school, with its
various branches, is classed with the Ionic; while the Eleatics and
sceptics are treated under the Italic. The whole of the last book is
devoted to Epicurus, and contains three most interesting letters
addressed to Herodotus, Pythocles and Menoeceus. His chief authorities
were Diocles of Magnesia's _Cursory Notice_ ([Greek: Epidromê]) _of
Philosophers_ and Favorinus's _Miscellaneous History_ and _Memoirs_.
From the statements of Burlaeus (Walter Burley, a 14th-century monk) in
his _De vita et moribus philosophorum_ the text of Diogenes seems to
have been much fuller than that which we now possess. In addition to the
_Lives_, Diogenes was the author of a work in verse on famous men, in
various metres.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Editio princeps_ (1533); H. Hübner and C. Jacobitz
with commentary (1828-1833); C. G. Cobet (1850), text only. See F.
Nietzsche, "De Diogenis Laërtii fontibus" in _Rheinisches Museum_,
xxiii., xxiv. (1868-1869); J. Freudenthal, "Zu Quellenkunde Diog.
Laërt.," in _Hellenistische Studien_, iii. (1879); O. Maass, _De
biographis Graecis_ (1880); V. Egger, _De fontibus Diog. Laërt._
(1881). There is an English translation by C. D. Yonge in Bohn's
Classical Library.
DIOGENIANUS, of Heraclea on the Pontus (or in Caria), Greek grammarian,
flourished during the reign of Hadrian. He was the author of an
alphabetical lexicon, chiefly of poetical words, abridged from the great
lexicon ([Greek: Peri glossôn]) of Pamphilus of Alexandria (fl. A.D. 50)
and other similar works. It was also known by the title [Greek:
Periergopenêtes] (for the use of "industrious poor students"). It formed
the basis of the lexicon, or rather glossary, of Hesychius of
Alexandria, which is described in the preface as a new edition of the
work of Diogenianus. We still possess a collection of proverbs under his
name, probably an abridgment of the collection made by himself from his
lexicon (ed. by E. Leutsch and F. W. Schneidewin in _Paroemiographi
Graeci_, i. 1839). Diogenianus was also the author of an Anthology of
epigrams, of treatises on rivers, lakes, fountains and promontories; and
of a list (with map) of all the towns in the world.
DIOGNETUS, EPISTLE TO, one of the early Christian apologies. Diognetus,
of whom nothing is really known, has expressed a desire to know what
Christianity really means--"What is this new race" of men who are
neither pagans nor Jews? "What is this new interest which has entered
into men's lives now and not before?" The anonymous answer begins with a
refutation of the folly of worshipping idols, fashioned by human hands
and needing to be guarded if of precious material. The repulsive smell
of animal sacrifices is enough to show their monstrous absurdity. Next
Judaism is attacked. Jews abstain from idolatry and worship one God, but
they fall into the same error of repulsive sacrifice, and have absurd
superstitions about meats and sabbaths, circumcision and new moons. So
far the task is easy; but the mystery of the Christian religion "think
not to learn from man." A passage of great eloquence follows, showing
that Christians have no obvious peculiarities that mark them off as a
separate race. In spite of blameless lives they are hated. Their home is
in heaven, while they live on earth. "In a word, what the soul is in a
body, this the Christians are in the world.... The soul is enclosed in
the body, and yet itself holdeth the body together: so Christians are
kept in the world as in a prison-house, and yet they themselves hold the
world together." This strange life is inspired in them by the almighty
and invisible God, who sent no angel or subordinate messenger to teach
them, but His own Son by whom He created the universe. No man could have
known God, had He not thus declared Himself. "If thou too wouldst have
this faith, learn first the knowledge of the Father. For God loved men,
for whose sake He made the world.... Knowing Him, thou wilt love Him and
imitate His goodness; and marvel not if a man can imitate God; he can,
if God will." By kindness to the needy, by giving them what God has
given to him, a man can become "a god of them that receive, an imitator
of God." "Then shalt thou on earth behold God's life in heaven; then
shalt thou begin to speak the mysteries of God." A few lines after this
the letter suddenly breaks off.
Even this rapid summary may show that the writer was a man of no
ordinary power, and there is no other early Christian writing outside
the New Testament which appeals so strongly to modern readers. The
letter has been often classed with the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers, and in some ways it seems to mark the transition from the
sub-apostolic age to that of the Apologists. Bishop Lightfoot, who
speaks of the letter as "one of the noblest and most impressive of early
Christian apologies," places it c. A.D. 150, and inclines to identify
Diognetus with the tutor of Marcus Aurelius. Harnack and others would
place it later, perhaps in the 3rd century. There are some striking
parallels in method and language to the Apology of Aristides (q.v.), and
also to the early "Preaching of Peter."
The one manuscript which contained this letter perished by fire at
Strassburg in 1870, but happily it had been accurately collated by Reuss
nine years before. It formed part of a collection of works supposed to
be by Justin Martyr, and to this mistaken attribution its preservation
is no doubt due. Both thought and language mark the author off entirely
from Justin. The end of the letter is lost, but there followed in the
codex the end of a homily,[1] which was attached without a break to the
epistle: this points to the loss in some earlier codex of pages
containing the end of the letter and the beginning of the homily.
The Epistle may be read in J. B. Lightfoot's _Apostolic Fathers_ (ed.
min.), where there is also a translation into English. (J. A. R.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Chapters xi. and xii., which Lightfoot suggested might be the work
of Pantaenus.
DIOMEDES, in Greek legend, son of Tydeus, one of the bravest of the
heroes of the Trojan War. In the _Iliad_ he is the favourite of Athena,
by whose aid he not only overcomes all mortals who venture to oppose
him, but is even enabled to attack the gods. In the post-Homeric story,
he made his way with Odysseus by an underground passage into the citadel
of Troy and carried off the Palladium, the presence of which within the
walls secured Troy against capture (Virgil, _Aeneid_, ii. 164). On his
return to Argos, finding that his wife had been unfaithful, he removed
to Aetolia, and thence to Daunia (Apulia), where he married the daughter
of King Daunus. He was buried or mysteriously disappeared on one of the
islands in the Adriatic called after him Diomedeae, his sorrowing
companions being changed into birds by the gods out of compassion (Ovid,
_Metam._ xiv. 457 ff.). He was the reputed founder of Argyrippa (Arpi)
and other Italian cities (_Aeneid_, xi. 243 ff.). He was worshipped as a
hero not only in Greece, but on the coast of the Adriatic, as at Thurii
and Metapontum. At Argos, his native place, during the festival of
Athena, his shield was carried through the streets as a relic, together
with the Palladium, and his statue was washed in the river Inachus.
DIOMEDES, Latin grammarian, flourished at the end of the 4th century
A.D. He was the author of an extant _Ars grammatica_ in three books,
dedicated to a certain Athanasius. The third book is the most important,
as containing extracts from Suetonius's _De poëtis_. Diomedes wrote
about the same time as Charisius (q.v.) and used the same sources
independently. The works of both grammarians are valuable, but whereas
much of Charisius has been lost, the Ars of Diomedes has come down to us
complete. In book i. he treats of the eight parts of speech; in ii. of
the elementary ideas of grammar and of style; in iii. of quantity and
metres.
The best edition is in H. Keil's _Grammatici Latini_, i.; see also C.
von Paucker, _Kleinere Studien_, i. (1883), on the Latinity of
Diomedes.
DION, tyrant of Syracuse (408-353 B.C.), the son of Hipparinus, and
brother-in-law of Dionysius the Elder. In his youth he was an admirer
and pupil of Plato, whom Dionysius had invited to Syracuse; and he used
every effort to inculcate the maxims of his master in the mind of the
tyrant. The stern morality of Dion was distasteful to the younger
Dionysius, and the historian Philistus, a faithful supporter of despotic
power, succeeded in procuring his banishment on account of alleged
intrigues with the Carthaginians. The exiled philosopher retired to
Athens, where he was at first permitted to enjoy his revenues in peace;
but the intercession of Plato (who had again visited Syracuse to procure
Dion's recall) only served to exasperate the tyrant, and at length
provoked him to confiscate the property of Dion, and give his wife to
another. This last outrage roused Dion. Assembling a small force at
Zacynthus, he sailed to Sicily (357) and was received with
demonstrations of joy. Dionysius, who was in Italy, returned to Sicily,
but was defeated and obliged to flee. Dion himself was soon after
supplanted by the intrigues of Heracleides, and again banished. The
incompetency of the new leader and the cruelties of Apollocrates, the
son of Dionysius, soon led to his recall. He had, however, scarcely made
himself master of Sicily when the people began to express their
discontent with his tyrannical conduct, and he was assassinated by
Callippus, an Athenian who had accompanied him in his expedition.
See _Lives_ by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 6-20)
and in modern times by T. Lau (1860); see also SYRACUSE and SICILY:
_History_.
DIONE, in the earliest Greek mythology, the wife of Zeus. As such she is
associated with Zeus Naïus (the god of fertilizing moisture) at Dodona
(Strabo vii. p. 329), by whose side she sits, adorned with a bridal veil
and garland and holding a sceptre. As the oracle declined in importance,
her place as the wife of Zeus was taken by Hera. It is probable that in
very early times the cult of Dione existed in Athens, where she had an
altar before the Erechtheum. After her admission to the general
religious system of the Greeks, Dione was variously described. In the
_Iliad_ (v. 370) she is the mother by Zeus of Aphrodite, who is herself
in later times called Dione (the epithet Dionaeus was given to Julius
Caesar as claiming descent from Venus). In Hesiod (_Theog._ 353) she is
one of the daughters of Oceanus; in Pherecydes (ap. schol. _Iliad_,
xviii. 486), one of the nymphs of Dodona, the nurses of Dionysus; in
Euripides (frag. 177), the mother of Dionysus; in Hyginus (fab. 9. 82),
the daughter of Atlas, wife of Tantalus and mother of Pelops and Niobe.
Others make her a Titanid, the daughter of Uranus and Gaea (Apollodorus
i. 1). Speaking generally, Dione may be regarded as the female
embodiment of the attributes of Zeus, to whose name her own is related
as Juno (= Jovino) to Jupiter.
DIONYSIA, festivals in honour of the god Dionysus generally, but in
particular the festivals celebrated in Attica and by the branches of the
Attic-Ionic race in the islands and in Asia Minor. In Attica there were
two festivals annually. (1) The lesser Dionysia, or [Greek: ta kat
agrous], was held in the country places for four days (about the 19th to
the 22nd of December) at the first tasting of the new wine. It was
accompanied by songs, dance, phallic processions and the impromptu
performances of itinerant players, who with others from the city
thronged to take part in the excitement of the rustic sports. A
favourite amusement was the Ascoliasmus, or dancing on one leg upon a
leathern bag ([Greek: askos]), which had been smeared with oil. (2) The
_greater_ Dionysia, or [Greek: ta en astei], was held in the city of
Athens for six days (about the 28th of March to the 2nd of April). This
was a festival of joy at the departure of winter and the promise of
summer, Dionysus being regarded as having delivered the people from the
wants and troubles of winter. The religious act of the festival was the
conveying of the ancient image of the god, which had been brought from
Eleutherae to Athens, from the ancient sanctuary of the Lenaeum to a
small temple near the Acropolis and back again, with a chorus of boys
and a procession carrying masks and singing the dithyrambus. The
festival culminated in the production of tragedies, comedies and satyric
dramas in the great theatre of Dionysus. Other festivals in honour of
Dionysus were the Anthesteria (q.v.); the Lenaea (about the 28th to the
31st of January), or festival of vats, at which, after a great public
banquet, the citizens went through the city in procession to attend the
dramatic representations; the Oschophoria (October-November), a vintage
festival, so called from the branches of vine with grapes carried by
twenty youths from the ephebi, two from each tribe, in a race from the
temple of Dionysus in Athens to the temple of Athena Sciras in Phalerum.
See A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_ (1898); L. Preller,
_Griechische Mythologie_; L. C. Purser in Smith's _Dictionary of
Antiquities_ (3rd ed., 1890); article DIONYSOS in W. H. Roscher's
_Lexikon der Mythologie_; and the exhaustive account with bibliography
by J. Girard in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_.
DIONYSIUS, pope from 259 to 268. To Dionysius, who was elected pope in
259 after the persecution of Valerian, fell the task of reorganizing the
Roman church, which had fallen into great disorder. At the protest of
some of the faithful at Alexandria, he demanded from the bishop of
Alexandria, also called Dionysius, explanations touching his doctrine.
He died on the 26th of December 268.
DIONYSIUS (c. 432-367 B.C.), tyrant of Syracuse, began life as a clerk
in a public office, but by courage and diplomacy succeeded in making
himself supreme (see SYRACUSE). He carried on war with Carthage with
varying success; his attempts to drive the Carthaginians entirely out of
the island failed, and at his death they were masters of at least a
third of it. He also carried on an expedition against Rhegium and its
allied cities in Magna Graecia. In one campaign, in which he was joined
by the Lucanians, he devastated the territories of Thurii, Croton and
Locri. After a protracted siege he took Rhegium (386), and sold the
inhabitants as slaves. He joined the Illyrians in an attempt to plunder
the temple of Delphi, pillaged the temple of Caere on the Etruscan
coast, and founded several military colonies on the Adriatic. In the
Peloponnesian War he espoused the side of the Spartans, and assisted
them with mercenaries. He also posed as an author and patron of
literature; his poems, severely criticized by Philoxenus, were hissed at
the Olympic games; but having gained a prize for a tragedy on the
_Ransom of Hector_ at the Lenaea at Athens, he was so elated that he
engaged in a debauch which proved fatal. According to others, he was
poisoned by his physicians at the instigation of his son. His life was
written by Philistus, but the work is not extant. Dionysius was regarded
by the ancients as a type of the worst kind of despot--cruel, suspicious
and vindictive. Like Peisistratus, he was fond of having distinguished
literary men about him, such as the historian Philistus, the poet
Philoxenus, and the philosopher Plato, but treated them in a most
arbitrary manner.
See Diod. Sic. xiii., xiv., xv.; J. Bass, _Dionysius I. von Syrakus_
(Vienna, 1881), with full references to authorities in footnotes;
articles SICILY and SYRACUSE.
His son DIONYSIUS, known as "the Younger," succeeded in 367 B.C. He was
driven from the kingdom by Dion (356) and fled to Locri; but during the
commotions which followed Dion's assassination, he managed to make
himself master of Syracuse. On the arrival of Timoleon he was compelled
to surrender and retire to Corinth (343), where he spent the rest of his
days in poverty (Diodorus Siculus xvi.; Plutarch, _Timoleon_).
See SYRACUSE and TIMOLEON; and, on both the Dionysii, articles by B.
Niese in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, v. pt. 1 (1905).
DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITICUS (or "the Areopagite"), named in Acts xvii. 34 as
one of those Athenians who believed when they had heard Paul preach on
Mars Hill. Beyond this mention our only knowledge of him is the
statement of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (fl. A.D. 171), recorded by
Eusebius (_Church Hist._ iii. 4; iv. 23), that this same Dionysius the
Areopagite was the first "bishop" of Athens. Some hundreds of years
after the Areopagite's death, his name was attached by the
Pseudo-Areopagite to certain theological writings composed by the
latter. These were destined to exert enormous influence upon medieval
thought, and their fame led to the extension of the personal legend of
the real Dionysius. Hilduin, abbot of St Denys (814-840), identified him
with St Denys, martyr and patron-saint of France. In Hilduin's
_Areopagitica_, the Life and Passion of the most holy Dionysius (Migne,
_ Patrol. Lat._ tome 106), the Areopagite is sent to France by Clement
of Rome, and suffers martyrdom upon the hill where the monastery called
St Denys was to rise in his honour. There is no earlier trace of this
identification, and Gregory of Tours (d. 594) says (_Hist. Francorum_,
i. 18) that St Denys came to France in the reign of Decius (A.D. 250),
which falls about midway between the presumptive death of the real
Areopagite and the probable date of the writings to which he owed his
adventitious fame.
Traces of the influence of these writings appear in the works of Eastern
theologians in the early part of the 6th century. They also were cited
at the council held in Constantinople in 533, which is the first certain
dated reference to them. In the West, Gregory the Great (d. 604) refers
to them in his thirty-fourth sermon on the gospels (Migne, _Pat. Lat._
tome 76, col. 1254). They did not, however, become generally known in
the Western church till after the year 827, when the Byzantine emperor
Michael the Stammerer sent a copy to Louis the Pious. It was given over
to the care of the above-mentioned abbot Hilduin. In the next generation
the scholar and philosopher Joannes Scotus Erigena (q.v.) translated the
Dionysian writings into Latin. This appears to have been the only Latin
translation until the 12th century when another was made, followed by
several others.
Thus, the author, date and place of composition of these writings are
unknown. External evidence precludes a date later than the year 500, and
the internal evidence from the writings themselves precludes any date
prior to 4th-century phases of Neo-platonism. The extant writings of the
Pseudo-Areopagite are: (a) [Greek: Peri tês ouranias hierarchias],
_Concerning the Celestial Hierarchy_, in fifteen chapters. (b) [Greek:
Peri tês ekklêsiastikês hierarchias], _Concerning the Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy_, in seven chapters. (c) [Greek: Peri theiôn onomatôn],
_Concerning Divine Names_, in thirteen chapters. (d) [Greek: Peri
mystikês theologias], _Concerning Mystic Theology_, in five chapters.
(e) Ten letters addressed to various worthies of the apostolic period.
Although these writings seem complete, they contain references to others
of the same author. But of the latter nothing is known, and they may
never have existed.
The writings of the Pseudo-Areopagite are of great interest, first as a
striking presentation of the heterogeneous elements that might unite in
the mind of a gifted man in the 5th century, and secondly, because of
their enormous influence upon subsequent Christian theology and art.
Their ingredients--Christian, Greek, Oriental and Jewish--are not
crudely mingled, but are united into an organic system. Perhaps
theological philosophic fantasy has never constructed anything more
remarkable. The system of Dionysius was a proper product of its
time,--lofty, apparently complete, comparable to the _Enneads_ of
Plotinus which formed part of its materials. But its materials abounded
everywhere, and offered themselves temptingly to the hand strong enough
to build with them. There was what had entered into Neo-platonism, both
in its dialectic form as established by Plotinus, and in its
magic-mystic modes devised by Iamblichus (d. c. 333). There was Jewish
angel lore and Eastern mood and fancy; and there was Christianity so
variously understood and heterogeneously constituted among Syro-Judaic
Hellenic communities. Such Christianity held materials for formula and
creed; also principles of liturgic and sacramental doctrine and priestly
function; also a mass of popular beliefs as to intermediate superhuman
beings who seemed nearer to men than any member of the Trinity.
Out of this vast spiritual conglomerate, Pseudo-Dionysius formed his
system. It was not juristic,--not Roman, Pauline or Augustinian. Rather
he borrowed his constructive principles from Hellenism in its last great
creation, Neo-platonism. That had been able to gather and arrange within
itself the various elements of latter-day paganism. The Neo-platonic
categories might be altered in name and import, and yet the scheme
remain a scheme; since the general principle of the transmission of life
from the ultimate Source downward through orders of mediating beings
unto men, might readily be adapted to the Christian God and his
ministering angels. Pseudo-Dionysius had lofty thoughts of the sublime
transcendence of the ultimate divine Source. That source was not remote
or inert; but a veritable Source from which life streamed to all lower
orders of existence,--in part directly, and in part indirectly as power
and guidance through the higher orders to the lower. Life, creation,
every good gift, is from God directly; but his flaming ministers also
intervene to guide and aid the life of man; and the life which through
love floods forth from God has its counterflow whereby it draws its own
creations to itself. God is at once absolutely transcendent and
universally immanent. To live is to be united with God; evil is the
nonexistent, that is, severance from God. Whatever is, is part of the
forth-flowing divine life which ever purifies, enlightens and perfects,
and so draws all back to the Source.
The transcendent Source, as well as the universal immanence, is the
Triune God. Between that and men are ranged the three triads of the
Celestial Hierarchy: Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; Dominations,
Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Collectively their
general office is to raise mankind to God through purification,
illumination and perfection; and to all may be applied the term angel.
The highest triad, which is nearest God, contemplates the divine
effulgence, and reflects it onward to the second; the third, and more
specifically angelic triad, immediately ministers to men. The sources of
these names are evident: seraphim and cherubim are from the Old
Testament; later Jewish writings gave names to archangels and angels,
who also fill important functions in the New Testament. The other names
are from Paul (Eph. i. 21; Col. i. 16).
Such is the system of Pseudo-Dionysius, as presented mainly in _The
Celestial Hierarchy_. That work is followed by _The Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy_, its counterpart on earth. What the primal triune Godhead is
to the former, Jesus is to the latter. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
likewise is composed of Triads. The first includes the symbolic
sacraments: Baptism, Communion, Consecration of the Holy Chrism. Baptism
signifies purification; Communion signifies enlightening; the Holy
Chrism signifies perfecting. The second triad is made up of the three
orders of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons, or rather, as the Areopagite
names them: Hierarchs, Light-bearers, Servitors. The third triad
consists of monks, who are in a state of perfection, the initiated
laity, who are in a state of illumination, and the catechumens, in a
state of purification. All worship, in this treatise, is a celebration
of mysteries, and the pagan mysteries are continually suggested by the
terms employed.
The work _Concerning the Divine Names_ is a noble discussion of the
qualities which may be predicated of God, according to the warrant of
the terms applied to him in Scripture. The work _Concerning Mystic
Theology_ explains the function of symbols, and shows that he who would
know God truly must rise above them and above the conceptions of God
drawn from sensible things.
The works of Pseudo-Dionysius began to influence theological thought in
the West from the time of their translation into Latin by Erigena. Their
use may be followed through the writings of scholastic philosophers,
e.g. Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and many others. In
poetry we find their influence in Dante, Spenser, Milton. The fifteenth
chapter of _The Celestial Hierarchy_ constituted the canon of symbolical
angelic lore for the literature and art of the middle ages. Therein the
author explains in what respect theology ascribes to angels the
qualities of fire, why the thrones are said to be _fiery_ ([Greek:
pyrinous]); why the seraphim are _burning_ ([Greek: emprêstas]) as their
name indicates. The fiery form signifies, with Celestial Intelligences,
likeness to God. Dionysius explains the significance of the parts of the
human body when given to celestial beings: feet are ascribed to angels
to denote their unceasing movement on the divine business, and their
feet are winged to denote their celerity. He likewise explains the
symbolism of wands and axes, of brass and precious stones, when joined
to celestial beings; and what wheels and a chariot denote when furnished
to them,--and much more besides.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--There is an enormous literature on Pseudo-Dionysius.
The reader may be first referred to the articles in Smith's
_Dictionary of Christian Biography_ and Hauck's _Realencyklopadie fur
protestantische Theologie_ (Leipzig, 1898). The bibliography in the
latter is very full. Some other references, especially upon the later
influence of these works, are given in H. O. Taylor's _Classical
Heritage of the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1903). The works themselves
are in Migne's _Patrologia Graeca_, tomes 3 and 4, with a Latin
version. Erigena's version is in Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ t. 122. _Vita
Dionysii_ by Hilduin is in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 106. There is an English
version by Parker (London, 1894 and 1897). (H. O. T.)
DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS, one of the most learned men of the 6th century, and
especially distinguished as a chronologist, was, according to the
statement of his friend Cassiodorus, a Scythian by birth, "_Scytha
natione_." This may mean only that he was a native of the region
bordering on the Black Sea, and does not necessarily imply that he was
not of Greek origin. Such origin is indicated by his name and by his
thorough familiarity with the Greek language. His surname "Exiguus" is
usually translated "the Little," but he probably assumed it out of
humility. He was living at Rome in the first half of the 6th century,
and is usually spoken of as abbot of a Roman monastery. Cassiodorus,
however, calls him simply "monk," while Bede calls him "abbot." But as
it was not unusual to apply the latter term to distinguished monks who
were not heads of their houses, it is uncertain whether Dionysius was
abbot in fact or only by courtesy. He was in high repute as a learned
theologian, was profoundly versed in the Holy Scriptures and in canon
law, and was also an accomplished mathematician and astronomer. We owe
to him a collection of 401 ecclesiastical canons, including the
apostolical canons and the decrees of the councils of Nicaea,
Constantinople, Chalcedon and Sardis, and also a collection of the
decretals of the popes from Siricius (385) to Anastasius II. (498).
These collections, which had great authority in the West (see CANON
LAW), were published by Justel in 1628. Dionysius did good service to
his contemporaries by his translations of many Greek works into Latin;
and by these translations some works, the originals of which have
perished, have been handed down to us. His name, however, is now perhaps
chiefly remembered for his chronological labours. It was Dionysius who
introduced the method of reckoning the Christian era which we now use
(see CHRONOLOGY). His friend Cassiodorus depicts in glowing terms the
character of Dionysius as a saintly ascetic, and praises his wisdom and
simplicity, his accomplishments and his lowly-mindedness, his power of
eloquent speech and his capacity of silence. He died at Rome, some time
before A.D. 550.
His works have been published in Migne, _Patrologia Latina_, tome 67;
see especially A. Tardif, _Histoire des sources du droit canonique_
(Paris, 1887), and D. Pitra, _Analecta novissima, Spicilegii
Solesmensis continuatio_, vol. i. p. 36 (Paris, 1885).
DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSENSIS ("of Halicarnassus"), Greek historian and
teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. He went to
Rome after the termination of the civil wars, and spent twenty-two years
in studying the Latin language and literature and preparing materials
for his history. During this period he gave lessons in rhetoric, and
enjoyed the society of many distinguished men. The date of his death is
unknown. His great work, entitled [Greek: Rômaikê archaiologia] (Roman
Antiquities), embraced the history of Rome from the mythical period to
the beginning of the first Punic War. It was divided into twenty
books,--of which the first nine remain entire, the tenth and eleventh
are nearly complete, and the remaining books exist in fragments in the
excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and an epitome discovered by
Angelo Mai in a Milan MS. The first three books of Appian, and
Plutarch's _Life of Camillus_ also embody much of Dionysius. His chief
object was to reconcile the Greeks to the rule of Rome, by dilating upon
the good qualities of their conquerors. According to him, history is
philosophy teaching by examples, and this idea he has carried out from
the point of view of the Greek rhetorician. But he has carefully
consulted the best authorities, and his work and that of Livy are the
only connected and detailed extant accounts of early Roman history.
Dionysius was also the author of several rhetorical treatises, in which
he shows that he has thoroughly studied the best Attic models:--_The Art
of Rhetoric_ (which is rather a collection of essays on the theory of
rhetoric), incomplete, and certainly not all his work; _The Arrangement
of Words_ ([Greek: Peri syntheseôs onomatôn]), treating of the
combination of words according to the different styles of oratory; _On
Imitation_ ([Greek: Peri mimêseôs]), on the best models in the different
kinds of literature and the way in which they are to be imitated--a
fragmentary work; _Commentaries on the Attic Orators_ ([Greek: Peri tôn
archaiôn rhêtorôn hypomnêmatismoi]), which, however, only deal with
Lysias, Isaeus, Isocrates and (by way of supplement) Dinarchus; _On the
admirable Style of Demosthenes_ ([Greek: Peri tês lektikês Dêmosthenous
deinotêtos]); and _On the Character of Thucydides_ ([Greek: Peri tou
Thoukydidou charakteros]), a detailed but on the whole an unfair
estimate. These two treatises are supplemented by letters to Cn.
Pompeius and Ammaeus (two).
Complete edition by J. J. Reiske (1774-1777); of the _Archaeologia_ by
A. Kiessling and V. Prou (1886) and C. Jacoby (1885-1891); Opuscula by
Usener and Radermacher (1899); Eng. translation by E. Spelman (1758).
A full bibliography of the rhetorical works is given in W. Rhys
Roberts's edition of the Three Literary Letters (1901); the same
author published an edition of the _De compositione verborum_ (1910,
with trans.); see also M. Egger, _Denys d'Halicarnasse_ (1902), a very
useful treatise. On the sources of Dionysius see O. Bocksch, "De
fontibus Dion. Halicarnassensis" in _Leipziger Studien_, xvii. (1895).
Cf. also J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Class. Schol._ i. (1906).
DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, author of a [Greek: Periêgêsis tês oikoumenês], a
description of the habitable world in Greek hexameter verse, written in
a terse and elegant style. Nothing certain is known of the date or
nationality of the writer, but there is some reason for believing that
he was an Alexandrian, who wrote in the time of Hadrian (some put him as
late as the end of the 3rd century). The work enjoyed a high degree of
popularity in ancient times as a school-book; it was translated into
Latin by Rufus Festus Avienus, and by the grammarian Priscian. The
commentary of Eustathius is valuable.
The best editions are by G. Bernhardy (1828) and C. Müller (1861) in
their _Geographici Graeci minores_; see also E. H. Bunbury, _Ancient
Geography_ (ii. p. 480), who regards the author as flourishing from
the reign of Nero to that of Trajan, and U. Bernays, _Studien zu Dion.
Perieg._ (1905). There are two old English translations: T. Twine
(1572, black letter), J. Free (1789, blank verse).
DIONYSIUS TELMAHARENSIS ("of Tell-Ma[h.]r[=e]"), patriarch or supreme
head of the Syrian Jacobite Church during the years 818-848, was born at
Tell-Ma[h.]r[=e] near Ra[k.][k.]a (ar-Ra[k.][k.]ah) on the Bal[=i]kh. He
was the author of an important historical work, which has seemingly
perished except for some passages quoted by Barhebraeus and an extract
found by Assemani in Cod. _Vat._ 144 and published by him in the
_Bibliotheca orientalis_ (ii. 72-77). He spent his earlier years as a
monk at the convent of [K.]en-neshr[=e] on the upper Euphrates; and when
this monastery was destroyed by fire in 815, he migrated northwards to
that of Kais[=u]m in the district of Samos[=a]ta. At the death of the
Jacobite patriarch Cyriacus in 817, the church was agitated by a dispute
about the use of the phrase "heavenly bread" in connexion with the
Eucharist. An anti-patriarch had been appointed in the person of Abraham
of [K.]artam[=i]n, who insisted on the use of the phrase in opposition
to the recognized authorities of the church. The council of bishops who
met at Ra[k.][k.]a in the summer of 818 to choose a successor to
Cyriacus had great difficulty in finding a worthy occupant of the
patriarchal chair, but finally agreed on the election of Dionysius,
hitherto known only as an honest monk who devoted himself to historical
studies. Sorely against his will he was brought to Ra[k.][k.]a, ordained
deacon and priest on two successive days, and raised to the supreme
ecclesiastical dignity on the 1st of August. From this time he showed
the utmost zeal in fulfilling the duties of his office, and undertook
many journeys both within and without his province. The ecclesiastical
schism continued unhealed during the thirty years of his patriarchate.
The details of this contest, of his relations with the caliph Ma'm[=u]n,
and of his many travels--including a journey to Egypt, on which he
viewed with admiration the great Egyptian monuments,--are to be found in
the _Ecclesiastical Chronicle_ of Barhebraeus.[1] He died in 848, his
last days having been especially embittered by Mahommedan oppression.
We learn from Michael the Syrian that his _Annals_ consisted of two
parts each divided into eight chapters, and covered a period of 260
years, viz. from the accession of the emperor Maurice (582-583) to the
death of Theophilus (842-843).
In addition to the lost _Annals_, Dionysius was from the time of
Assemani until 1896 credited with the authorship of another important
historical work--a _Chronicle_, which in four parts narrates the history
of the world from the creation to the year A.D. 774-775 and is preserved
entire in _Cod. Vat._ 162. The first part (edited by Tullberg, Upsala,
1850) reaches to the epoch of Constantine the Great, and is in the main
an epitome of the Eusebian Chronicle.[2] The second part reaches to
Theodosius II. and follows closely the _Ecclesiastical History_ of
Socrates; while the third, extending to Justin II., reproduces the
second part of the _History_ of John of Asia or Ephesus, and also
contains the well-known chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite. The
fourth part[3] is not like the others a compilation, but the original
work of the author, and reaches to the year 774-775--apparently the date
when he was writing. On the publication of this fourth part by M.
Chabot, it was discovered and clearly proved by Nöldeke (_Vienna
Oriental Journal_, x. 160-170), and Nau (_Bulletin critique_, xvii.
321-327), who independently reached the same conclusion, that Assemani's
opinion was a mistake, and that the chronicle in question was the work
not of Dionysius of Tell-Ma[h.]r[=e] but of an earlier writer, a monk of
the convent of Zu[k.]n[=i]n near [=A]mid (Diarbekr) on the upper Tigris.
Though the author was a man of limited intelligence and destitute of
historical skill, yet the last part of his work at least has
considerable value as a contemporary account of events during the middle
period of the 8th century. (N. M.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, i. 343-386; cf. Wright, _Syriac
Literature_, 196-200, and Chabot's introduction to his translation of
the fourth part of the _Chronicle_ of (pseudo) Dionysius.
[2] See the studies by Siegfried and Gelzer, _Eusebii canonum epitome
ex Dionysii Telmaharensis chronico petita_ (Leipzig, 1884), and von
Gutschmid, _Untersuchungen über die syrische Epitome der Eusebischen
Canones_ (Stuttgart, 1886).
[3] Text and translation by J.-B. Chabot (Paris, 1895).
DIONYSIUS THRAX (so called because his father was a Thracian), the
author of the first Greek grammar, flourished about 100 B.C. He was a
native of Alexandria, where he attended the lectures of Aristarchus, and
afterwards taught rhetoric in Rhodes and Rome. His [Greek: Technê
grammatikê], which we possess (though probably not in its original
form), begins with the definition of grammar and its functions. Dealing
next with accent, punctuation marks, sounds and syllables, it goes on to
the different parts of speech (eight in number) and their inflections.
No rules of syntax are given, and nothing is said about style. The
authorship of Dionysius was doubted by many of the early middle-age
commentators and grammarians, and in modern times its origin has been
attributed to the oecumenical college founded by Constantine the Great,
which continued in existence till 730. But there seems no reason for
doubt; the great grammarians of imperial times (Apollonius Dyscolus and
Herodian) were acquainted with the work in its present form, although,
as was natural considering its popularity, additions and alterations may
have been made later. The [Greek: Technê] was first edited by J. A.
Fabricius from a Hamburg MS. and published in his _Bibliotheca Graeca_,
vi. (ed. Harles). An Armenian translation, belonging to the 4th or 5th
century, containing five additional chapters, was published with the
Greek text and a French version, by M. Cirbied (1830). Dionysius also
contributed much to the criticism and elucidation of Homer, and was the
author of various other works--amongst them an account of Rhodes, and a
collection of [Greek: Meletai] (literary studies), to which the
considerable fragment in the _Stromata_ (v. 8) of Clement of Alexandria
probably belongs.
Editions, with scholia, by I. Bekker in _Anecdota Graeca_, ii. and G.
Uhlig (1884), reviewed exhaustively by P. Egenolff in Bursian's
_Jahresbericht_, vol. xlvi. (1888); Scholia, ed. A. Hilgard (1901);
see also W. Hörschelmann, _De Dionysii Thracis interpretibus
veteribus_ (1874); J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, i.
(1906).
DIONYSUS (probably = "son of Zeus," from [Greek: Dios] and [Greek:
nysos], a Thracian word for "son"), in Greek mythology, originally a
nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially of the vine;
hence, distinctively, the god of wine. The names Bacchus ([Greek:
Bakchos], in use among the Greeks from the 5th century), Sabazius, and
Bassareus, are also Thracian names of the god. The two first (like
Iacchus, Bromius and Euios) have been connected with the loud "shout"
([Greek: sabazein = bazein = eúazein]) of his worshippers, Bassareus
with [Greek: bassárai], the fox-skin garments of the Thracian
Bacchanals. It has been suggested (J. E. Harrison _Prolegomena to Greek
Religion_) that Sabazius and Bromius = "beer-god," "god of a cereal
intoxicant" (cf. Illyrian _sabaia_ and modern Greek [Greek: brômi],
"oats"), while W. Ridgeway (_Classical Review_, January 1896), comparing
Apollo Smintheus, interprets Bassareus as "he who keeps away the foxes
from the vineyards" (for various interpretations of these and other
cult-titles, see O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie_, ii. pp. 1408,
1532, especially the notes).
In Homer, notwithstanding the frequent mention of the use of wine,
Dionysus is never mentioned as its inventor or introducer, nor does he
appear in Olympus; Hesiod is the first who calls wine the gift of
Dionysus. On the other hand, he is spoken of in the _Iliad_ (vi. 130
foll., a passage belonging to the latest period of epic), as "raging,"
an epithet that indicates that in those comparatively early times the
orgiastic character of his worship was recognized. In fact, Dionysus may
be regarded under two distinct aspects: that of a popular national Greek
god of wine and cheerfulness, and that of a foreign deity, worshipped
with ecstatic and mysterious rites introduced from Thrace. According to
the usual tradition, he was born at Thebes--originally the local centre
of his worship in Greece--and was the son of Zeus, the fertilizing rain
god, and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, a personification of earth.
Before the child was mature, Zeus appeared to Semele at her request in
his majesty as god of lightning, by which she was killed, but the infant
was saved from the flames by Zeus (or Hermes). The epithet [Greek:
perikionios], originally referring to an ivy-crowned, pillar-shaped
fetish of the god, afterwards gave rise to the legend of a miraculous
growth of ivy "round the pillars" of the royal palace, whereby the
infant Dionysus was preserved from the flames. Zeus took him up,
enclosed him within his own thigh till he came to maturity, and then
brought him to the light, so that he was twice born; it was to celebrate
this double birth that the _dithyrambus_ (also used as an epithet of the
god) was sung (see _Etym. Mag._ s.v.). It has been suggested that this
is an allusion to the _couvade_ of certain barbarous tribes, amongst
whom it is customary, when a child is born, for the husband to take to
his bed and receive medical treatment, as if he shared the pains of
maternity (see COUVADE, and references there). Dionysus was then
conveyed by Hermes to be brought up by the nymphs of Nysa, a purely
imaginary spot, afterwards localized in different parts of the world,
which claimed the honour of having been the birthplace of the god. As
soon as Dionysus was grown up, he started on a journey through the
world, to teach the cultivation of the vine and spread his worship among
men. While so engaged he met with opposition, even in his own country,
as in the case of Pentheus, king of Thebes, who opposed the orgiastic
rites introduced by Dionysus among the women of Thebes, and, having been
discovered watching one of these ceremonies, was mistaken for some
animal of the chase, and slain by his own mother (see A. G. Bather,
_Journ. Hell. Studies_, xiv. 1894). A similar instance is that of
Lycurgus, a Thracian king, from whose attack Dionysus saved himself by
leaping into the sea, where he was kindly received by Thetis. Lycurgus
was blinded by Zeus and soon died, or became frantic and hewed down his
own son, mistaking him for a vine. At Orchomenus, the three daughters of
Minyas refused to join the other women in their nocturnal orgies, and
for this were transformed into birds (see AGRIONIA). These and similar
stories point to the vigorous resistance offered to the introduction of
the mystic rites of Dionysus, in places where an established religion
already existed. On the other hand, when the god was received hospitably
he repaid the kindness by the gift of the vine, as in the case of
Icarius of Attica (see ERIGONE).
The worship of Dionysus was actively conducted in Asia Minor,
particularly in Phrygia and Lydia. Here, as Sabazius, he was associated
with the Phrygian goddess Cybele, and was followed in his expeditions by
a _thiasos_ (retinue) of centaurs, and satyrs, with Pan and Silenus. In
Lydia his triumphant return from India was celebrated by an annual
festival on Mount Tmolus; in Lydia he assumed the long beard and long
robe which were afterwards given him in his character of the "Indian
Bacchus," the conqueror of the East, who, after the campaigns of
Alexander, was reported to have advanced as far as the Ganges. The other
incidents in which he appears in a purely triumphal character are his
transforming into dolphins the Tyrrhene pirates who attacked him, as
told in the Homeric hymn to Dionysus and represented on the monument of
Lysicrates at Athens, and his part in the war of the gods against the
giants. The former story has been connected with the sailors' custom of
hanging vine leaves, ivy and bunches of grapes round the masts of
vessels in honour of vintage festivals. The adventure with the pirates
occurred on his voyage to Naxos, where he found Ariadne abandoned by
Theseus. At Naxos Ariadne (probably a Cretan goddess akin to Aphrodite)
was associated with Dionysus as his wife, by whom he was the father of
Oenopion (wine-drinker), Staphylus (grape), and Euanthes (blooming), and
their marriage was annually celebrated by a festival. Having compelled
all the world to recognize his divinity, he descended to the underworld
to bring up his mother, who was afterwards worshipped with him under the
name of Thyone ("the raging"), he himself being called after her
Thyoneus.
Another phase in the myth of Dionysus originated in observing the decay
of vegetation in winter, to suit which he was supposed to be slain and
to join the deities of the lower world. This phase of his character was
developed by the Orphic poets, he having here the name of Zagreus ("torn
in pieces"), and being no longer the Theban god, but a son of Zeus and
Persephone. The child was brought up secretly, watched over by Curetes;
but the jealous Hera discovered where he was, and sent Titans to the
spot, who, finding him at play, tore him to pieces, and cooked and ate
his limbs, while Hera gave his heart to Zeus. The tearing in pieces is
referred by some to the torture experienced by the grape
(_Naturschmerz_) when crushed for making into wine (cf. Burns's _John
Barleycorn_); but it is better to refer it to the tearing of the flesh
of the victim at sacrifices at which the deity or the sacred animal was
slain, and sacramentally eaten raw (cf. the title [Greek: ômêstês] given
to Dionysus in certain places, probably pointing to human sacrifice.) To
connect this with the myth of the Theban birth of Dionysus, it is said
that Zeus gave the child's heart to Semele, or himself swallowed it and
gave birth to the new Dionysus (called Iacchus from his worshippers' cry
of rejoicing), who was cradled and swung in a winnowing fan ([Greek:
liknos]; see J. E. Harrison, _Journ. Hellenic Studies_, xxiii.), the
swinging being supposed to act as a charm in awakening vegetation from
its winter sleep. The conception of Zagreus, or the winter Dionysus,
appears to have originated in Crete, but it was accepted also in Delphi,
where his grave was shown, and sacrifice was secretly offered at it
annually on the shortest day. The story is in many respects similar to
that of Osiris. According to others, Zagreus was originally a god of the
chase, who became a hunter of men and a god of the underworld, more akin
to Hades than to Dionysus (see also TITANS).
Dionysus further possessed the prophetic gift, and his oracle at Delphi
was as important as that of Apollo. Like Hermes, Dionysus was a god of
the productiveness of nature, and hence Priapus was one of his regular
companions, while not only in the mysteries but in the rural festivals
his symbol, the phallus, was carried about ostentatiously. His symbols
from the animal kingdom were the bull (perhaps a totemistic attribute
and identified with him), the panther, the lion, the tiger, the ass, the
goat, and sometimes also the dolphin and the snake. His personal
attributes are an ivy wreath, the thyrsus (a staff with pine cone at the
end), the laurel, the pine, a drinking cup, and sometimes the horn of a
bull on his forehead. Artistically he was represented mostly either as a
youth of soft, nearly feminine form, or as a bearded and draped man, but
frequently also as an infant, with reference to his birth or to his
bringing up in "Nysa." His earliest images were of wood with the
branches still attached in parts, whence he was called Dionysus
Dendrites, an allusion to his protection of trees generally (according
to Pherecydes in C. W. Müller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._ iv. p. 637, the word
[Greek: nysa] signified "tree"). It is suggested that the cult of
Dionysus absorbed that of an old tree-spirit. He was figured also, like
Hermes, in the form of a pillar or term surmounted by his head. For the
connexion of Dionysus with Greek tragedy see DRAMA.
See Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, v. (1910); also O. Rapp,
_Beziehungen des Dionysuskultus zu Thrakien_ (1882); O. Ribbeck,
_Anfange und Entwickelung des Dionysuskultes in Attica_ (1869); A.
Lang, _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, ii. p. 241; L. Dyer, _The Gods in
Greece_ (1891); J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek
Religion_ (1903); J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, ii (1900), pp.
160, 291, who regards the bull and goat form of Dionysus as
expressions of his proper character as a deity of vegetation; F. A.
Voigt in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_; L. Preller, _Griechische
Mythologie_ (4th ed. by C. Robert); F. Lenormant (s.v. "Bacchus") in
Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_; O. Kern in
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_ (with list of cult titles); W.
Pater, _Greek Studies_ (1895); E. Rohde, _Psyche_, ii., who finds the
origin of the Hellenic belief in the immortality of the soul in the
"enthusiastic" rites of the Thracian Dionysus, which lifted persons
out of themselves, and exalted them to a fancied equality with the
gods; O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, ii.
(1907), who considers Boeotia, not Thrace, to have been the original
home of Dionysus; P. Foucart, "Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique" in
_Mémoires de l'Institut national de France_, xxxvii. (1906), who finds
the prototype of Dionysus in Egypt. _The Great Dionysiak Myth_
(1877-1878) by R. Brown contains a wealth of material, but is weak in
scholarship. For a striking survival of Dionysiac rites in Thrace
(Bizye), see Dawkins, in _J.H.S._ (1906), p. 191.
DIOPHANTUS, of Alexandria, Greek algebraist, probably flourished about
the middle of the 3rd century. Not that this date rests on positive
evidence. But it seems a fair inference from a passage of Michael
Psellus (_Diophantus_, ed. P. Tannery, ii. p. 38) that he was not later
than Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea from A.D. 270, while he is not quoted
by Nicomachus (fl. c. A.D. 100), nor by Theon of Smyrna (c. A.D. 130),
nor does Greek arithmetic as represented by these authors and by
Iamblichus (end of 3rd century) show any trace of his influence, facts
which can only be accounted for by his being later than those
arithmeticians at least who would have been capable of understanding him
fully. On the other hand he is quoted by Theon of Alexandria (who
observed an eclipse at Alexandria in A.D. 365); and his work was the
subject of a commentary by Theon's daughter Hypatia (d. 415). The
_Arithmetica_, the greatest treatise on which the fame of Diophantus
rests, purports to be in thirteen Books, but none of the Greek MSS.
which have survived contain more than six (though one has the same text
in seven Books). They contain, however, a fragment of a separate tract
on _Polygonal Numbers_. The missing books were apparently lost early,
for there is no reason to suppose that the Arabs who translated or
commented on Diophantus ever had access to more of the work than we now
have. The difference in form and content suggests that the _Polygonal
Numbers_ was not part of the larger work. On the other hand the
_Porisms_, to which Diophantus makes three references ("we have it in
the Porisms that ..."), were probably not a separate book but were
embodied in the _Arithmetica_ itself, whether placed all together or, as
Tannery thinks, spread over the work in appropriate places. The
"Porisms" quoted are interesting propositions in the theory of numbers,
one of which was clearly that _the difference between two cubes can be
resolved into the sum of two cubes_. Tannery thinks that the solution of
a complete quadratic promised by Diophantus himself (I. def. 11), and
really assumed later, was one of the Porisms.
Among the great variety of problems solved are problems leading to
determinate equations of the first degree in one, two, three or four
variables, to determinate quadratic equations, and to indeterminate
equations of the first degree in one or more variables, which are,
however, transformed into determinate equations by arbitrarily
assuming a value for one of the required numbers, Diophantus being
always satisfied with a rational, even if fractional, result and not
requiring a solution in integers. But the bulk of the work consists of
problems leading to indeterminate equations of the second degree, and
these universally take the form that one or two (and never more)
linear or quadratic functions of one variable x are to be made
rational square numbers by finding a suitable value for x. A few
problems lead to indeterminate equations of the third and fourth
degrees, an easy indeterminate equation of the sixth degree being
also found. The general type of problem is to find two, three or four
numbers such that different expressions involving them in the first
and second, and sometimes the third, degree are squares, cubes, partly
squares and partly cubes, &c. E.g. _To find three numbers such that
the product of any two added to the sum of those two gives a square_
(III. 15, ed. Tannery); _To find four numbers such that, if we take
the square of their sum ± any one of them singly, all the resulting
numbers are squares_ (III. 22); _To find two numbers such that their
product ± their sum gives a cube_ (IV. 29); _To find three squares
such that their continued product added to any one of them gives a
square_ (V. 21). Book VI. contains problems of finding rational
_right-angled triangles_ such that different functions of their parts
(the sides and the area) are squares. A word is necessary on
Diophantus' notation. He has only one symbol (written somewhat like a
final sigma) for an unknown quantity, which he calls [Greek: arithmos]
(defined as "an undefined number of units"); the symbol may be a
contraction of the initial letters [alpha][rho], as [Delta]^[Upsilon],
[Kappa]^[Upsilon], [Delta]^[Upsilon][Delta], &c., are for the powers
of the unknown ([Greek: dynamis], square; [Greek: kubos], cube;
[Greek: dynamodynamis], fourth power, &c.). The only other algebraical
symbol is [graphic: /|\] for minus; plus being expressed by merely
writing terms one after another. With one symbol for an unknown, it
will easily be understood what scope there is for adroit assumptions,
for the required numbers, of expressions in the one unknown which are
at once seen to satisfy some of the conditions, leaving only one or
two to be satisfied by the particular value of x to be determined.
Often assumptions are made which lead to equations in x which cannot
be solved "rationally," i.e. would give negative, surd or imaginary
values; Diophantus then traces how each element of the equation has
arisen, and formulates the auxiliary problem of determining how the
assumptions must be corrected so as to lead to an equation (in place
of the "impossible" one) which can be solved rationally. Sometimes his
x has to do duty twice, for different unknowns, in one problem. In
general his object is to reduce the final equation to a simple one by
making such an assumption for the side of the square or cube to which
the expression in x is to be equal as will make the necessary number
of coefficients vanish. The book is valuable also for the propositions
in the theory of numbers, other than the "porisms," stated or assumed
in it. Thus Diophantus knew that _no number of the form 8n + 7 can be
the sum of three squares_. He also says that, if 2n + 1 is to be the
sum of two squares, "n must not be odd" (i.e. _no number of the form
4n + 3, or 4n - 1, can be the sum of two squares_), and goes on to
add, practically, the condition stated by Fermat, "and the double of
it [n] increased by one, when divided by the greatest square which
measures it, must not be divisible by a prime number of the form 4n -
1," except for the omission of the words "when divided ... measures
it."
# AUTHORITIES.--The first to publish anything on Diophantus in Europe
was Rafael Bombelli, who embodied in his Algebra (1572) all the
problems of Books I.-IV. and some of Book V. interspersing them with
his own problems. Next Xylander (Wilhelm Holzmann) published a Latin
translation (Basel, 1575), an altogether meritorious work, especially
having regard to the difficulties he had with the text of his MS. The
Greek text was first edited by C. G. Bachet (_Diophanti Alexandrini
arithmeticorum libri sex, et de numeris multangulis liber unus, nunc
primum graece et latine editi atque absolutissimis commentariis
illustrati_ ... Lutetiae Parisiorum ... MDCXXI.). A reprint of 1670 is
only valuable because it contains P. de Fermat's notes; as far as the
Greek text is concerned it is much inferior to the other. There are
two German translations, one by Otto Schulz (1822) and the other by G.
Wertheim (Leipzig, 1890), and an English edition in modern notation
(T. L. Heath, _Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of
Greek Algebra_ (Cambridge, 1885)). The Greek text has now been
definitively edited (with Latin translation, Scholia, &c.) by P.
Tannery (Teubner, vol. i., 1893; vol. ii., 1895). General accounts of
Diophantus' work are to be found in H. Hankel and M. Cantor's
histories of mathematics, and more elaborate analyses are those of
Nesselmann (_Die Algebra der Griechen_, Berlin, 1842) and G. Loria
(_Le Scienze esatte nell' antica Grecia_, libro v., Modena, 1902, pp.
95-158). (T. L. H.)
DIOPSIDE, an important member of the pyroxene group of rock-forming
minerals. It is a calcium-magnesium metasilicate, CaMg(SiO3)2, and
crystallizes in the monoclinic system. Usually some iron is present
replacing magnesium, and when this predominates there is a passage to
hedenbergite, CaFe(SiO3)2, a closely allied variety of monoclinic
pyroxene. These are distinguished from augite by containing little or no
aluminium. Diopside is colourless, white, pale green to dark green or
nearly black in colour, the depth of the colour depending on the amount
of iron present. The specific gravity and optical constants also vary
with the chemical composition; the sp. gr. of diopside is 3.2,
increasing to 3.6 in hedenbergite, and the angle of optical extinction
in the plane of symmetry varies between 38° and 47° in the two extremes
of the series. Crystals are usually prismatic in habit with a
rectangular cross-section as shown in the figure: the angle between the
prism faces m, parallel to which there are perfect cleavages, is 92°
50´.
[Illustration]
Several varieties, depending on differences in structure and chemical
composition, have been distinguished, viz. coccolite (from [Greek:
kokkos], a grain), a granular variety; salite or sahlite, from Sala in
Sweden; malacolite; diallage; violane, a lamellar variety of a dark
violet-blue colour; chrome-diopside, a bright green variety containing a
small amount of chromium; and many others. Belonging to the same series
with diopside and hedenbergite is a manganese pyroxene, known as
schefierite, which has the composition (Ca, Mg) (Fe, Mn) (Si03)2.
Diopside is the characteristic pyroxene of metamorphic rocks, occurring
especially in crystalline limestones, and often in association with
garnet and epidote. It is also an essential constituent of some
pyroxene-granites, diorites and a few other igneous rocks, but the
characteristic pyroxene of this class of rocks is augite. Fine
transparent crystals of a pale green colour occur, with crystals of
yellowish-red garnet (hessonite) and chlorite, in veins traversing
serpentine in the Ala valley near Turin in Piedmont: a crystal of this
variety ("alalite") is represented in the accompanying figure. These, as
well as the long, transparent, bottle-green crystals from the Zillerthal
in the Tyrol, have occasionally been cut as gem-stones. Good crystals
have been found also at Achmatovsk near Zlatoust in the Urals,
Traversella near Ivrea in Piedmont ("traversellite"), Nordmark in
Sweden, Monroe in New York, Burgess in Lanark county, Ontario, and
several other places: at Nordmark the large, rectangular black crystals
occur with magnetite in the iron mines. (L. J. S.)
DIOPTASE, a rare mineral species consisting of acid copper
orthosilicate, H2CuSiO4, crystallizing in the parallel-faced hemihedral
class of the rhombohedral system. The degree of symmetry is the same as
in the mineral phenacite, there being only an axis of triad symmetry and
a centre of symmetry. The crystals have the form of a hexagonal prism m
terminated by a rhombohedron r, the alternate edges between these being
sometimes replaced by the faces of a rhombohedron s. The faces are
striated parallel to the edges between r, s and m. There are perfect
cleavages parallel to the faces of a rhombohedron which truncate the
polar edges of r: from the cleavage cracks internal reflections are
often to be seen in the crystal, and it was on account of this that the
mineral was named dioptase, by R. J. Haüy in 1797, from [Greek:
diopteuein], "to see into." The crystals vary from transparent to
translucent with a vitreous lustre, and are bright emerald-green in
colour; they thus have a certain resemblance to emerald, hence the early
name emerald-copper (German, _Kupfer-Smaragd_). Hardness 5; sp. gr. 3.3.
The mineral is decomposed by hydrochloric acid with separation of
gelatinous silica. At a red heat it blackens and gives off water. The
fine crystals from Mount Altyn-Tübe on the western slopes of the Altai
Mountains in the Kirghiz Steppes, Asiatic Russia, line cavities in a
compact limestone; they were first sent to Europe in 1785 by Achir
Mahmed, a Bucharian merchant, after whom the mineral has been named
archirite. More recently, in 1890, good crystals of similar habit, but
rather darker in colour, have been found with quartz and malachite near
Komba in the French Congo. As drusy crystalline crusts it has been found
at Copiapo in Chile and in Arizona.
[Illustration]
Dioptase has occasionally been used as a gem-stone, especially in Russia
and Persia; it has a fine colour, but a low degree of hardness and the
transparency is imperfect. (L. J. S.)
DIORITE (from the Gr. [Greek: diorizein] to distinguish, from [Greek:
dia] through, [Greek: oros], a boundary), in petrology, the name given
by Haüy to a family of rocks of granitic texture, composed of
plagioclase felspar and hornblende. As they are richer in the dark
coloured ferromagnesian minerals they are usually grey or dark grey,
and have a higher specific gravity than granite. They also rarely show
visible quartz. But there are diorites of many kinds, as the name
applies rather to a family of rocks than to a single species. Some
contain biotite, others augite or hypersthene; many have a small amount
of quartz. Orthoclase is rarely entirely absent, and when it is fairly
common the rock becomes a tonalite; in this way a transition is
furnished between diorites and granites. It is rare to find the pure
types of "hornblende-diorite," "augite-diorite," &c., but in most cases
the rocks contain two or more ferromagnesian silicates, and such
combinations as "hornblende-biotite-diorite" are commonest in nature.
The felspar of the diorites ranges in composition from oligoclase to
labradorite, and is often remarkably zonal, the external layers being
more alkaline than the internal. Small fluid enclosures and black
grains, probably iron oxides, often occur in it in great numbers.
Weathering produces epidote, calcite, sericite and kaolin. The biotite
is always brown or yellow; the hornblende usually green, but sometimes
brown or yellowish brown in those diorites which have affinities to
lamprophyres. The augite is nearly always green but sometimes has a
reddish tinge; bronzite and hypersthene have their usual green and brown
shades. Apatite, iron oxides and zircon are almost invariably present;
sphene, garnet and orthite are occasionally observed; calcite, chlorite,
muscovite, kaolin, epidote and bastite are secondary. The structure is
not essentially different from that of granite. The ferromagnesian
minerals crystallize comparatively early and have some idiomorphism; the
felspar usually follows and only in part shows good crystalline
outlines. Orthoclase and quartz, if present, are last to separate out,
and fill the spaces between the other minerals; often they
interpenetrate to form micropegmatite. In many diorites the plagioclase
felspar has crystallized before the hornblende, which consequently has
less perfect outlines and forms irregular plates which enclose sharply
formed individuals of felspar. This produces the ophitic structure (very
common also in the dolerites). More rarely biotite and augite exhibit
the same relations to the plagioclase. Orbicular structure also
occasionally appears in these rocks; in fact the orbicular diorite of
Corsica (also called "Napoleonite" or "Corsite") was for a long time the
best-known example of this structure. The rock seems composed of
spheroids, about an inch in diameter, surrounded by a smaller amount of
dark-coloured dioritic matrix. The spheroids have a radiate structure
and often show concentric dark and pale shells. These consist of
hornblende (dark green) and basic plagioclase felspar, labradorite and
bytownite (grey or nearly white). Occasionally diorites have a parallel
banded or foliated structure, but these must not be confounded with the
epidiorites, which are metamorphic rocks and also have a conspicuous
foliation.
Diorites must also be distinguished from hornblendic gabbros, which
contain more basic felspars, rarely quartz and occasionally olivine; but
the boundary lines between diorites and gabbros are admittedly somewhat
vague, e.g. some authors would call rocks gabbro which others would
regard as augite-diorite. The hornblendites differ from the diorites in
containing little felspar, and consist principally of hornblende. Among
varietal designations given to rocks of the diorite family are
"banatite" for an augite-diorite with or without quartz (from the
Schemnitz district), "granodiorite" for a quartz-hornblende-diorite
(essentially the same as tonalite) from California, &c., "adamellite"
for the quartz-mica-diorite or tonalite of Monte Adamello (Alps),
"ornite" for a hornblende-diorite rich in felspar, from Sweden.
(J. S. F.)
DIP (Old Eng. _dyppan_, connected with the common Teutonic root seen in
"deep"), the angle which the magnetic needle makes with the horizon. A
freely suspended magnetic needle will not maintain a horizontal position
except at the magnetic equator. Over the N. magnetic pole the
north-seeking end of the needle points directly downwards and dips at an
intermediate angle at intermediate distances between the magnetic poles
and equator. There are secular progressive variations of dip as well as
of declination and the maxima are independent of each other. In 1576
the dip at London was 71° 50', in 1720 (max.) 74° 42', in 1900 67° 9'.
(For Dip Circle see INCLINOMETER.)
DIPHENYL (phenyl benzene), C6H5·C6H5, a hydrocarbon found in that
fraction of the coal-tar distillate boiling between 240-300° C., from
which it may be obtained by warming with sulphuric acid, separating the
acid layer and strongly cooling the undissolved oil. It may be
artificially prepared by passing benzene vapour through a red-hot tube;
by the action of sodium on brombenzene dissolved in ether; by the action
of stannous chloride on phenyldiazonium chloride; or by the addition of
solid phenyldiazonium sulphate to warm benzene (R. Möhlau, _Berichte,
1893, 26_, 1997) C6H5N2·HSO4 + C6H6 = H2SO4 + N2 + C6H5·C6H5. L.
Gattermann (_Berichte, 1890, 23_, 1226) has also prepared it by the
decomposition of a solution of phenyldiazonium sulphate with alcohol and
copper powder. It crystallizes in plates (from alcohol) melting at
70-71° C. and boiling at 254° C. It is oxidized by chromic acid in
glacial acetic acid solution to benzoic acid, dilute nitric acid and
chromic acid mixture being without effect. It is not reduced by
hydriodic acid and phosphorus, but sodium in the presence of amyl
alcohol reduces it to tetrahydrodiphenyl C12H14.
Many substitution derivatives are known: the monosubstitution
derivatives being capable of existing in three isomeric forms. Of the
disubstitution derivatives the most important are those derived from
diparadiaminodiphenyl or benzidine (q.v.).
_Orthoaminodiphenyl_,
NH2
__ |__
/ \__/ \ ,
\__/ \__/
is prepared by the action of bromine and caustic soda on
orthophenylbenzamide (R. Hirsch, _Berichte, 1892, 25_, 1974); when its
vapour is passed over heated lime, carbazol (q.v.) is formed.
_Diorthodiaminodiphenyl_,
NH2 NH2
__| |__
/ \__/ \ ,
\__/ \__/
is obtained by the reduction of the corresponding nitro compound
(obtained by the action of ethyl nitrite at 0° C. on
metadinitrobenzidine hydrochloride). Its tetrazo compound on reduction
gives a hydrazine which, on warming with hydrochloric acid at 150° C.,
decomposes into ammonium chloride and _phenazone_,
N = N
__| |__
/ \___/ \
\__/ \__/
(C12H8N2). One of the most important derivatives of diphenyl, from the
theoretical point of view, is _diphenic acid_ or diorthodiphenyl
carboxylic acid, which can be obtained from
diparadiaminodiphenyldiorthocarboxylic acid,
__ __
H2N / \__/ \ NH2 ,
\__/ \__/
| |
HOOC COOH
or from phenanthrene (q.v.), the constitution of which it determines.
See BENZIDINE for diparadiaminodiphenyl.
DIPHILUS, of Sinope, poet of the new Attic comedy and contemporary of
Menander (342-291 B.C.). Most of his plays were written and acted at
Athens, but he led a wandering life, and died at Smyrna. He was on
intimate terms with the famous courtesan Gnathaena (Athenaeus xiii. pp.
579, 583). He is said to have written 100 comedies, the titles of fifty
of which are preserved. He sometimes acted himself. To judge from the
imitations of Plautus. (_Casina_ from the [Greek: Klêroumenoi],
_Asinaria_ from the [Greek: Onagos], _Rudens_ from some other play), he
was very skilful in the construction of his plots. Terence also tells us
that he introduced into the _Adelphi_ (ii. 1) a scene from the [Greek:
Synapothnêskontes], which had been omitted by Plautus in his adaptation
(_Commorientes_) of the same play. The style of Diphilus was simple and
natural, and his language on the whole good Attic; he paid great
attention to versification, and was supposed to have invented a peculiar
kind of metre. The ancients were undecided whether to class him among
the writers of the New or Middle comedy. In his fondness for
mythological subjects (_Hercules_, _Theseus_) and his introduction on
the stage (by a bold anachronism) of the poets Archilochus and Hipponax
as rivals of Sappho, he approximates to the spirit of the latter.
Fragments in H. Koch, _Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta_, ii.; see J.
Denis, _La Comédie grecque_ (1886), ii. p. 414; R. W. Bond in
_Classical Review_ (Feb. 1910, with trans. of _Emporos_ fragm.).
DIPHTHERIA (from [Greek: diphthera], a skin or membrane), the term
applied to an acute infectious disease, which is accompanied by a
membranous exudation on a mucous surface, generally on the tonsils and
back of the throat or pharynx.
In general the symptoms at the commencement of an attack of diphtheria
are comparatively slight, being those commonly accompanying a cold, viz.
chilliness and depression. Sometimes more severe phenomena usher in the
attack, such as vomiting and diarrhoea. A slight feeling of uneasiness
in the throat is experienced along with some stiffness of the back of
the neck. When looked at the throat appears reddened and somewhat
swollen, particularly in the neighbourhood of the tonsils, the soft
palate and upper part of pharynx, while along with this there is
tenderness and swelling of the glands at the angles of the jaws. The
affection of the throat spreads rapidly, and soon the characteristic
exudation appears on the inflamed surface in the form of greyish-white
specks or patches, increasing in extent and thickness until a
yellowish-looking false membrane is formed. This deposit is firmly
adherent to the mucous membrane beneath or incorporated with it, and if
removed leaves a raw, bleeding, ulcerated surface, upon which it is
reproduced in a short period. The appearance of the exudation has been
compared to wet parchment or washed leather, and it is more or less
dense in texture. It may cover the whole of the back of the throat, the
cavity of the mouth, and the posterior nares, and spread downwards into
the air-passages on the one hand and into the alimentary canal on the
other, while any wound on the surface of the body is liable to become
covered with it. This membrane is apt to be detached spontaneously, and
as it loosens it becomes decomposed, giving a most offensive and
characteristic odour to the breath. There is pain and difficulty in
swallowing, but unless the disease has affected the larynx no affection
of the breathing. The voice acquires a snuffling character. When the
disease invades the posterior nares an acrid, fetid discharge, and
sometimes also copious bleeding, takes place from the nostrils. Along
with these local phenomena there is evidence of constitutional
disturbance of the most severe character. There may be no great amount
of fever, but there is marked depression and loss of strength. The pulse
becomes small and frequent, the countenance pale, the swelling of the
glands of the neck increases, which, along with the presence of albumen
in the urine, testifies to a condition of blood poisoning. Unless
favourable symptoms emerge death takes place within three or four days
or sooner, either from the rapid extension of the false membrane into
the air-passage, giving rise to asphyxia, or from a condition of general
collapse, which is sometimes remarkably sudden. In cases of recovery the
change for the better is marked by an arrest in the extension of the
false membrane, the detachment and expectoration of that already formed,
and the healing of the ulcerated mucous membrane beneath. Along with
this there is a general improvement in the symptoms, the power of
swallowing returns, and the strength gradually increases, while the
glandular enlargement of the neck diminishes, and the albumen disappears
from the urine. Recovery, however, is generally slow, and it is many
weeks before full convalescence is established. Even, however, where
diphtheria ends thus favourably, the peculiar sequelae already mentioned
are apt to follow, generally within a period of two or three weeks after
all the local evidence of the disease has disappeared. These secondary
affections may occur after mild as well as after severe attacks, and
they are principally in the form of paralysis affecting the soft palate
and pharynx, causing difficulty in swallowing with regurgitation of food
through the nose, and giving a peculiar nasal character to the voice.
There are, however, other forms of paralysis occurring after diphtheria,
especially that affecting the muscles of the eye, which produces a loss
of the power of accommodation and consequent impairment of vision. There
may be, besides, paralysis of both legs, and occasionally also of one
side of the body (hemiplegia). These symptoms, however, after continuing
for a variable length of time, almost always ultimately disappear.
Under the name of the _Malum Egyptiacum_, Aretaeus in the 2nd century
gives a minute description of a disease which in all its essential
characteristics corresponds to diphtheria. In the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries epidemics of diphtheria appear to have frequently prevailed
in many parts of Europe, particularly in Holland, Spain, Italy, France,
as well as in England, and were described by physicians belonging to
those countries under various titles; but it is probable that other
diseases of a similar nature were included in their descriptions, and no
accurate account of this affection had been published till M. Bretonneau
of Tours in 1821 laid his celebrated treatise on the subject before the
French Academy of Medicine. By him the term _La Diphthérite_ was first
given to the disease.
Great attention has been paid to diphtheria in recent years, with some
striking results. Its cause and nature have been definitely ascertained,
the conditions which influence its prevalence have been elucidated, and
a specific "cure" has been found. In the last respect it occupies a
unique position at the present time. In the case of several other
zymotic diseases much has been done by way of prevention, little or
nothing for treatment; in the case of diphtheria prevention has failed,
but treatment has been revolutionized by the introduction of antitoxin,
which constitutes the most important contribution to practical medicine
as yet made by bacteriology.
Causation.
The exciting cause of diphtheria is a micro-organism, identified by
Klebs and Loffler in 1883 (see PARASITIC DISEASES). It has been shown by
experiment that the symptoms of diphtheria, including the after-effects,
are produced by a toxin derived from the micro-organisms which lodge in
the air-passages and multiply in a susceptible subject. The natural
history of the organism outside the body is not well understood, but
there is some reason to believe that it lives in a dormant condition in
suitable soils. Recent research does not favour the theory that it is
derived from defective drains or "sewer gas," but these things, like
damp and want of sunlight, probably promote its spread, by lowering the
health of persons exposed to them, and particularly by causing an
unhealthy condition of the throat, rendering it susceptible to the
contagion. Defective drainage, or want of drainage, may also act, by
polluting the ground, and so providing a favourable soil for the germ,
though it is to be noted that "the steady increase in the diphtheria
mortality has coincided, in point of time, with steady improvement in
regard of such sanitary circumstances as water supply, sewerage, and
drainage" (Thorne Thorne). Cats and cows are susceptible to the
diphtheritic bacillus, and fowls, turkeys and other birds have been
known to suffer from a disease like diphtheria, but other domestic
animals appear to be more or less resistant or immune. In human beings
the mere presence of the germ is not sufficient to cause disease; there
must also be susceptibility, but it is not known in what that consists.
Individuals exhibit all degrees of resistance up to complete immunity.
Children are far more susceptible than adults, but even children may
have the Klebs-Loffler bacillus in their throats without showing any
symptoms of illness. Altogether there are many obscure points about this
micro-organism, which is apt to assume a puzzling variety of forms.
Nevertheless its identification has greatly facilitated the diagnosis of
the disease, which was previously a very difficult matter, often
determined in an arbitrary fashion on no particular principles.
Diphtheria, as at present understood, may be defined as sore throat in
which the bacillus is found; if it cannot be found, the illness is
regarded as something else, unless the clinical symptoms are quite
unmistakable. One result of this is a large transference of registered
mortality from other throat affections, and particularly from croup, to
diphtheria. Croup, which never had a well-defined application, and is
not recognized by the College of Physicians as a synonym for diphtheria,
appears to be dying out from the medical vocabulary in Great Britain. In
France the distinction has never been recognized.
Prevalence.
Diphtheria is endemic in all European and American countries, and is
apparently increasing, but the incidence varies greatly. It is far more
prevalent on the continent than in England, and still more so in the
United States and Canada. The following table, compiled from figures
collected by Dr Newsholme, shows how London compares with some foreign
cities. The figures give the mean death-rate from diphtheria and croup
for the term of years during which records have been kept. The period
varies in different cases, and therefore the comparison is only a rough
one.
_Mean Death-Rates from Diphtheria and Croup per Million living._
New York 1610 | Munich 990
Chicago 1400 | Milan 990
Buenos Aires 1360 | Florence 830
Trieste 1300 | Vienna 770
Dresden 1290 | Stockholm 720
Berlin 1190 | St Petersburg 650
Boston 1160 | Moscow 640
Marseilles 1130 | Paris 630
Christiania 1090 | Hamburg 490
Budapest 1880 | London 386
There is comparatively little diphtheria in India and Japan, but in
Egypt, the Cape and Australasia it prevails very extensively among the
urban populations. The mortality varies greatly from year to year in all
countries and cities. In Berlin, for instance, it has oscillated between
a maximum of 2420 in 1883 and a minimum of 340 in 1896; in New York
between 2760 in 1877 and 680 in 1868; in Christiania between 3290 in
1887 and 170 in 1871. In some American cities still higher maxima have
been recorded. In other words, diphtheria, though always endemic,
exhibits at times a great increase of activity, and becomes epidemic or
even pandemic. The following table for 1859-99 shows fairly well the
periodical rise and fall in England and Wales. Diphtheria and croup are
given both separately and together, showing the increasing transference
from one to the other of late years. Diphtheria was first entered
separately in the year 1859.
_Deaths from Diphtheria and Croup per Million living in
England and Wales._
+---------------+-------------+----------+-------------+
| Years. | Diphtheria. | Croup. | Diphtheria |
| | | | and Croup. |
+---------------+-------------+----------+-------------+
| 1859 | 517 | 286 | 803 |
| 1860 | 261 | 220 | 481 |
| 1861-70 | 185 | 246 | 431 |
| 1871-80 | 121 | 168 | 289 |
| 1881-90 | 163 | 144 | 307 |
| 1891-95 | 254 | 70 | 324 |
| 1896-97 | 269 | 43 | 312 |
| 1898 | 244 | 27 | 271 |
| 1899 | 293 | 32 | 325 |
+---------------+-------------+----------+-------------+
The combined figures for diphtheria and croup in later years
are:--(1900) 316; (1901) 296; (1902) 255; (1903) 195; (1904) 184;
(1905) 174; (1906) 190; (1907) 175; (1908) 166.
Several facts are roughly indicated by the table. It begins with an
extremely severe epidemic, which has not been approached since. Then
follows a fall extending over twenty years. On the whole this diminution
was progressive, though not in reality so steady as the decennial
grouping makes it appear, being interrupted by smaller oscillations in
single years and groups of years. Still the main fact holds good. After
1880 an opposite movement began, likewise interrupted by minor
oscillations, but on the whole progressive, and culminating in the year
1893 with a death-rate of 389, the highest recorded since 1865. After
1896 a marked fall again took place. This is partly accounted for by the
use of antitoxin, which only began on a considerable scale in 1895, and
did not become general until a year or two later at least. Its effects
were only then fully felt. The registrar-general's returns record
mortality, not prevalence--that is to say, the number of deaths, not of
cases.
On the whole, we get clear evidence of an epidemic rise and fall, which
may serve to dispose of some erroneous conceptions. The belief, held
until recently, that diphtheria is steadily increasing in Great Britain
was obviously premature; it did rise over a series of years, but has now
ebbed again. Moreover, the general prevalence during the last thirty
years has been notably less than in the previous twelve years. Yet it is
during years since 1870 that compulsory education has been in existence
and main drainage chiefly carried out. It follows that neither school
attendance nor sewer gas exercises such an important influence over the
epidemicity of diphtheria as some other conditions. What are those
conditions? Dr Newsholme has advanced the theory, based on an elaborate
examination of statistics in various countries, that the activity of
diphtheria is connected with the rainfall, and he lays down the
following general induction from the facts: "Diphtheria only becomes
epidemic in years in which the rainfall is deficient, and the epidemics
are on the largest scale when three or more years of deficient rainfall
follow each other." He points out that the comparative rarity of
diphtheria in tropical climates, which are characterized by excessive
rainfall, and its greater prevalence in continental than in insular
countries, confirm his theory. His observations seem quite contrary to
the view laid down by various authorities, and hitherto accepted, that
wet weather favours diphtheria. The two, however, are not
irreconcilable. The key to the problem--and possibly to many other
epidemiological problems--may perhaps be found in the movements of the
subsoil water. It has been suggested by different observers, and
particularly by Mr M. A. Adams, who has for some years made a study of
the subsoil water at Maidstone, that there is a definite connexion
between it and diphtheria. In England the underground water normally
reaches its lowest level at the end of the summer; then it gradually
rises, fed by percolation from the winter rains, reaching a maximum
level about the end of March, after which it gradually sinks. This
maximum level Mr Adams calls the annual spring cleaning of the soil, and
his observations go to show that when the normal movement is arrested or
disturbed, diphtheria becomes active. Now that is what happens in
periods of drought. The underground water does not rise to its usual
level, and there is no spring cleaning. The hypothesis, then, is this:
The diphtheria bacillus lives in the soil, but is "drowned out" in wet
periods by the subsoil water. In droughty ones it lives and flourishes
in the warm, dry soil; then when rain comes, it is driven out with the
ground air into the houses. This process will continue for some time, so
that epidemic outbreaks may well seem to be associated with wet. But
they begin in drought, and are stopped by long-continued periods of
copious rainfall. This is quite in keeping with the observed fact that
diphtheria is a seasonal disease, always most prevalent in the last
quarter of the year. The summer develops the poison in the soil, the
autumnal rains bring it out. The fact that the same cause does not
produce the same effect in tropical countries may perhaps be explained
by the extreme violence of the alternations, which are too great to suit
this particular micro-organism, or possibly the regularity of the
rainfall prevents its development.
The foregoing hypothesis is supported by a good deal of evidence, and
notably by the concurrence of the great epidemic or pandemic prevalence
in Great Britain, culminating in 1859, with a prolonged period of
exceptionally deficient rainfall. Again, the highest death-rate
registered since 1865 was in 1893, a year of similarly exceptional
drought. But it is no more than an hypothesis, and the fate of former
theories is a warning against drawing conclusions from statistics and
records extending over too short a period of time. The warning is
particularly necessary in connexion with meteorological conditions,
which are apt to upset all calculations. As it happens, a period of
deficient rainfall even greater than that of 1854-1858 has recently been
experienced. It began in 1893 and culminated in the extraordinary season
of 1899. The dry years were 1893, 1895, 1896, 1898 and 1899, and the
deficiency of rainfall was not made good by any considerable excess in
1894 and 1897. It surpassed all records at Greenwich; streams and wells
ran dry all over the country, and the flow of the Thames and Lea was
reduced to the lowest point ever recorded. There should be, according to
the theory, at least a very large increase in the prevalence of
diphtheria. To a certain extent it has held good. There was a marked
rise in 1893-1896 over the preceding period, though not so large as
might have been expected, but it was followed by a decided fall in
1897-1898. The experience of 1898 contradicts, that of 1899 supports,
the theory. Further light is therefore required; but perhaps the failure
of the recent drought to produce results at all comparable with the
epidemic of the 'fifties may be due to variations in the resistance of
the disease, which differs widely in different years. It may also be due
in part to improved sanitation, to the notification of infectious
diseases, the use of isolation hospitals, which have greatly developed
in quite recent years, and, lastly, to the beneficial effects of
antitoxin. If these be the real explanations, then scientific and
administrative work has not been thrown away after all in combating this
very painful and fatal enemy of the young.
Dissemination.
The conditions governing the general prevalence of diphtheria, and its
epidemic rise and fall, which have just been discussed, do not touch the
question of actual dissemination. The contagion is spread by means which
are in constant operation, whether the general amount of disease is
great or small. Water, so important in some epidemic diseases, is
believed not to be one of them, though a negative proof based on absence
of evidence cannot be accepted as conclusive. On the other hand, milk is
undoubtedly a means of dissemination. Several outbreaks of an almost
explosive character, besides minor extensions of disease from one place
to another, have been traced to this cause. Milk may be contaminated in
various ways--at the dairy, for instance, or on the way to
customers,--but several cases, investigated by the officers of the Local
Government Board and others, have been thought to point to infection
from cows suffering from a diphtheritic affection of the udder. The part
played by aërial convection is undetermined, but there is no reason to
suppose that the infecting material is conveyed any distance by wind or
air currents. Instances which seem to point to the contrary may be
explained in other ways, and particularly by the fact, now fully
demonstrated, that persons suffering from minor sore throats, not
recognized as diphtheria, may carry the disease about and introduce it
into other localities. Human intercourse is the most important means of
dissemination, the contagion passing from person to person either by
actual contact, as in kissing, or by the use of the same utensils and
articles, or by mere proximity. In the last case the germs must be
supposed to be air-borne for short distances, and to enter with the
breath. Rooms appear liable to become infected by the presence of
diphtheritic cases, and so spread the disease among other persons using
them. At a small outbreak which occurred at Darenth Asylum in 1898 the
infection clung obstinately to a particular ward, in spite of the prompt
removal of all cases, and fresh ones continued to occur until it had
been thoroughly disinfected, after which there were no more. The part
played by human intercourse in fostering the spread of the disease
suggests that it would naturally be more prevalent in urban communities,
where people congregate together more, than in rural ones. This is at
variance with the conclusion laid down by some authorities, that in this
country diphtheria used to affect chiefly the sparsely populated
districts, and though tending to become more urban, is still rather a
rural disease. That view is based upon an analysis of the distribution
by counties in England and Wales from 1855 to 1880, and it has been
generally accepted and repeated until it has become a sort of axiom. Of
course the facts of distribution are facts, but the general inference
drawn from them, that diphtheria peculiarly affects the country and is
changing its _habitat_, may be erroneous. Dr Newsholme, by taking a
wider basis of experience, has arrived at the opposite conclusion, and
finds that diphtheria does not, in fact, flourish more in
sparsely-peopled districts. "When a sufficiently long series of years is
taken," he says, "it appears clear that there is more diphtheria in
urban than in rural communities." The rate for London has always been in
excess of that for the whole of England and Wales. Its distribution at
any given time is determined by a number of circumstances, and by their
incidental co-operation, not by any property or predilection for town or
country inherent in the disease. There are the epidemic conditions of
soil and rainfall, previously discussed, which vary widely in different
localities at different times; there is the steady influence of regular
intercourse, and the accidental element of special distribution by
various means. These things may combine to alter the incidence. In
short, accident plays too great a part to permit any general conclusion
to be drawn from distribution, except from a very wide basis of
experience. The variations are very great and sometimes very sudden. For
instance, the county of London for some years headed the list, having a
far higher death-rate than any other. In 1898 it dropped to the fifth
place, and was surpassed by Rutland, a purely rural county, which had
the lowest mortality of all in the previous year and very nearly the
lowest for the previous ten years. Again, South Wales, which had had a
low mortality for some years, suddenly came into prominence as a
diphtheria district, and in 1898 had the highest death-rate in the
country. Staffordshire and Bedfordshire show a similar rise, the one an
urban, the other a rural, county. All the northern counties, both rural
and urban,--namely, Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland,
Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire,--had a very high rate
in 1861-1870, and a low one in 1896-1898. It is obviously unsafe to draw
general conclusions from distribution data on a small scale. Diphtheria
appears to creep about very slowly, as a rule, from place to place, and
from one part of a large town to another; it forsakes one district and
appears in another; occasionally it attacks a fresh locality with great
energy, presumably because the local conditions are exceptionally
favourable, which may be due to the soil or, possibly, to the
susceptibility of the inhabitants, who are, so to speak, virgin ground.
But through it all personal infection is the chief means of spread.
The acceptance of this doctrine has directed great attention to the
practical question of school influence. There is no doubt whatever that
it plays a very considerable part in spreading diphtheria. The incidence
of the disease is chiefly on children, and nothing so often and
regularly brings large numbers together in close contact under the same
roof as school attendance. Nothing, in fact, furnishes such constant and
extensive opportunities for personal infection. Many outbreaks have
definitely been traced to schools. In London the subject has been very
fully investigated by Sir Shirley Murphy, the medical officer of health
to the London County Council, and by Dr W. R. Smith, formerly medical
officer of health to the London School Board. Sir Shirley Murphy has
shown that a special incidence on children of school age began to
manifest itself after the adoption of compulsory education, and that the
summer holidays are marked by a distinct diminution of cases, which is
succeeded by an increase on the return to school. Dr W. R. Smith's
observations are directed rather to minimizing the effect of school
influence, and to showing that it is less important than other factors;
which is doubtless true, as has been already remarked. It appears that
the heaviest incidence falls upon infants under school age, and that
liability diminishes progressively after school age is reached. But this
by no means disposes of the importance of school influence, as the
younger children at home may be infected by older ones, who have picked
up the contagion at school, but, being less susceptible, are less
severely affected and exhibit no worse symptoms than a sore throat. From
a practical point of view the problem is a difficult one to deal with,
as it is virtually impossible to ensure the exclusion of all infection,
on account of the deceptively mild forms it may assume; but considering
how very often outbreaks of diphtheria necessitate the closing of
schools, it would probably be to the advantage of the authorities to
discourage, rather than to compel, the attendance of children with sore
throats. A fact of some interest revealed by statistics is that in the
earliest years of life the incidence of diphtheria is greater upon male
than upon female children, but from three years onwards the position is
reversed, and with every succeeding year the relative female liability
becomes greater. This is probably due to the habit of kissing maintained
among females, but more and more abandoned by boys from babyhood
onwards.
All these considerations suggest the importance of segregating the sick
in isolation hospitals. Of late years this preventive measure has been
carried out with increasing efficiency, owing to the better provision of
such hospitals and the greater willingness of the public to make use of
them; and probably the improvement so effected has had some share in
keeping down the prevalence of the disease to comparatively moderate
proportions. Unfortunately, the complete segregation of infected persons
is hardly possible, because of the mild symptoms, and even absence of
symptoms, exhibited by some individuals. A further difficulty arises
with reference to the discharge of patients. It has been proved that
the bacillus may persist almost indefinitely in the air-passages in
certain cases, and in a considerable proportion it does persist for
several weeks after convalescence. On returning home such cases may, and
often do, infect others.
Treatment.
Since the antitoxin treatment was introduced in 1894 it has overshadowed
all other methods. We owe this drug originally to the Berlin school of
bacteriologists, and particularly to Dr Behring. The idea of making use
of serum arose about 1890, out of researches made in connexion with
Mechnikov's theory of phagocytosis, by which is meant the action of the
phagocytes or white corpuscles of the blood in destroying the bacteria
of disease. It was shown by the German bacteriologists that the serum or
liquid part of the blood plays an equally or more important part in
resisting disease, and the idea of combating the toxins produced by
pathogenic bacteria with resistant serum injected into the blood
presented itself to several workers. The idea was followed up and worked
out independently in France and Germany, so successfully that by the
year 1894 the serum treatment had been tried on a considerable scale
with most encouraging results. Some of these were published in Germany
in the earlier part of that year, and at the International Hygienic
Congress, held in Budapest a little later, Dr Roux, of the Institut
Pasteur, whose experience was somewhat more extensive than that of his
German colleagues, read a paper giving the result of several hundred
cases treated in Paris. When all allowance for errors had been made,
they showed a remarkable and even astonishing reduction of mortality,
fully confirming the conclusions drawn from the German experiments. This
consensus of independent opinion proved a great stimulus to further
trial, and before long one _clinique_ after another told the same tale.
The evidence was so favourable that Professor Virchow--the last man to
be carried away by a novelty--declared it "the imperative duty of
medical men to use the new remedy" (_The Times_, 19th October 1894).
Since then an enormous mass of facts has accumulated from all quarters
of the globe, all testifying to the value of antitoxin in the treatment
of diphtheria. The experience of the hospitals of the London
Metropolitan Asylums Board for five years before and after antitoxin may
be given as a particularly instructive illustration; but the subsequent
reduction in the rate of mortality (12 in 1900, 11.3 in 1901, 10.8 in
1902, 9.3 in 1903, and an average of 9 in 1904-1908) added further
confirmation.
_Annual Case Mortality in Metropolitan Asylums Board's
Hospitals._
Before Antitoxin. | After Antitoxin.
Mortality | Mortality
Year. per cent. | Year. per cent.
|
1890 33.55 | 1895 22.85
1891 30.61 | 1896 21.20
1892 29.51 | 1897 17.79
1893 30.42 | 1898 15.37
1894 29.29 | 1899 13.95
The number of cases dealt with in these five antitoxin years was 32,835,
or an average of 6567 a year, and the broad result is a reduction of
mortality by more than one-half. It is a fair inference that the
treatment saves the lives of about 1000 children every year in London
alone. This refers to all cases. Those which occur in the hospitals as a
sequel to scarlet fever, and consequently come under treatment from the
commencement, show very much more striking results. The case mortality,
which was 46.8% in 1892 and 58.8% in 1893, has been reduced to 3.6%
since the introduction of antitoxin. But the evidence is not from
statistics alone. The beneficial effect of the treatment is equally
attested by clinical observation. Dr Roux's original account has been
confirmed by a cloud of witnesses year after year. "One may say," he
wrote, "that the appearance of most of the patients is totally different
from what it used to be. The pale and leaden faces are scarcely seen in
the wards; the expression of the children is brighter and more lively."
Adult patients have described the relief afforded by inoculation; it
acts like a charm, and lifts the deadly feeling of oppression off like a
cloud in the course of a few hours. Finally, the counteracting effect of
antitoxin in preventing the disintegrating action of the diphtheritic
toxin on the nervous tissues has been demonstrated pathologically. There
are some who still affect scepticism as to the value of this drug. They
cannot be acquainted with the evidence, for if the efficacy of antitoxin
in the treatment of diphtheria has not been proved, then neither can the
efficacy of any treatment for anything be said to be proved.
Prophylactic properties are also claimed for the serum; but protection
is necessarily more difficult to demonstrate than cure, and though there
is some evidence to support the claim, it has not been fully made out.
AUTHORITIES.--Adams, _Public Health_, vol. vii.; Thorne Thorne,
_Milroy Lectures_ (1891); Newsholme, _Epidemic Diphtheria_; W. R.
Smith, _Harben Lectures_ (1899); Murphy, _Report to London County
Council_ (1894); Sims Woodhead, _Report to Metropolitan Asylums Board_
(1901).
DIPLODOCUS, a gigantic extinct land reptile discovered in rocks of Upper
Jurassic age in western North America, the best-known example of a
Sauropodous Dinosaur. The first scattered remains of a skeleton were
found in 1877 by Prof. S.W. Williston near Cañon City, Colorado; and the
tail and hind-limb of this specimen were described in the following year
by Prof. O.C. Marsh. He noticed that in the part of the tail which
dragged on the ground, each chevron bone below the vertebral column
consisted of a pair of bars; and as so peculiar an arrangement for the
protection of the artery and vein beneath the tail had not previously
been observed in any animal, he proposed the name _Diplodocus_ ("double
beam" or "double bar") for the new reptile, adding the specific name
_longus_ in allusion to the elongated shape of the tail vertebrae. In
1884 Prof. Marsh described the head, vertebrae and pelvis of the same
skeleton, which is now in the National Museum, Washington. In 1897 the
next important specimen, a tail associated with other fragments,
apparently of _Diplodocus longus_, was obtained by the American Museum
of Natural History, New York, from Como Bluffs, Wyoming. In 1899-1900
large parts of two skeletons of another species, in a remarkable state
of preservation, were disinterred by Messrs J. L. Wortman, O. A.
Peterson and J. B. Hatcher in Sheep Creek, Albany county, Wyo., and
these are now exhibited with minor discoveries in the Carnegie Museum,
Pittsburg. There are also other specimens in New York, Chicago and the
University of Wyoming. In 1901 Mr J. B. Hatcher studied the new species
at Pittsburg, named it _Diplodocus carnegii_, and published the first
restored sketch of a complete skeleton. Shortly afterwards plaster casts
of the finest specimens were prepared under the direction of Mr J. B.
Hatcher and Dr W. J. Holland, and these were skilfully combined to form
the cast of a completely reconstructed skeleton, which was presented to
the British Museum by Andrew Carnegie in 1905. This reconstruction is
based primarily on a well-preserved chain of vertebrae, extending from
the second cervical to the twelfth caudal, associated with the ribs,
pelvis and several limb-bones. The tail is completed from two other
specimens in the Carnegie Museum, having caudals 13 to 36 and 37 to 73
respectively in apparently unbroken series. Prof. Marsh's specimen in
Washington supplied the greater part of the skull; and the fore-foot is
copied from a specimen in New York.
[Illustration: Reconstructed Skeleton of _Diplodocus carnegii_, Hatcher,
about one-hundredth natural size. A and B, Caudal Vertebrae Nos. 36 and
70 of the same are about one-quarter natural size.]
The cast of the reconstructed skeleton of _Diplodocus carnegii_ measures
84 ft. in length and 12 ft. 9 in. in maximum height at the hind-limbs.
It displays the elongated neck and tail and the relatively small head so
characteristic of the Sauropodous Dinosaurs. The skull is inclined to
the axis of the neck, denoting a browsing animal; while the feeble blunt
teeth and flat expanded snout suggest feeding among succulent
water-weeds. The large narial opening at the highest point of the head
probably indicates an aquatic mode of life, and there seems to have been
a soft valve to close the nostrils when under water. The diminutive
brain-cavity, scarcely large enough to contain a walnut, is noteworthy.
There are 104 vertebrae, namely, 15 in the neck, 11 in the back, 5 in
the sacrum and 73 in the tail. The presacral vertebrae are of remarkably
light construction, the plates and struts of bone being arranged to give
the greatest strength with the least weight. The end of the tail is a
flexible lash, which would probably be used as a weapon, like the tail
of some existing lizards. The feet, notwithstanding the weight they had
to support, are as unsymmetrical as those of a crocodile, with claws
only on the three inner toes. There is no external armour.
See O. C. Marsh, _Amer. Journ. Sci._ ser. 3, vol. xvi. (1878), p. 414,
pl. viii., and loc. cit. vol. xxvii. (1884), p. 161, pls. iii., iv.;
H. F. Osborn, Mem. _Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist._ vol. i. pt. v. (1899); J.
B. Hatcher, _Mem. Carnegie Mus._ vol. i. No. 1 (1901), and vol. ii.
No. 1 (1903); W. J. Holland, _Mem. Carnegie Mus._ vol. ii. No. 6
(1906). (A. S. Wo.)
DIPLOMACY (Fr. _diplomatie_), the art of conducting international
negotiations. The word, borrowed from the French, has the same
derivation as Diplomatic (q.v.), and, according to the _New English
Dictionary_, was first used in England so late as 1796 by Burke. Yet
there is no other word in the English language that could supply its
exact sense. The need for such a term was indeed not felt; for what we
know as diplomacy was long regarded, partly as falling under the _Jus
gentium_ or international law, partly as a kind of activity morally
somewhat suspect and incapable of being brought under any system.
Moreover, though in a certain sense it is as old as history, diplomacy
as a uniform system, based upon generally recognized rules and directed
by a diplomatic hierarchy having a fixed international status, is of
quite modern growth even in Europe. It was finally established only at
the congresses of Vienna (1815) and Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), while its
effective extension to the great monarchies of the East, beyond the
bounds of European civilization, was comparatively an affair of
yesterday. So late as 1876 it was possible for the writer on this
subject in the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ to say that
"it would be an historical absurdity to suppose diplomatic relations
connecting together China, Burma and Japan, as they connect the great
European powers."
_Principles._--Though diplomacy has been usually treated under the head
of international law, it would perhaps be more consonant with the facts
to place international law under diplomacy. The principles and rules
governing the intercourse of states, defined by a long succession of
international lawyers, have no sanction save the consensus of the
powers, established and maintained by diplomacy (see BALANCE OF POWER);
in so far as they have become, by international agreement, more than
mere pious opinions of theorists, they are working rules established for
mutual convenience, which it is the function of diplomacy to safeguard
or to use for its own ends. In any case they by no means cover the whole
field of diplomatic activity; and, were they swept away, the art of
diplomacy, developed through long ages of experience, would survive.
This experience may perhaps be called the science, as distinct from the
art, of diplomacy. It covers not only the province of international law,
but the vast field of recorded experience which we know as history, of
which indeed international law is but a part; for, as Bielfeld in his
_Institutions politiques_ (La Haye, 1760, t. I. ch. ii. § 13) points
out, "public law is founded on facts. To know it we must know history,
which is the soul of this science as of politics in general." The broad
outlook on human affairs implied in "historical sense" is more necessary
to the diplomatist under modern conditions than in the 18th century,
when international policy was still wholly under the control of princes
and their immediate advisers. Diplomacy was then a game of wits played
in a narrow circle. Its objects too were narrower; for states were
practically regarded as the property of their sovereigns, which it was
the main function of their "agents" to enlarge or to protect, while
scarcely less important than the preservation or rearrangement of
territorial boundaries was that of precedence and etiquette generally,
over which an incredible amount of time was wasted. The _haute
diplomatie_ thus resolved itself into a process of exalted haggling,
conducted with an utter disregard of the ordinary standards of morality,
but with the most exquisite politeness and in accordance with ever more
and more elaborate rules. Much of the outcome of these dead debates has
become stereotyped in the conventions of the diplomatic service; but the
character of diplomacy itself has undergone a great change. This change
is threefold: firstly, as the result of the greater sense of the
community of interests among nations, which was one of the outcomes of
the French Revolution; secondly, owing to the rise of democracy, with
its expression in parliamentary assemblies and in the press; thirdly,
through the alteration in the position of the diplomatic agent, due to
modern means of communication.
The first of these changes may be dated to the circular of Count Kaunitz
of the 17th of July 1791, in which, in face of the Revolution, he
impressed upon the powers the duty of making common cause for the
purpose of preserving "public peace, the tranquillity of states, the
inviolability of possessions, and the faith of treaties." The duty of
watching over the common interests of Europe, or of the world, was thus
for the first time officially recognized as a function of diplomacy,
since common action could only be taken as the result of diplomatic
negotiations. It would be easy to exaggerate the effective results of
this idea, even when it had crystallized in the Grand Alliance of 1814
and been proclaimed to the world in the Holy Alliance of the 26th of
September 1815 and the declaration of Aix-la-Chapelle. The cynical
picture given by La Bruyère of the diplomatist of the 18th century still
remained largely true: "His talk is only of peace, of alliances, of the
public tranquillity, and of the public interests; in reality he is
thinking only of his own, that is to say, of those of his master or of
his republic."[1] The proceedings of the congress of Vienna proved how
little the common good weighed unless reinforced by particular
interests; but the conception of "Europe" as a political entity none the
less survived. The congresses, notably the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
(q.v.) in 1818, were in a certain sense European parliaments, and their
ostensible object was the furtherance of common interests. Had the
imperial dreamer Alexander I. of Russia had his way, they would have
been permanently established on the broad basis of the Holy Alliance,
and would have included, not the great powers only, but representatives
of every state (see ALEXANDER I. and EUROPE: _History_). Whatever the
effective value of that "Concert of Europe" which was the outcome of the
period of the congresses, it certainly produced a great effect on the
spirit and the practice of diplomacy. In the congresses and conferences
diplomacy assumes international functions both legislative and
administrative. The diplomat is responsible, not only to his own
government, but to "Europe." Thus Castlereagh was accused of
subordinating the interests of Great Britain to those of Europe; and the
same charge was brought, perhaps with greater justice, against
Metternich in respect of Austria. Canning's principle of "Every nation
for itself and God for us all!" prevailed, it is true, over that of
Alexander's "Confederation of Europe"; yet, as one outcome of the
congresses, every diplomatic agent, though he represents the interests
of his own state, has behind him the whole body of the treaties which
constitute the public law of the world, of which he is in some sort the
interpreter and the guardian.
Parallel with this development runs the second process making for
change: the increasing responsibility of diplomacy to public opinion. To
discuss all the momentous issues involved in this is impossible; but the
subject is too important to be altogether passed over, since it is one
of the main problems of modern international intercourse, and concerns
every one who by his vote may influence the policy of the state to which
he belongs. The question, broadly speaking, is: how far has the public
discussion of international affairs affected the legitimate functions of
diplomacy for better or for worse? To the diplomatist of the old school
the answer seems clear. For him diplomacy was too delicate and too
personal an art to survive the glare and confusion of publicity.
Metternich, the last representative of the old _haute diplomatie_, lived
to moralize over the ruin caused by the first manifestations of the "new
diplomacy," the outcome of the rise of the power of public opinion. He
had early, from his own point of view, unfavourably contrasted the
"limited" constitutional monarchies of the west with the "free"
autocracies of the east of Europe, free because they were under no
obligation to give a public account of their actions. He himself was a
master of the old diplomatic art, of intrigue, of veiling his purpose
under a cloud of magniloquence, above all, of the art of personal
fascination. But public opinion was for him only a dangerous force to be
kept under control; and, even had he realized the necessity for
appealing to it, he had none of the qualities that would have made the
appeal successful. In direct antagonism to him was George Canning, who
may be called the great prototype of the "new diplomacy," and to
Metternich was a "malevolent meteor hurled by divine providence upon
Europe." Canning saw clearly the immense force that would be added to
his diplomatic action if he had behind him the force of public opinion.
In answer to Metternich's complaint of the tone of speeches in
parliament and of the popular support given in England to revolutionary
movements, he wrote, "Our influence, if it is to be maintained abroad,
must be secure in its sources of strength at home: and the sources of
that strength are in the sympathy between the people and the government;
in the union of the public sentiment with the public counsels; in the
reciprocal confidence of the House of Commons and the crown."[2]
It would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that Canning was wholly
right and Metternich wholly wrong. The conditions of the Habsburg
monarchy were not those of Great Britain,[3] and even if it had been
possible to speak of a public opinion in the Austrian empire at all, it
certainly possessed no such organ as the British parliament. But the
argument may be carried yet further. In the abstract the success of the
policy of a minister in a democratic state must ultimately rest upon the
support of public opinion; yet the necessity for this support has in the
conduct of foreign affairs its peculiar dangers. In the difficult game
of diplomacy a certain reticence is always necessary. Secret sources of
information would be dried up were they to be lightly revealed; a plain
exposition of policy would often give an undue advantage to the other
party to a negotiation. Thus, even in Great Britain, the diplomatic
correspondence laid before parliament is carefully edited, and all
governments are jealous of granting access to their modern archives. Yet
a representative assembly is apt to be resentful of such reservations.
Its members know little or nothing of the conditions under which foreign
affairs are conducted, and they are not unnaturally irritated by
explanations which seem to lack candour or completeness. Canning himself
had experience of this in the affair of the capture of the Danish fleet
at Copenhagen; and Castlereagh's diplomacy was hampered by the bitter
attacks of an opposition which accused him, with little justice, of
pursuing a policy which he dared not reveal in its full scope to
parliament. Moreover, the appeal to public opinion may be used as a
diplomatic weapon for ends no less "selfish" than any aimed at by the
old diplomacy. Bismarck, whose statesmanship was at least as cynical as
that of Metternich, was a master of the art of taking the world into his
confidence--when it suited him to do so; and the "reptile press," hired
to give a seemingly independent support to his policy, was one of his
most potent weapons. So far the only necessary consequence of the growth
of the power of public opinion on the art of diplomacy has been to
extend the sphere of its application; it is but one more factor to be
dealt with; and experience has proved that it is subject to the wiles of
a skilful diplomatist no less than were the princes and statesmen with
whom the old diplomacy was solely concerned.
The third factor making for change--the revolution in the means of
communication which has brought all the world into closer touch--remains
to be discussed. It is obvious that before the invention of the
telegraph, the diplomatic agent was in a far more responsible position
than he is now, when he can, in most cases, receive immediate
instructions from his government on difficult questions as they arise.
When communication was still slow there was often no time to await
instructions, or the instructions when they arrived were not seldom
already out of date and had to be set aside on the minister's own
responsibility. It would, however, be easy to exaggerate the importance
of this change as affecting the character and status of diplomatic
agents. It is true that the tendency has been for ministers of foreign
affairs to hold the threads of diplomacy in their own hands to a far
greater extent than was formerly the case; but they must still depend
for information and advice on the "man on the spot," and the success of
their policy largely depends upon his qualities of discretion and
judgment. The growth of democracy, moreover, has given to the ambassador
a new and peculiar importance; for he represents not only the sovereign
to the sovereign, but the nation to the nation; and, as a succession of
notable American ambassadors to Great Britain has proved, he may by his
personal qualities do a large amount to remove the prejudices and
ignorances which stand as a barrier between the nations. It marks an
immense advance in the comity of international intercourse when the
representatives of friendly powers are no longer regarded as "spies
rather than ambassadors," to be "quickly heard and dismissed," as
Philippe de Commines would have them, but as agreeable guests to be
parted from with regret.
As to the qualifications for an ambassador, it is clearly impossible to
lay down a general rule, for the same qualities are obviously not
required in Washington as in Vienna, nor in Paris as in Pekin. Yet the
effort to depict the ideal ambassador bulks largely in the works of the
earlier theorists, and the demands they make are sufficiently alarming.
Ottaviano Maggi, himself a diplomatist of the brilliant age of the
Renaissance, has left us in his _De legato_ (Hanoviae, 1596) his idea of
what an ambassador should be. He must not only be a good Christian but a
learned theologian; he must be a philosopher, well versed in Aristotle
and Plato, and able at a moment's notice to solve in correct dialectical
form the most abstruse problems; he must be well read in the classics,
and an expert in mathematics, architecture, music, physics and civil and
canon law. He must not only know how to write and speak Latin with
classical refinement, but he must be a master of Greek, Spanish, French,
German and Turkish. He must have a sound knowledge of history, geography
and the science of war; but at the same time is not to neglect the
poets, and never to be without his Homer. Add to this that he must be
well born, rich and of a handsome presence, and we have a portrait of a
diplomatist whose original can hardly have existed even in that age of
brilliant versatility. The Dutchman Frederikus de Marselaer, in his
[Greek: kêrukeion] _sive legationum insigne_ (Antwerp, 1618), is
scarcely less exacting than the Venetian. His ideal ambassador is a
nobleman of fine presence and in the prime of life, famous, rich,
munificent, abstemious, not violent, nor quarrelsome, nor morose, no
flatterer, learned, eloquent, witty without being talkative, a good
linguist, widely read, prudent and cautious, but brave and--as he adds
somewhat superfluously--many-sided.
With these theoretical perfections one or two instances of the
qualifications demanded by the exigencies of practical politics may be
cited by way of illuminating contrast. At the court of the empress
Elizabeth of Russia good looks were a surer means of diplomatic success
than all the talents and virtues, and the princess of Zerbst (mother of
the empress Catherine II.) wrote to Frederick of Prussia advising him to
replace his elderly ambassador by a handsome young man with a good
complexion; and the essential qualification for an ambassador to
Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Denmark and Russia used to be that he
should be able to drink the native diplomatists, seasoned from babyhood
to strong liquors, under the table.
_History._--In its widest sense the history of diplomacy is that of the
intercourse between nations, in so far as this has not been a mere brute
struggle for the mastery;[4] in a narrower sense, with which the present
article is alone concerned, it is that of the methods and spirit of
diplomatic intercourse and of the character and status of diplomatic
agents. Earlier writers on the office and functions of ambassadors, such
as Gentilis or Archbishop Germonius, conscientiously trace their origin
to God himself, who created the angels to be his legates; and they
fortify their arguments by copious examples drawn from ancient history,
sacred and profane. But, whatever the influence upon it of earlier
practice, modern di
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