The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 164

DIKe (i. e. Justice), a Greek G.o.ddess, the daughter of Zeus and Themis; the guardian of justice and judgment, the foe of deceit and violence, and the accuser before Zeus of the unjust judge.

DIKTYS, the fisherman of Seriphus; saved Perseus and his mother from the perils of the deep.

DILETTANTE SOCIETY, THE, a society of n.o.blemen and gentlemen founded in England in 1734, and which contributed to correct and purify the public taste of the country; their labours were devoted chiefly to the study of the relics of ancient Greek art, and resulted in the production of works in ill.u.s.tration.

DILETTANTISM, an idle, often affected, almost always barren admiration and study of the fine arts, "in earnest about nothing."

DILKE, CHARLES WENTWORTH, English critic and journalist; served for 20 years in the Navy Pay-Office; contributed to the _Westminister_ and other reviews; was proprietor and editor of the _Athenaeum_; started the _Daily News_; left literary Papers, edited by his grandson (1789-1864).

DILKE, SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH, English publicist and politician, grandson of the preceding, born at Chelsea; called to the bar; travelled in America and the English colonies, and wrote a record of his travels in his "Greater Britain"; entered Parliament as an extreme Liberal; held office under Mr. Gladstone; from exposures in a divorce case had to retire from public life, but returned after a time; _b_. 1843.

DILLMANN, a great German Orientalist, born at Illingen, a village of Wurtemberg; studied under Ewald at Tubingen; became professor at Kiel, at Giessen, and finally at Berlin; as professor of Old Testament exegesis made a special study of the Ethiopic languages, and is the great authority in their regard; wrote a grammar and a lexicon of these, as well as works on theology; _b_. 1823.

DILLON, a general in the service of France, born in Dublin; was butchered by his troops near Lille (1745-1792).

DILLON, JOHN, an Irish patriot, born in New York; entered Parliament in 1880 as a Parnellite; was once suspended, and four times imprisoned, for his over-zeal; sat at first for Tipperary, and since for East Mayo; in 1891 threw in his lot with the M'Carthyites; _b_. 1851.

DIMANCHE, M. (Mr. Sunday), a character in Moliere's "Don Juan," the type of an honest merchant, whom, on presenting his bill, his creditor appeases by his politeness.

DIME, a U.S. silver coin, worth the tenth part of a dollar, or about fivepence.

DINAN (10), an old town in the dep. of Cotes du Nord, France, 14 m.

S. of St. Malo; most picturesquely situated on the top of a steep hill, amid romantic scenery, of great archaeological interest; the birthplace of Duclos.

DINANT, an old town on the Meuse, 14 m. S. of Namur, Belgium; noted for its gingerbread, and formerly for its copper wares, called Dinanderie.

DINAPUR (44), a town and military station on the right bank of the Ganges, 12 m. NW. of Patna.

DINARCHUS, an orator of the Phocion party in Athens, born at Corinth.

DINARIC ALPS, a range of the Eastern Alps in Austria, runs SE. and parallel with the Adriatic, connecting the Julian Alps with the Balkans.

DINDORF, WILHELM, a German philologist, born at Leipzig; devoted his life to the study of the ancient Greek cla.s.sics, particularly the dramatists, and edited the chief of them, as well as the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Homer, with notes; was joint-editor with his brothers Ludwig and Hase of the "Thesaurus Graecae Linguae" of Stepha.n.u.s (1802-1883).

DINGELSTEDT, a German poet, novelist, and essayist, born near Marburg; was the Duke of Wurtemberg's librarian at Stuttgart, and theatre superintendent at Munich, Weimar, and Vienna successively; his poems show delicacy of sentiment and graphic power (1814-1881).

DINGWALL, the county town of Ross-s.h.i.+re, at the head of the Cromarty Firth.

d.i.n.kAS, an African pastoral people occupying a flat country traversed by the White Nile; of good stature, clean habits; of semi-civilised manners, and ferocious in war.

DINMONT, DANDIE, a jovial, honest-hearted store-farmer in Scott's "Guy Mannering."

DINOCRATES, a Macedonian architect, who, in the time of Alexander the Great, rebuilt the Temple of Ephesus destroyed by the torch of Erostratus; was employed by Alexander in the building of Alexandria.

DIOCLETIAN, Roman emperor from 284 to 308, born at Salona, in Dalmatia, of obscure parentage; having entered the Roman army, served with distinction, rose rapidly to the highest rank, and was at Chalcedon, after the death of Numeria.n.u.s, invested by the troops with the imperial purple; in 286 he a.s.sociated Maximia.n.u.s with himself as joint-emperor, with the t.i.tle of Augustus, and in 292 resigned the Empire of the West to Constantius Chlorus and Galerius, so that the Roman world was divided between two emperors in the E. and two in the W.; in 303, at the instance of Galerius, he commenced and carried on a fierce persecution of the Christians, the tenth and fiercest; but in 305, weary of ruling, he abdicated and retired to Salona, where he spent his remaining eight years in rustic simplicity of life, cultivating his garden; bating his persecution of the Christians, he ruled the Roman world wisely and well (245-313).

DIODATI, a Calvinistic theologian, born at Lucca; was taken while a child with his family to Geneva; distinguished himself there in the course of the Reformation as a pastor, a preacher, professor of Hebrew, and a professor of Theology; translated the Bible into Italian and into French; a nephew of his was a school-fellow and friend of Milton, who wrote an elegy on his untimely death (1576-1614).

DIODORUS SICULUS, historian, born in Sicily, of the age of Augustus; conceived the idea of writing a universal history; spent 30 years at the work; produced what he called "The Historical Library," which embraced the period from the earliest ages to the end of Caesar's Gallic war, and was divided into 40 books, of which only a few survive entire, and some fragments of the rest.

DIOGENES LAeRTIUS, a Greek historian, born at Laerte, in Cilicia; flourished in the 2nd century A.D.; author of "Lives of the Philosophers," a work written in 10 books; is full of interesting information regarding the men, but is dest.i.tute of critical insight into their systems.

DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA, a Greek philosopher of the Ionic school, and an adherent of ANAXIMENES (q. v.), if of any one, being more of an eclectic than anything else; took more to physics than philosophy; contributed nothing to the philosophic movement of the time.

DIOGENES THE CYNIC, born in Sinope, in Pontus, came to Athens, was attracted to ANTISTHENES (q. v.) and became a disciple, and a sansculotte of the first water; dressed himself in the coa.r.s.est, lived on the plainest, slept in the porches of the temples, and finally took up his dwelling in a tub; stood on his naked manhood; would not have anything to do with what did not contribute to its enhancement; despised every one who sought satisfaction in anything else; went through the highways and byways of the city at noontide with a lit lantern in quest of a man; a man himself not to be laughed at or despised; visiting Corinth, he was accosted by Alexander the Great: "I am Alexander," said the king, and "I am Diogenes" was the prompt reply; "Can I do anything to serve you?" continued the king; "Yes, stand out of the sunlight,"

rejoined the cynic; upon which Alexander turned away saying, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." D'Alembert declared Diogenes the greatest man of antiquity, only that he wanted decency. "Great truly,"

says Carlyle, but adds with a much more serious drawback than that (412-323 B.C.). See "SARTOR RESARTUS," BK. III. CHAP. 1.

DIOGENES THE STOIC, born in Seleucia; a successor of Zeno, and head of the school at Athens, 2nd century B.C.

DIOMEDES, king of Argos, called Tydides, from his father; was, next to Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks at the Trojan war; fought under the protection of Athene against both Hector and aeneas, and even wounded both Aphrodite and Ares; dared along with Ulysses to carry off the Palladium from Troy; was first in the chariot race in honour of Patroclus, and overcame Ajax with the spear.

DIOMEDES, king of Thrace; fed his horses with human flesh, and was killed by Hercules for his inhumanity.

DION Ca.s.sIUS, a Greek historian, born at Nicaea, in Bithynia, about A.D. 155; went to Rome, and served under a succession of emperors; wrote a "History of Rome" from aeneas to Alexander Severus in 80 books, of which only 18 survive entire; took years to prepare for and compose it; it is of great value, and often referred to.

DION CHRYSOSTOMUS (Dion with the golden, or eloquent, mouth), a celebrated Greek rhetorician, born at Prusa, in Bithynia, about the middle of the 1st century; inclined to the Platonic and Stoic philosophies; came to Rome, and was received with honour by Nerva and Trajan; is famous as an orator and as a writer of pure Attic Greek.