with his fingers unfairly stretched out, struck Creugas | sound in Danaë and Daunia. Daunüs is the father of on the side and such, observes Pausanias, was the Turnus.-An explanation of the legend of Danaë will hardness of his nails and the violence of the blow, be foun nder the article Perseus. (Apollod., 2, 4, that his hand pierced his side, seized on his bowels, seqq.-Keightley's Mythology, p. 414, seqq.) and, drawing them outward, gave instant death to DANAI, a name originally belonging to the Argives, Creugas. A fine piece of sculpture has come down as being, according to the common opinion, the subto us, with this for its subject. (Pausan., 8, 40.) jects of Danaus. In consequence, however, of the DANA, a large town of Cappadocia. D'Anville warlike character of the race, and the high renown acmakes it to have been the same with Tyana, an opin-quired by them, Homer uses the name Danai (Aavaoí) ion which is ably refuted by Mannert, who maintains as a general appellation for the Greeks, when that of that it lay more to the southeast, and coincided with Hellenes was still confined to a narrower range. (Vid. the Tanadaris of Ptolemy. It is mentioned in Xeno- Danaus.) phon's Anabasis as being in the vicinity of the Cilician Gates (1, 2). The position of Tyana on Mannert's chart is north of the Cilician pass; in D'Anville's it is to the northeast. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 239, 263)

DANAIDES, the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos. An account of the legend connected with their names will be found, together with an explana tion of the same, under the article Danaus.

DANAPERIS, another name for the Borysthenes, first mentioned in an anonymous Periplus of the Euxine Sea. It is now the Dnieper. The Dnieper rises in the Vaidai hills, near the sources of the Duna, and, after a winding course of about 800 miles, falls into the Black Sea, a little to the east of the Dniester. In the lower part of its course the navigation is impeded by islands, and at one place, about two hundred miles from its mouth, by falls, which continue for nearly forty miles. A little above its mouth, the river widens into a kind of lake or marsh, called Liman, into which the Bog, the ancient Hypanis or Bogus, one of the principal tributaries of the Dnieper, discharges itself. As regards the root of the name Danaperis (Dan, Don), consult remarks under the article Tanais. (Plin., 4, 12.—Mela, 2, 1.—Ammian. Marcell., 22, 18.-Jornand., de Reb. Get., p. 5.)

DANAE, I. the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, by Eurydice, daughter of Lacedæmon. Acrisius inquired of the oracle about a son; and the god replied that he would himself have no male issue, but that his daughter would bear a son, whose hand would deprive him of life. Fearing the accomplishment of this prediction, he framed a brazen subterranean chamber (đáλqμov xúλкεov úñò yñv), in which he shut up his daughter and her nurse, in order that she might never become a mother. (The Latin poets call the place of confinement a brazen tower.) But Jupiter had seen and loved the maiden; and, under the form of a golden shower, he poured through the roof into her bosom. Danae became, in consequence, the mother of a son, whom she and her nurse reared in secrecy until he had attained his fourth year. Acrisius then chanced to hear the voice of the child at play. He brought out his daughter and her nurse, and, putting the latter instantly to death, drew Danaë privately, with her child, to the altar of Hercean Jove, where he made her answer on oath whose was her son. She replied that he was the offspring of Jove. Her father gave no credit to her protestations. Enclosing her and the boy in a coffer, he cast them into the sea, to the mercy of the winds and waves, a circumstance which has afforded a subject for a beautiful piece by the poet Simonides. The coffer was carried to the little island of Seriphus, where a person named Dictys drew it out in his nets (dĺkrva); and, freeing Danae and Perseus from their confinement, treated them with DANAUS, a son of Belus and Anchinoë, and brother the greatest attention. Polydectes, the brother of of Egyptus. Belus assigned the country of Libya to Dictys, reigned over the island. He fell in love with Danaus, while to Egyptus he gave Arabia. Ægyp Danae; but her son Perseus, who was now grown tus conquered the country of the Melampodes, and up. was an invincible obstacle in his way. He had, named it from himself. By many wives he became therefore, recourse to artifice to deliver himself of his the father of fifty sons. Danaus had by several wives presence; and, feigning that he was about to become an equal number of daughters. Dissension arising bea suitor to Hippodamia, the daughter of Enomaus, he tween him and the sons of Egyptus, they aimed at managed to send Perseus, who had bound himself by a depriving him of his kingdom; and, fearing their viorash promise, in quest of the head of the Gorgon Medu-lence, he built, with the aid of Minerva, a fifty-oared sa, which he pretended that he wished for a bridal gift. vessel, the first that ever was made, in which he emWhen Perseus had succeeded, by the aid of Hermes, barked with his daughters, and fled over the sea. in destroying the Gorgon, he proceeded to Seriphus, first landed on the Isle of Rhodes, where he set up where he found that his mother and Dictys had been a statue of the Lindian Minerva; but, not willing to obliged to fly to the protection of the altar from the abide in that island, he proceeded to Argos, where GelViolence of Polydectes. He immediately went to the anor, who at that time ruled over the country, cheerroval residence; and when, at his desire, Polydectes fully resigned the government to the stranger who bad summoned thither all the people, to see the formi-brought thither civilization and the arts. The people dable head of the Gorgon, it was displayed, and each took the name of their new monarch, and were called became a stone of the form and position which he ex- Danai (Aavaoi). The country of Argos being at this hibited at the moment of the transformation. Hav-time extremely deficient in pure and wholesome water ing established Dictys as king of Seriphus, Perseus (Vid. Inachus), Danaus sent forth his daughters in returned with his mother to Argos, and, not finding quest of some. As Amymone, one of them, was enAcrisis there, proceeded to Larissa in Thessaly, whither the latter had retired through fear of the fulHere he inadvertently killed Acrisius. (Vid. Acrisins, Perseus.)-There was a legend in Italy, that Ardea, the capital of the Rutulians, had been founded by Dana. (Virg., En., 7, 372, 410.) It was probably caused by the similarity of

DANASTUS, another name of the Tyras or Dniester. It is called Danastus by Ammianus Marcellinus (31, 3), Danastris by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de administr. Imperio, c. 8), and Danaster by Jornandes (de Reb. Get., p. 84). The Dniester rises from a lake amid the Carpathian Mountains in Austrian Gallicia, and empties into the Black Sea after a course of about six hundred miles. The name Tyras (Tupac) occurs in Ptolemy, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, and Scymnus of Chios. Herodotus gives the Ionic form Túpns._ (Herod., 4, 51.) As regards the root of the name (Dan, Don), consult remarks under the article Tanais.

flment of the oracle.

He

gaged in the search, she was rescued by Neptune from the intended violence of a satyr, and the god revealed to her a fountain called after her name, and the most famous among the streams that contributed to form the Lernæan lake or marsh. The sons of Ægyptus came now to Argolis, and entreated their uncle to bury past enmity in oblivion, and to give them their

cousins in marriage. Danaus, retaining a perfect | more considerable than the third or the Donau, a feerecollection of the injuries they had done him, and ble stream that is enclosed in a stone basin, and formed distrustful of their proinises, consented to bestow upon into a fountain in the court of the castle of Donau-Esthem his daughters, whom he divided among them by chingen. It is, therefore, the first two that may be lot; but, on the wedding-day, he armed the hands of considered the source of the Danube. (Malte-Brun, the brides with daggers, and enjoined upon them to slay vol. 7, p. 41, Am. ed.—Id., vol. 6, p. 288.) It is one in the night their unsuspecting bridegrooms. All but of the few rivers which run from west to east, traver Hypermnestra obeyed the cruel orders of their father; sing Austria, Hungary, and part of Turkey in Europe, and, cutting off the heads of their husbands, they flung and, after a course of about 1620 miles, falls into the them into Lerna, and buried their bodies with all Black Sea. It is of irregular width, being sometimes due rites outside of the town. At the command of confined between rocks and mountains, at other times Jupiter, Mercury and Minerva purified them from the so wide that it almost resembles a sea, and again broguilt of their deed. Hypermnestra had spared Lyn-ken and divided into small streams by numerous islceus, for the delicate regard which he had shown to ands. It receives sixty navigable rivers, the largest of her modesty. Her father, at first, in his anger at her which is the Enus or Inn, and 120 smaller streams. disobedience, put her into close confinement. Re-It is always yellow with mud, and its sands are every. lenting, however, after some time, he gave his consent where auriferous. At its entrance into the Black Sea to her union with Lynceus, and proclaimed gymnas- it is shallow; its waters are spread over an immense tic games, in which the victors were to receive his surface, and lie stagnating among an infinity of reeds other daughters as the prizes. It was said, however, and other aquatic plants. The current of the river that the crime of the Danaïdes did not pass without communicates a whitish colour to the sea, and gives due punishment in the lower world, where they were a freshness to it for nearly nine leagues, and within condemned to draw water, for ever, with perforated one league renders it fit for use. Pomponius Mela vessels. (Apollod., 2, 1, 4.-Hygin., fab., 168, 169, says it had as many mouths as the Nile, of which three 170.-Schol. ad Il., 1, 42, et ad 4, 171.-Schol. ad were small and four navigable. Only two now reEurip, Hec., 872) Thus much for the story of Da- main, which can scarcely be entered by ships of con naus. The intimate connexion between this popular siderable size or burden, the rest being choked up. legend and the peculiar character of the Argive soil, The ancients gave the name of Ister to the eastern which exhibited a striking contrast between the upper part of this river after its junction with the Savus or part of the plain and the low grounds of Lerna, has Saare. The Greeks and Romans were very imper given rise to a bold and ingenious theory. Argos was fectly acquainted with the whole course of the stream, greatly deficient in water (whence Homer calls it which was for a long period the northern boundary of thirsty," rohvdirov), and the word davós signifies the Roman empire in this quarter. This river was an "dry." We have here, then, a simple derivation for object of worship to the Scythians. The river-god is the name Danai, namely, the people of the thirsty land represented on a medal of Trajan; but the finest figof Argos; and, in the usual manner, the personifica-ure of him is on the column of that emperor at Rome. tion of their name is a hero, Danaus. Again, springs are daughters of the earth, as they are called by the Arabs the nymphs of the springs are therefore daughters of Danaus, that is, of the thirsty land; and as a confirination, in some degree, of this view of the subject, we may state, that four of the daughters of Danaus, namely, Amymone, Peirene, Physadea, and Asteria, were names of springs. Still farther, a head (κpývŋ) is a usual name for a spring in many languages; and a legendary mode of accounting for the origin of DAPHNE, I. a daughter of the Peneus, and the first founts is to ascribe them to the welling forth of the love of Phoebus. This god, according to the poetic blood of some person who was slain on the spot where legend, proud of his victory over the serpent Python, the spring emitted its waters. Thus the blood of beholding Cupid bending his bow, mocked at the ef Pentheus and Acteon gave origin to springs on Citha-forts of the puny archer. Cupid, incensed, flew to ron. (Philostrat., Icon, 1, 14.—Compare Welcker, Tril., p. 400.) The number fifty, in the case of the Danaïdes, is probably an arbitrary one, for we cannot discern in it any relation to the weeks of the year, as some endeavour to do. (Völcker, Myth. der Iap., p. 192, seqq.) It is to be observed, that the founts of the Inachus were in Mount Lyrceon or Lynceon (Schol. ad Apoll. Rh., 1, 125), and here, perhaps, lies the origin of Lynceus, who, in one form of the legend, fights with and vanquishes Danaus (Schol. ad Eurip., l. c.); that is, the stream from Mount Lynceon overcomes the dry nature of the soil. We see, therefore, that the physical legend may have existed long before there was any intercourse with Egypt; and, like that of lo, may have been subsequently modified so as to suit the new theory of an Egyptian colony at Argos. (Herod., 2, 91; 171, 182.-Müller, Orchom., p. 109, seqq.-Id. Proleg., p. 184, seqq.-Keightley's Mythology, p. 409, seqq.)

(Mela, 2, 7.—Amm. Marcell., 22, 19.-Ptol., 3, 10. |--Plin., 4, 12.-Dionys. Perieg., 301.) As regards the root of the name (Dan), consuli remarks under the article Tanaïs.

DAPHNE, a city of Egypt, about sixteen miles from Pelusium, on the route to Memphis. (Anton., Itin, p. 162.) There was always a strong garrison in this place, to keep in check the Arabians and Syrians. It is now Safnas. (Herodot., 2, 30.)

Parnassus, and, taking his station there, shot his golden arrow of love into the heart of the son of Latona, and discharged his leaden one of aversion into the bosom of the nymph of the Peneus. Daphne loved the chace, and it alone, indifferent to all other love. Phoebus beheld her, and pursued. Exhausted and nearly overtaken, Daphne, on the banks of her father's stream, stretched forth her hands, calling on Peneus for protection and change of form. The river-god heard; bark and leaves covered his daughter, and Daphne became a bay-tree (daovn, laurus). The god embraced its trunk, and declared that it should be afterward his favourite tree. (Ovid, Met., 1, 452, seqq.-Hygin., fab., 203.)—The meaning of this le gend is evident enough. It is only one of the many tales devised to give marvel to the origin of natural productions; and its object is to account for the baytree being sacred to Apollo. The great majority of the authorities place the legend in Arcadia, making DANUBIUS, the largest river of Europe except the Daphne the daughter of the Ladon by Earth (the natu Rha or Volga, and called in German the Donau, by ral parent of a plant), and add that it was her mother us the Danube. Strabo and Pliny make it rise in the who changed her on her prayer. (Pausan., 8, 20.— chain of Mons Abnoba, or the mountains of the Black Nonnus, 42, 387.-Schol. ad Il., 1, 14.—Stat., Theb., Forest. According to modern accounts, has its ori-4, 289, &c.-Keightley's Mythology, p. 118.)-II. A gin on the heights of the Black Forest, from three beautiful spot about forty stadia to the south of Antisources, the Brig-Ach and the Brige, which are both loch, near the Orontes, adorned with fair edifices, and

containing a temple sacred to Apollo and Diana. The to the Homeric topography, the Dardani, who were whole was surrounded with a thick grove of cypresses subject to Anchises, and commanded by his son Aneas and bay-trees (dúova), from the latter of which the during the siege, occupied the small district which lay place derived its name. Numerous fountains, too, between the territory of Abydus and the Promontory imparted continual freshness to the grove and cool- of Rheteum, beyond which point the Trojan land, ness to the surrounding atmosphere. The luxurious properly so called, and the hereditary dominions of citizens of Antioch made this a favourite place of re- Priam commenced. Towards the mainland, Dardatreat, and even the Roman governors often forgot nia extended to the summit of Ida, and beyond that amid the enjoyments of Daphne the cares of office. chain to the territory of Zelea, and the plains watered Pompey is said to have been so charmed by the place, by the Esepus on the north, and as far as the territo and by the united beauties of nature and art with ries of Assus and Antandrus to the south. (Strab., which it was adorned, that he considerably enlarged 592, 606.) It was more particularly in this inland the limits of the grove, by the addition of many of the district that the descendants of Æneas are said to have surrounding fields. The modern name of the place maintained themselves as independent sovereigns afis Beit-el-Mar, the house of water." (Ammian. ter the siege of Troy. (Cramer's Asia Minor, vol. Marcell., 19, 2.-Id., 22, 31.—Sozomen, 5, 19.-Eu-1, p. 80, seq.)-II. A region of Illyria, lying south of trop., 6, 11.)

DAPHNEPHORIA, a festival in honour of Apollo, celebrated every ninth year by the Baotians. It was then usual to adorn an olive bough with garlands of bay and flowers, and place on the top a brazen globe, from which were suspended smaller ones. In the middle were a number of crowns, and a globe of inferior size; and the bottom was adorned with a saffron-coloured garment. The globe on the top represented the Sun or Apollo; that in the middle was an emblem of the moon, and the others of the stars. The crowns, which were 365 in number, represented the sun's annual revolution. This bough was carried in solemn procession by a beautiful youth of an illustrious family, and whose parents were both living. (Pausan., 9, 10, 4.)

the territory of the Scordisci It comprehended the upper valleys of the Drilo, and extended to the borders of Pæonia and Macedonia. The Dardani, its inhabitants, were often at war with the latter power, more particularly under the reign of its last two monarchs. Their country answers to the modern districts of Ipeck, Pristina, and Jacova, which are situate to the south of Servia, and form part of the pachalic of Scutari. Strabo describes these Dardani as a savage race, living mostly in caves formed out of mud and dirt, and yet possessing great taste for music, having from the earliest period been acquainted with both wind and stringed instruments. (Strab., 316.- Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 1, p. 47.)

DARDANIS or DARDANIUM, à promontory of Troas, south of Abydus, near which was situate the city of Dardanus. It is now called Cape Berbieri, or Kepos Burun. The Hellespont here begins to contract itself. (Strab., 587, 595.)

DAPHNIS, a celebrated herdsman of Sicily, the son of Mercury by a Sicilian nymph. He was found by the shepherds, when an infant, lying among the baytrees (dudvar), and from this circumstance obtained his name. Pan taught him to sing, and play upon the DARDANUS, I. a celebrated hero, son of Jupiter and pipe, the nymphs were his foster-parents, and the Muses Electra, who came to Troas, according to some acinspired him with the love of song. According to counts, from Arcadia; according to others, from Italy. Thodorus, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry. He All, however, agree in fixing upon Samothrace as the also accompanied Diana in the chase, and, when the spot in which he had formed his first principality, belabours of the day were ended, was wont to delight the fore he migrated to the foot of Mount Ida. (Apollod., goddess with the sweet notes of his syrinx. Daphnis 3, 12.-Strab., 331.-Virg., En., 7, 207) We may became eventually attached to a Naiad, who forbade reconcile this variety of opinions respecting the native him holding communion with any other female, under country of Dardanus, by supposing that he was a chief pam of loss of sight; and she bound him by an oath of that early race, who, under the name of Pelasgi, were to that effect. A princess, however, contrived to in- so widely diffused, and more especially in those countoxicate him he broke his vow, and the threatened tries, each of which claimed to be the birthplace of the penalty was inflicted. According to Diodorus, how-hero. The epoch of the arrival of Dardanus on the ever, the Naiad merely predicted that loss of sight would be the consequence of his proving unfaithful to her. Theocritus, in his first Idyl, represents him as pining away in death, and refusing to be comforted. (Sere ad Virg., Eclog, 5, 20-Diod. Sic., 4, 84. Schol ad Theoer, Idyll., 1, 66.-Parthen., Erot, 29.-Elan, V. H., 10, 18.) Ovid says, that the Naiad turned him into a rock. (Met., 4, 276, seqq.— Keighley's Mythology, p. 240.)

DAPHNUS (gen. -untis: in Greek, Aapvous, -ouvroc), a town of the Locri Opuntii, situate on the seacoast, at the mouth of a river of the same name, near the frontiers of the Epicnemidian Locri. Strabo (424) places it twenty stadia from Cnemides. Into the river Daphnus the body of Hesiod was thrown after his murder. (Vid. Hesiodus)

coast of Asia is too remote to be ascertained at present with accuracy. Homer reckons five generations between Dardanus and Priam. (Il., 20, 230.). Plato, as we learn from Strabo (592), placed his arrival in the second epoch after the universal deluge, when mankind began to leave the summits of the mountains to which fear had driven them, and where they had led a barbarous and savage life, in caves and grots, like the Cyclopes of Homer. The Athenian philosopher deduced his reasoning from the passage in Homer, where the town founded by Dardanus is stated to have been built at the foot of Ïda. (Il., 20, 215, seqq.)— The legend respecting Dardanus is as follows: Afflicted by the death of his brother Iasion, whom Jove had struck with lightning, Dardanus left Samothrace, and passed over to the mainland, where Teucer, the son of the river Scamandrus and the nymph Idæa then reigned over a people called Teucrians. He was well received by this prince, who gave him his daughter Batieia (Il., 2, 813) in marriage, and a part of his territory, on which he built a town called Dardanus. He had two sons, Ilus and Erichthonius, the former of whom died childless: the latter succeeded to the kingdom, and was remarkable for his wealth. By AstyDARDANIA, I. a district of Troas, in the north, call-oche, daughter of the Simoïs, Erichthonius had a son ed so from its inhabitants the Dardani. These derived their name from Dardanus, who built here the city of the same name. (Vid. Dardanus, I., II.) According

DABADUS (called also Daras, gen. -atis), a river of Africa, rising to the northwest of the Palus Nigrites, en Mount Mandras, and falling into the Atlantic to the north of the promontory Arsinarium. It is supposed to be the same with the Senegal. (Bischoff und Möller, Wörteb. der Geogr., p. 405.) Gossellin, how ever, makes it correspond to the modern Darabin. (Recherches, vol. 3, p. 112.)

named Tros, who succeeded him on the throne. From Tros came Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymedes. The house of Priam were descended from Ilus; that of

Eneas from Assaracus. (Cramer's Asia Minor, vol. | consisting of Greek and Roman names which had some 1, p. 76, seqq.-Keightley's Mythology, p. 483.)-analogy with the names of the sovereign princes of the II. An ancient city of Troas, founded by Dardanus. middle ages. (Schöll, Hist. Lat. Gr., vol. 7, p. 3, seqq.) According to Homer, who calls it Dardania, it was This same work of Dares Phrygius was the source situated at the foot of Mount Ida. (Il., 20, 215.- whence Courad of Würzburgh, in the latter half of the Strab., 592.)-III. Another city of Troas, not to be 13th century, derived the materials of the poem which confounded with the preceding. By whom it was he composed in like manner on the war of Troy. (Ke built is uncertain. We know, however, that it existed berstein, Grundriss der Deutsch Nationalit, & 46, not. in the time of Herodotus (5, 117), who mentions its 3.)-II. One of the companions of Æneas, celebrated capture by the Persians, in the reign of Darius. In as a pugilist, though conquered in the funeral games of the narrative of Xerxes's march, he describes it as Anchises by the aged Entellus. (Virg., Æn., 5, 369, close to the sea, and conterminous with Abydus (7, 43). seqq.) This Dares, or a Trojan of the same name, was Strabo reports, that the inhabitants were often com- slain by Turnus in Italy. (En., 12, 363.) pelled to change their abode by the successors of Alexander he reports also, that peace was concluded here between Sylla and Mithradates. (Strab., 595.Plut., Vit. Syll, c. 24.) The ruins of Dardanus are to be found between Kepos Burun and Dervend Tchemeh Burun. The name Dardanelles, which was in the first instance applied to the Turkish castles erected to defend the passage of the straits, and next to the straits themselves, is confessedly derived from this ancient city. (Cramer's Asia Minor, vol. 1, p. 82.)

DARICUS, a Persian coin of the purest gold. According to Harpocration and Suidas, it weighed two drachmas, and hence it was equivalent in value to 20 Attic drachmas of silver. Five Darics were consequently equal to an Attic mina of silver. (Wurm, de pond., &c., p. 58.) Reckoning the Attic drachina at 17 cents, 5.93 mills, Federal currency, the value of the Daric will be 3 dolls., 51 cts., 8 64 mills. The Daric was the gold coin best known at Athens; and when we consider the great number that are recorded DARES, I. & Trojan priest, mentioned by Homer (I., to have been employed in presents and bribes alone, 5, 9). It is absurdly pretended, by some of the ancient exclusive of the purposes of traffic, it would seem exwriters, that he wrote an Iliad, or history of the Trojan traordinary that so few should have reached modern war, in prose; and Elian (Var. Hist., 11, 2) assures times, if we did not know that, upon the conquest of us that it still existed in his day, without telling us, Persia, they were melted down, and recoined with the however, whether he himself had read it or not. There type of Alexander. Very few Persian Darics are now can be no doubt that Ælian was deceived, and that to be seen in cabinets. There is one in Lord Pemthe work which he took for the production of Dares broke's, which weighs 129 grains; and there are three was the composition of some sophist of a much later in the cabinets at the British Museum, weighing about age However this may be, the Iliad of which Ælian | 128 grains each. The purity of the gold in the Perspeaks no longer exists; but we have a Latin work sian Daric was remarkable. Bathélemy found it to be remaining, written in prose, which was for some time in one, 3, or 0,9583 (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inser, regarded as a translation from the Greek original, and vol. 21); and yet, if we credit Patin (Hist. Num., c. was ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, though abounding 7), this was exceeded by the purity of the gold coins with solecisms. The truth is, that this work is the of Philip and his son Alexander, which he makes production of an English poet, who flourished at the 23 carats, 10 grains, or 0.979. (Wurm, l. c.) The close of the 12th century. His name was Joseph, to Daric had on one side the figure of an archer crowned, which was sometimes added Davonius, from his hav- and kneeling upon one knee; upon the other a sort of ing been born at Exeter in Devorshire, and at other quadrata incusa, or deep cleft. Knight sees in the figtimes Iscanus, from the ancient name of Exeter, Isca. ure upon the Persian Daric, not an archer, but a type This Iliad, thus falsely ascribed to Dares, is not even of Hercules-Mithras, or the sun. (Inquiry. § 131.— translated from any Greek writer; it is merely the Class. Journ., vol. 25, p. 49) Common parlance, plan or prose outline of a Latin poem in six cantos, however, made the figure to be an archer; and hence which Joseph Iscanus composed under the title De arose the witticism of Agesilaus, who said that he had Bello Trojano-The work just mentioned, as well as been driven out of Asia by thirty thousand archers, that of Dictys Cretensis, forms the original source of meaning so many Darics distributed among the Greek a famous romance of chivalry, which met with ex- cities by the Persian king. Who the Darius was traordinary success during the middle ages, and in the from whom the coin received its name has never been centuries immediately subsequent to the invention of clearly ascertained. According to the scholiast on printing. These works of Dares and Dictys having Aristophanes (Eccles, 589), and also Harpocration fallen into the hands of a Sicilian named Guido dalle and Suidas, the Daric did not obtain this appellation Colonne, a native of Messina, and a celebrated lawyer from the son of Hystaspes, but from a more ancient and poet of the 13th century, he conceived the idea king of the name of Darius. Hence some writers are of giving them that romantic air which would harmo- led to infer that Darius the Mede, who is mentioned by nize with the spirit of the age, when chivalry had now Daniel (5, 31), was the same with the Cyaxares of acquired its greatest lustre. He consequently inter- whom Xenophon speaks. (Compare Prideaux, Hist. calated the narratives of the pretended poets of Phry- Connect., 2, 538-Hutchinson, ad Xen., Cyrop., 5, 2, gia and Crete with various adventures, suited to the 3.-Perizon., ad Ælian, V. H., 1, 22.) Wesseling, taste of the age, such as tournaments, challenges, sin- however, maintains the contrary, and ascribes the origle combats, &c. His work having met with consid-gin of the coin in question to the son of Hystaspes; erable success, he composed, in Latin prose, a romance Ist, because we find no mention made by the Greeks of the war of Troy, in which he also introduced the of any more ancient Darius than the one just alluded war of the Seven against Thebes, and the expedition to; and, 2d, because, as the lineage of the monarch is of the Argonauts. He confounds together history and given by Herodotus, Darius, the son of Hystaspes, apmythology, Greek and Arabian manners; his heroes pears to have been the first who bore the name. Zeune are acquainted with alchymy and astronomy, and come conjectures (what, in fact, seems more than probable), in contact with dragons, griffons, and other fabulous that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, only corrected, and His romance was translated into almost gave his name to an ancient coinage already existing. every European language, and excited a general en- Müller also speaks of the Daric as having been coined thusiasm. Hence the desire which at that time seized by Darius Hystaspis. (Public Econ. of Athens, vol. the great families of Europe of claiming descent from 1, p. 32.)-The silver coins which go by the name of one of the heroes of Trojan story; and hence the eager- Darics are in truth miscalled The earliest of them, ness, on the part of the monks, to compose genealogies if we may credit Herodotus (4, 166), were struck by

monsters.

Aryandes, the Persian governor of Egypt, under Cam- | which expressed itself by arbitrary and irregular exacbyses, in imitation of the Daries. He was put to death by Darius for his presumption. The coining of these Daries or Aryandics in silver, however, must have been continued after the time of the Persian governor. No fewer than eight specimens of this description are in the cabinets of the British Museum. One, formerly Mr. R. P. Knight's, bears the name of Pythagoras, a king or governor of Cyprus, as Mr. Knight conjectured. Others, which have the figure of the archer crowned on one side, have a mounted horseman on the other. They are generally considered as ancient Persian coins, and are commonly, though without any assignable reason, except as bearing the impress of an archer, called Darics. In the silver Daric, a drawing of which is given by Landon (Numismatique du Voyage d'Anacharsis, p. 48), a kneeling archer appears on both sides of the coin.-Prideaux observes, that in those parts of Scripture which were written after the Babylonian captivity (he refers to Chron., 29, 7, and Ezra, 8, 27), the gold Darics are mentioned by the name of Adarkonim; and in the Talmudists by the name of Darkonoth (Buxtorf, Lex. Rabbin., p. 577), both from the Greek Aapetkos. (Prideaux's Connexions, vol. 1. p. 183, ed. 1725.)

tions: Darius first organized them into an empire, where every member felt its place and knew its functions. His realm stretched from the Ægean to the Indus, from the steppes of Scythia to the Cataracts of the Nile. He divided this vast tract into twenty satrapies or provinces, and appointed the tribute which each was to pay to the royal treasury, and the proportion in which they were to supply provisions for the army and for the king's household. A high road on which distances were regularly marked, and spacious buildings placed to receive all who travelled in the king's name, connected the western coast with the seat of government; and along this road, couriers trained to extraordinary speed transmitted the king's messages.-Compared with the rude government of his predecessors, the institutions of Darius were wise and vigorous; in themselves, however, unless they are considered as foundations laid for a structure that was never raised, they were weak and barbarous. The defects of the Persian system, however, belong to another head. (Vid. Persia.)-Darius, in the very beginning of his reign, meditated an expedition against the Scythians, in retaliation, most probably, for the desolating inroads of that barbarous but warlike race, and to DARIUS, I. surnamed Hystaspis (or son of Hystaspes), check their incursions for the time to come by a salua satrap of Persia, belonging to the royal line of the tary display of the power and resources of the Persian Achæmenides, and whose father Hystaspés had been empire. His march, however, was delayed by a regovernor of the province of Persia. Seven noblemen of bellion which broke out at Babylon. The ancient capthe highest rank, in the number of whom was Darius, ital of Assyria had been secretly preparing for revolt conspired to dethrone the Magian Smerdis, who had during the troubles that followed the fall of the Magian, usurped the crown after the death of Cambyses, and, and for nearly two years it defied the power of Darihaving accomplished their object, resolved that one of us. At length the treachery of Zopyrus, a noble Pertheir number should reign in his stead. According to sian, who sacrificed his person and his power to the inHerodotus (3, 84), they agreed to meet at early dawn terest of his master, is said to have opened its gates to in the suburbs of the capital, and that he of their num- him. When he was freed from this care he set out ber whose horse should first neigh at the rising of the for the Scythian war. The whole military force of the sun, should possess the kingdom. If we believe the empire was put in motion, and the numbers of the army historian, who gives two accounts of the matter, Da- are rated at seven or eight hundred thousand men. nies obtained the crown through an artful contrivance This expedition of Darius into Scythia has given rise on the part of his groom. It is more probable, how-to considerable discussion. The first point involved ever, that, in consequence of his relationship to the is to ascertain how far the Persian monarch penetrated royal line, his election to the throne was the unani- into the country. According to Herodotus (4, 83), mous act of the other conspirators. It is certain, in- he crossed the Thracian Bosporus, marched through deed, that they reserved for themselves privileges Thrace, passed the Danube on a bridge of boats, and which tended at least to make them independent of the then pursued a Scythian division as far as the Tanais. monarch, and even to keep him dependant upon them. Having crossed this river, he traversed the territories One of their number is even said to have formally stip- of the Sauromata as far as the Budini, whose city he ulated for absolute exemption from the royal authority, burned. Beyond the Budini he entered upon a vast as the condition on which he withdrew his claim to the desert, and reached the river Oarus, where he recrown and the rest acquired the right of access to mained some considerable time, erecting forts upon its the king's person at all seasons, without asking his banks. Finding that the Scythians had disappeared, leave, and bound him to select his wives exclusively he left these works only half finished, turned his course from their families. How far the power of Darius, to the westward, and, advancing by rapid marches, though nominally despotic, was really limited by these entered Scythia, where he fell in with two of the divis privileges of his grandees, may be seen from an oc- ions of the enemy. Pursuing these, he traversed the currence which took place in the early part of his reign, territories of the Melanchlani, Androphagi, and Neuri, in the case of Intaphernes, who had been one of the without being able to bring them to an engagement. partners in the conspiracy. He revenged himself, it Provisions failing, he was eventually compelled to reis true, for an outrage committed by this individual, cross the Danube (vid. Histiæus), glad to have saved by patting him to death. But, before he ventured to a small portion of his once numerous army. Accordtake this step, he thought it necessary to sound the ing to Rennel (Geography of Herodotus, vol. 1, p. rest of the six, and to ascertain whether they would 136), the Persian monarch, in marching against the make common cause with the offender. He was prob- Scythians, crossed the Danube between Ismail and ably glad to remove men so formidable to distant gov- the junction of that river with the Pruth, and peneernments; and it may easily be conceived, that, if their trated as far as Saratow on the Wolga. (Compare power was so great at court, it was still less restrained Mannert, Geogr., vol. 3, p. 13, seqq.) It is very in the provinces that were subjected to their authority. doubtful, however, whether Darius proceeded as far as Nevertheless, Darius was the greatest and most power- this, especially when we take into consideration the ful king that ever filled the throne of Persia, and even time consumed by a l'ersian army in making an expethe disasters he experienced but slightly clouded the dition, the labour of crossing large and rapid rivers, remembrance of his wisdom and his prosperity. Cyrus and the difficulty of supplying so numerous a force and Cambyses had conquered nations: Darius was the with food and forage, especially when wandering in true founder of the Persian state. The dominions the track of the Scythians at a distance from the coast. of his predecessors were a mass of countries only uni- According to other accounts (Strabo, 305), Darius only ted by their subjection to the will of a common ruler, came as far as the sandy tract between the Danube and