(Josephus, Ant., 17, 12.-Id., Bell. Jud., 2, 4.) The ter much opposition on the part of the patricians, the inhabitants were for the most part of Grecian origin. law was passed, and three commissioners were at These ten cities, according to Ptolemy, were Scy-length sent to Greece, to collect from the Grecian thopolis, Hippos, Gadara, Dion, Pella, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Canatha, Capitolias, and Gadora. Pliny, instead of the last two, gives Damascus and Raphana; in the rest his account agrees with that of Ptolemy, who seems more worthy of reliance in this instance than the Roman writer. (Plin., 6, 18.)

states such notices of their laws and constitutions as might be serviceable to the Romans. After the absence of a year, they returned; and the commons, finding it in vain to insist upon five of their own body forming part of the reviewers of the laws, yielded the point, and ten of the most distinguished of the patrician and senatorial body were chosen to form an entirely new and complete code of laws, by which the state should be governed. They were named Decemviri ("the ten men"), and during their office they were to supersede every other magistrate. Each in his turn was to administer the government for a day, or, according to others, for several days, till they should complete their legislative labours. After the careful deliberation of a few months, the result was laid before the people in the form of ten tables, fully written out, and exhibited in a conspicuous place where all might read them. Various amendments were proposed, and the ten tables again laid before the senate, the curia, and the centuries, and, having received the sanction of both orders of the state, were recognised as the very fountain of the laws, public and private. The decemvirs had conducted matters so much to the satisfaction of the community, that when, at the exoffice, on the ground that they had still two more tables to form in order to complete their task, an election of new decemvirs was ordered. The patrician Appius Claudius, who took the leading part in the whole affair, was nominated to preside over this election. He actplebeian candidates, and for himself likewise, though it had been declared contrary to law that any functionary should be re-elected immediately after holding office. By dint of intrigue, however, Appius was reelected, and along with him nine others, half of whom were patricians, half plebeians. The new commission soon showed itself very different from the first. Each of the decemvirs had twelve lictors, whereas the previous commission had the lictors only by turns, and a single accensus or officer preceded each of the rest. The lictors, too, now bore amid the fasces the formidable axe, the emblem of judgment on life and death, which the consuls, since the time of Valerius Publicola, had been obliged to lay aside during their continuance in the city. The Decemviri seemed resolved to change the government of Rome into a complete DECEMVIRI, I. ten commissioners appointed to frame oligarchy, consisting of ten, whose power should be a code of laws for the Roman state.-' -The history of absolute in everything. They arrogated the right of this affair is as follows: The intestine feuds between superseding all other magistracies; and, at the conthe patricians and plebeians were continuing with un-clusion of their second year, they showed no intention abated animosity. Occasionally one of the consuls of resigning their offices or of appointing their succesfavoured the plebeians, and proposed some mitigation sors. Matters had nearly arrived at a crisis, when a of the hardships under which they were labouring, or war arose, the Sabines and the qui having united some increase of their privileges, but generally with their forces, and being desirous of availing themselves little success. The Agrarian law, brought forward by of the distracted state of Rome. The decemvirs asSpurius Cassius, continued to be the main demand sembled the senate, obtained their authority to raise of the commons and their supporters, but its passage an army, at the head of which they placed three of was, on every occasion, either directly or indirectly their number, and sent it against the Sabines. Anprevented. At last the commons became convinced, other was raised and sent against the Equi, while that they need hope for no complete redress of griev- Appius Claudius remained at Rome to provide for the ances, until they should have previously secured the es-safety of the city and for the maintenance of the power tablishment of some constitutional principle, from which equal justice would, of necessity and from its very nature, emanate. Accordingly, Caius Terentillus Harsa, one of the tribunes, proposed a law for a complete reform of the existing state of things. Its purport was, that ten commissioners should be chosen, five by the patricians and five by the commons, to draw up a constitution, which should define all points of constitutional, civil, and criminal law; and should thus determine, on just and fixed principles, all the political, social, and civil relations of all orders of the Roman people. Af

DECEBALUS, a warlike and enterprising monarch of the Dacians, who prosecuted a successful war against Domitian, and drove him to a disgraceful peace. He was unable, however, to cope with Trajan, and destroyed himself when all was lost. His head was sent by the emperor to Rome, and his treasures were found by the Romans, on the information of one of his confidants, in the bed of the river Sargetia (now the Istrig), and in various secret caverns. (Dio Cass., 67,6.-Id., 68, 6, seqq.) Lazius, cited by Fabretti, says, that some Wallachian fishermen, in the middle of the sixteenth century, found a part of these treasures, which had escaped the search of Trajan. (Fabr., de Col. Traj., c. 8.) DECELEA, a borough and fortress of Attica, about 125 stadia from Athens, and the same distance from the Baotian frontier. This town was always considered of great importance, from its situation on the road to Euboea, whence the Athenians derived most of their supplies; when, therefore, by the advice of Alcibia-piration of their year, they requested a renewal of their des, it was seized and garrisoned by a Lacedæmonian force, they became exposed to great loss and inconvenience. (Thucyd., 6, 91.-Id., 7, 19.-Strabo, 396.) Thucydides reports, that Decelea was visible from Athens; and Xenophon observes that the sea and Piræus could be seen from it, (Hist. Gr., 1, 1, 25.) Herodo-ed in concert with the plebeians, by receiving votes for tus states, that the lands of the Deceleans were always spared by the Peloponnesian army in their invasions of Attica, because they had pointed out to the Tyndarida the place were Helen was secreted by Theseus, when they came to Attica in search of her. (Herodot., 9, 73.—Alex., ap. Athen., 2, 76.) Sir W. Gell describes Decelea as situate on a round detached hill, connected by a sort of isthmus with Mount Parnes. From the top is an extensive view of the plains of both Athens and Eleusis. The fortress is at the mouth of a pass through Parnes to Oropus. The nearest place is Varibobi. (Itin., p. 106.) Mr. Hawkins gives the modern name of the spot on which the ruins of Decelea stand as Xwplokhɛidia. (Walpole's Collection, vol. 1, p. 338, in notis.—Cramer's Ancient Greece, vol. 2, p. 403.)

of the decemvirs. Both armies suffered themselves to be defeated, and retired nearer to the city, dissatisfied rather than discomfited. Then occurred the affair of Virginia, and the decemviral power was at an end. (Vid. Virginia, Appius.—Liv., 3, 32, seqq.— Hetherington's Hist. of Rome, p. 50, seqq.)—The account of the Decemviri is involved in considerable obscurity. A careful examination of the whole subject gives rise to the suspicion, that it was an artful and well-concerted scheme on the part of the nobility to regain the power of which they had been dispossessed

Now the concurrence of the nobility in the views of the people, as regarded a code of laws, appears to have been all a preconcerted plan. They wished to destroy the tribunician power, and bring in laws which would tend to strengthen their own hands. The short time in which the Decemviri were occupied with digesting the code in question, shows that the laws had already been compiled and arranged by the patricians, and that their object was merely to present them under the sanction of some esteemed and respected name, as, for example, that of Solon, to the attention of the Roman people. The very continuance of the decemviral office shows this; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus expressly states (Ant. Rom., 10, 58), that the want of two additional tables was a mere pretext to continue the office and crush the tribunician power. It was no difficult thing for the patricians to impose on the lower orders, and give them old Roman laws for Athenian ones, especially as the patricians were the sole depositaries of the ancient laws. The whole history of the Decemviri would show that, until a short time previous to their abdication, they acted with a that even towards the close of their administration, when they wanted levies of troops, the opposition of the senate was little better than a mere farce. Had Appius not been tempted to play the tyrant, and to endeavour to monopolize too large a portion of the decemviral power, the plans of the nobility might have had a successful result.-II. There were also military decemviri; and, on various emergencies, decemviri were created to manage and regulate certain affairs, after the same manner as boards of commissioners are now appointed. Thus there were decemviri for conducting colonies; decemviri who officiated as judges in litigated matters under the prætor; decemviri for di

by the gradual encroachments of the commons, and | was only frustrated by the selfish and inordinate ambition of the leading agents. The people had been clamorous for a code of laws, a demand which the patricians, in whom the whole judiciary power was vested, and to whom the knowledge of the few laws which then existed was confined, had always very strenuously opposed. After violent altercations between the two orders, the patricians on a sudden yielded to the popular wish; and became apparently as desirous of a code of laws as the people themselves were; when, however, it came to the choice of commissioners, who should be sent abroad for the purpose of inspecting foreign codes, the nobility insisted that all three deputies should be of patrician rank. They gained their point, and three of their own order were sent. That these deputies actually went to Greece is a point far from being well established; indeed, the contrary would seem much nearer the truth. We have, it is true, the authority of Florus, Orosius, and Aurelius Victor, in favour of the Roman laws having been compiled from the code of Solon; but, on the other hand, Diodorus Siculus (12, 23), who makes mention of the Decem-full understanding on the part of the patricians; and viri, and of the laws compiled by them, says nothing of the Romans having sent to Athens for that purpose; and in none of the works of Cicero is any account given of this deputation. It must not be denied, however, that Dio Cassius (44, 26) makes Cicero remark, a little after the death of Cæsar, that their forefathers had not disdained to borrow some laws from Athens; and Cicero himself, in his treatise De Legibus (2, 23), speaking of a funeral law of the twelve tables, states that it was nearly all borrowed from one of the laws of Solon. In opposition to this, however, it may be urged, that a comparison of the fragments we possess of the decemviral laws with the code of Solon, shows so striking a discrepance in gen-viding the lands among the veteran soldiers; decemeral, as to lead at once to the belief that the coincidences mentioned by Cicero are to be explained on other and different grounds. Why, it may be asked, if the Roman code were borrowed from the Greek, did it breathe so little of the spirit of Grecian legislation, and contain so many things peculiar to the Romans and foreign to the Greeks? How came it that Hermodorus of Ephesus, who is reported to have inter- DECIUS I. (Publius Decius Mus), a celebrated Ropreted and explained the Attic laws to the Roman man consul, who, after many glorious exploits, devoted commissioners, used many Latin terms, such as auc- himself to the gods Manes for the safety of his countoritas, libripens, assiduus proletarius, and many try, in a battle against the Latins, B.C. 337. His son others, for which there were no equivalent expressions Decius imitated his example, and devoted himself in among the Greeks?-But the authority of Cicero him-like manner in his fourth consulship, when fighting self is conclusive on this point. He hesitates not to rank the laws of the twelve tables far above those of Greece. "It is easy," he observes, "to perceive how much the wisdom and prudence of our forefathers surpassed that of other nations, if you compare our laws with those of Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. It is incredible how ill digested and almost ridiculous every system of civil law is excepting our own. This I repeat every day, when in my discourses I prefer the wisdom of our Romans to that of other men, and in particular of the Greeks." (Cic., de Orat., 1, 44.) Is this the language of a man who believed that the Decemviri had been indebted to the legislators of Greece for the code which they promulgated ?-The truth appears to be, that whatever admixture of Grecian laws there was in the Roman code, was derived from Grecian customs and usages prevalent at the time both in the vicinity of Rome and in the city itself. To these Grecian customs were added others peculiar to the Romans. These last were, in fact, the old Leges Regia, which, as the ancient writers inform us, were observed, after the expulsion of the kings, not as written law, but as customs. The patricians might well be anxious to give them the sanction of written laws, as it is highly probable that, being of regal institution, they breathed more or less of an aristocratical spirit.

viri to prepare and preside at feasts in honour of the gods; decemviri to take care of the sacrifices; and decemviri to guard the Sibylline books. With regard to the last of these, however, it must be observed, that the number, after having been originally two, and then increased to 10, was subsequently still farther increased to 15 and 16. (Vid. Sibyllæ.)

against the Gauls and Samnites, B.C. 296. His grandson also did the same in the war against Pyrrhus and the Tarentines, B.C. 280. (Liv., 7, 21, seqq.—Id., 8, 10.-Val. Max., 5, 6.-Virg., En., 6, 824.)-II. (Messius Quintus Trajanus), a native of Pannonia, sent by the Emperor Philip to appease a sedition in Mosia. Instead of obeying his master's command, he assumed the imperial purple. His disaffected troops, it is said, forced him to this step. The emperor immediately marched against him, and a battle was fought near Verona, which terminated successfully for Decius, and Philip was either slain in the conflict or put to death after he fell into the conqueror's power. This took place A.D. 249, and from this period is dated the commencement of the reign of Decius. It was one of short duration, about two years. During this, however, he proved a very cruel persecutor of the Christians. He greatly signalized himself against the Persians, but was slain in an action with the Goths, who had invaded his dominions. In advancing upon them, he was, with the greatest part of his troops, entangled in a morass, where, being surrounded by the enemy, he perished under a shower of darts, A.D. 251, aged 50 years. (Casaub., in Hist. Aug. Script., vol. 2, p. 168.)

DECUMATES AGRI, lands in Germany, lying along

1825.

Pre

the Danube, in the vicinity of Mons Abnoba, which I strict exercise of justice, obtained the office of judge paid the tenth part of their value to the Romans. (Ta-in his own district, he made himself so celebrated by cit., G., 29.) Much interesting information relative to the discharge of his official duties that the inhabitants these lands will be found in the work of Leichtlen, en- of other districts also came to him for redress. titled "Schwaben unter den Römern.," Fribourg, 8vo, tending at last that his private affairs were suffering, in consequence of the time which he devoted to the business of others, he absented himself from the place where he used to sit to determine differences. Lawlessness and iniquity thereupon increased, until an asDeioces recommended him for king, and he was accordingly elected. He is said to have founded the city of Ecbatana, and to have reigned 43 years, being succeeded on his death by his son Phraortes. (Herod., 1, 96, seqq.)

In

DEIOTARUS was first distinguished as tetrarch of Galatia, and, on account of the eminent services which he performed in that station, and of the figure which he made in the Mithradatic war, was afterward appointed to the throne of Armenia Minor by Pompey, which appointment was confirmed by the senate. the civil wars he sided with Pompey, and on that account was deprived of his Armenian possessions by Cæsar, but allowed to retain the title of king and the other favours conferred upon him by the Romans. Shortly after this he was accused by his grandson, with whom he was at open variance, of having made an attempt on the life of Cæsar when the latter was in Asia. Cicero ably and successfully defended him before Cæsar, in whose presence the cause was tried. After Cæsar's death, he recovered by bribery his forfeited territories. He intended also to join Brutus, but the general to whom he committed his troops went over to Antony, which saved him his kingdom. (Cic., pro Rege Deiot.-Id., Phil., 11., 12.-Id., ep. ad Att., 5, 17.-Id., de Har. Resp., 13.-Id., de Div., 2, 37, &c.)

DEÏANIRA, a daughter of Eneus, king of Etolia. Her beauty procured many admirers, and her father promised to give her in marriage to him only who proved superior in prowess to all his competitors. Her-sembly of the Medes being summoned, the partisans of cules obtained her hand, after a contest with the god of the Achelous. (Vid. Achelous.) On his way to Trachis, after his union with the daughter of Eneus, Hercules came in company with Deianira to the river Evenus, where Nessus, the Centaur, had taken his abode, and carried over travellers, saying that he had received this office from the gods as a reward for his uprightness. Hercules went across through the water himself, having agreed on the price for the conveyance of Deianira. Nessus attempted the honour of his fair freight. She resisted, and Hercules, hearing her cries, shot Nessus to the heart as he came on shore. The dying Centaur thought on revenge: he called Deïanira to him, and told her, if she wished to possess a philtre, or means of securing the love of Hercules, to keep carefully the blood which flowed from his wound; an advice with which she incautiously complied. When Hercules, subsequently, had erected an altar to Jupiter at the promontory of Cenæum in Euboea, and, wishing to offer a sacrifice, had sent for a splendid robe to wear, Deïanira, having heard from the messenger of a female captive named Iola, whom Hercules had taken, and fearing the effect of her charms on the heart of her husband, resolved to try the efficacy of the philtre of Nessus, and tinged with it the tunic which was sent. Hercules, suspecting nothing, put on the fatal garment, and prepared to sacrifice. At first he DEIPHOBE, a sibyl of Cuma, daughter of Glaucus. felt no effect from it; but, when it became warm, the Virgil makes her the guide of Eneas to the lower venom of the hydra, which had been communicated world. (En., 6, 236, seqq.) Various names are given by his arrow to the blood of the Centaur, began to to her by the ancient writers, in relation to which, conconsume his flesh, and eventually compelled him, insult Gallæus (Dissertationes de Sibyllis, p. 145). order to put an end to his sufferings, to ascend the funeral pile at ta. (Vid. Hercules.)-Another legend made Deianira to have been the offspring of Bacchus and Althea, queen of Eneus. Apollodorus speaks also of her skill in driving the chariot, and her acquaintance generally with martial exercises, a statement which he appears to have borrowed from some old poet. (Apollod., 1, 8, 1.--Heyne, ad loc.-Apollod., 2, 7, 5.-Id., 2, 7, 7.-Ovid, Met., 9, 9.-Id. ib., 9, 137.)-Müller, in his explanation of the myth of Hercules, makes the marriage of that hero with Deianira a figurative allusion to the league between the Dorians and Ætolians for the invasion of the Peloponnesus. (Dorians, vol. 1, p. 70, Eng. trans.) Creuzer, on the other hand, gives a mystic interpretation to the legend. According to him, Hercules represents the power of the sun in drying up and fertilizing the wet places. Hence Eneus (Olvevs, olvos), the wine-man (or cultivator of the vine), gives his offspring in marriage to Hercules (or, in other words, gives the vine to the protecting care of that power which imparts the principle of production), and Hercules rescues her from the Centaur, the type, according to Creuzer and others, of the water or morasses. (Symbolik, vol. 2, p. 251.)

DEIDAMIA, a daughter of Lycomedes, king of Seyros. She bore a son called Pyrrhus, or Neoptolemus, to Achilles, who was disguised at her father's court in women's clothes, under the name of Pyrrha. (Apollod., 3, 13, 7.—Propert., 2, 9, 16.—Ovid, A. A., 1, 682, seqq.)

DEIŎCES, a Median, who, when his countrymen had shaken off the Assyrian yoke, succeeded in attaining to the sovereign power. His mode of accomplishing that object was as follows: Having, by his probity and

DEÏPHOBUS, a son of Priam and Hecuba, who married Helen after the death of Paris, and was betrayed by her to Menelaus, and ignominiously murdered. (Virg., En., 6, 495.) According to Virgil's account, she introduced Menelaus secretly into the bedchamber of Deiphobus, who was asleep at the time, and, on awaking, was unable to defend himself, his faithless consort having removed his trusty sword from beneath his head, and all arms from his palace. He was cruelly mutilated before being put to death. (Virg., I. c.) Homer makes Deiphobus to have particularly distinguished himself during the Trojan war, in two encounlers with Meriones and Ascalaphus. (Il., 13, 156, et 517, seqq.)

DELIA, I. a festival celebrated every fifth year in the island of Delos, in honour of Apollo. It was instituted by the Athenians, after the solemn lustration of Delos, in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war. (Vid. Delos.)-II. Another festival, celebrated annually by a sacred voyage from Athens to Delos. It was said to have been instituted by Theseus, who, when going to Crete, made a vow to Apollo, that, if he and the rest of the youths and maidens should be saved, he would send every year a sacred delegation to the natal island of the god. The vow was fulfilled, and the custom was ever after observed by the Athenians. The persons sent on this annual voyage were called Deliasta and Theori, and the ship which conveyed them was said to have been the same with the one which had carried Theseus to Crete. The beginning of the voyage was computed from the time that the priest of Apollo first adorned the stern of the ship with garlands, according to Plato, and from that time they began to purify the city. During this period, up to the time of the vessel's return, it was held unlawful

to put any condemned person to death, which was the neighbouring islands and the continent. Among the reason that Socrates was reprieved for thirty days after seven wonders of the world was an altar at Delos, his condemnation, as we learn from Plato and Xen-which was made of the horns of animals. Tradition ophon. With regard to the sacred vessel itself, reported that it was constructed by Apollo, with the which was called Oɛwpíç, it was preserved by the horns of deer killed in hunting by his sister Diana. Athenians to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, they Plutarch says he saw it, and he speaks of the wonderrestoring always what was decayed, and changing the ful interlacing of the horns of which it was made, no old rotten planks for others that were new and entire; cement nor bond of any kind being employed to hold so that it furnished philosophers with matter of dispute, it together. (Plut., de Solert. An., p. 983.) The whether, after so many repairs and alterations, it still re- Athenians were commanded by an oracle, in the time mained the same identical ship; and it served as an in- of Pisistratus, to purify Delos, which they did by stance to illustrate the opinion of those, who held that causing the dead bodies to be taken up which had the body still remained the same numerical substance, been buried there, and removed from all places within notwithstanding the continual decay of old parts and the view of the temple. In the sixth year of the Peloponacquisition of new ones, through the several stages of nesian war, they, by the advice of an oracle, purified it life. (Plat., Phædon., § 2, seqq.-Schol., ad loc.- anew, by carrying all the dead bodies to the neighPlut., Vit. Thes., c. 23.-Xen., Mem., 4, 8, 2.—Cal-bouring island of Rhenæa, where they were interred. lim, H. in Del., 278, &c.)—III. A surname of Diana, After having done this, in order to prevent its being from her having been born in the island of Delos. polluted for the time to come, they published an edict, DELIUM, a city of Boeotia, on the seacoast, north of that for the future no person should be suffered to die, the mouth of the Asopus. It was celebrated for its nor any woman to be brought to bed, in the island, but temple of Apollo, and also for the battle which took that, when death or parturition approached, they should place in its vicinity between the Athenians and Boo-be carried over into Rhenea. In memory of this puritians, when the former were totally routed. It was in fication, it is said, the Athenians instituted a solemn this engagement that Socrates, according to some ac- quinquennial festival. (Vid. Delia.. Thucyd., 3, counts, saved the life of Xenophon, or, according to 104.) A ship called Theoris (Oɛwpic) likewise sailed others, of Alcibiades. (Strabo, 403.-Diog. Laert., annually from the Athenian shores on a sacred voyage 2, 22.-Thucyd., 4, 96.) Some vestiges of this an-to this same island. (Vid. Delia II.)-When the cient town have been observed by modern travellers Persian armament, under Datis and Artaphernes, was near the village of Dramisi, on the Euripus. (Gell's making its way through the Grecian islands, the inItin., p. 134.-Dodwell's Tour, vol. 2, p. 155.) habitants of Delos left their rich temple, with its treasDELIUS, a surname of Apollo, because born in Delos.ures, to the protection of its tutelary deities, and fled DELMINIUM, the ancient capital of Dalmatia. (Vid. Dalminium.)

DĒLOS, an island of the Egean, situate nearly in the centre of the Cyclades. This island was called also Asteria, Pelasgia, Chlamydias, Lagia, Pyrpilis, Scythias, Mydia, and Ortygia. (Plin., 4, 12.-Steph. Byz., s. v. Añλoç.) It was named Ortygia from oprug, a quail, and Lagia from λayús, a hare, the island formerly abounding with both these creatures. On this account, according to Strabo, it was not allowed to have dogs at Delos, because they destroyed the quails and hares. (Strabo, 485.) The name Delos is commonly derived from dñλos, manifest, in allusion to the island having floated under the surface of the sea until made to appear and stand firm by order of Neptune. This was done for the purpose of receiving Latona, who was on the eve of delivery, and could find no asylum on the earth, Juno having bound it by an oath not to receive her; as Delos at the time was floating beneath the waters, it was freed from the obligation. Once fixed in its place, it continued, according to popular belief, to remain so firm as even to be unmoved by the shocks of an earthquake. This, however, is contradicted by Thucydides and Herodotus, who report that a shock was felt there before the Peloponnesian war. (Thucyd., 2, 8.—Herodot., 6, 98.-Compare Orac., ap. Eustath. ad Dion. Perieg., 525, and Pindar, ap. Phil. Jud., 2, p. 511.) Pliny quotes, among others, Aristotle, who pretends that its name was given to Delos, because the island rose unexpectedly out of the sea, and appeared to view. Many other opinions have been advanced respecting its origin. According, however, to Olivier, it is at the present day everywhere schistose or granitical, exhibiting no traces of a volcano, and nothing that can explain, by the laws of physics, the wonders which the Greeks have transmitted to us respecting it. It appears from Thucydides, that as early as the days of Homer, whose hymn to Delos he quotes, this island was the great rendezvous of the Ionians, who met there to celebrate a national festival and public games.-Delos was celebrated as the natal island of Apollo and Diana, and the solemnities with which the festivals of these deities were observed there never failed to attract large crowds from the

to Tenos. The fame of the sanctuary, however, saved it from spoliation. The Persians had heard that Delos was the birthplace of two deities, who corresponded to those which held the foremost rank in their own religious system, the sun and moon. This comparison was probably suggested to them by some Greek who wished to save the temple. Hence, though separately neither of the divine twins inspired the barbarians with reverence, their common shrine was not only spared, but, if we may credit the tradition which was current in the days of Herodotus, received the highest honours from Datis: he would not suffer his ships to touch the sacred shore, but kept them at the island of Rhenæa. He also sent a herald to recall the Delians who had fled to Tenos; and offered sacrifice to the god, in which 300 talents of frankincense are said to have been consumed. (Herodot., 6, 97.) After the Persian war, the Athenians established at Delos the treasury of the Greeks, and ordered that all meetings relative to the confederacy should be held there. (Thucyd., 1, 96.) In the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, not being satisfied with the purifications which the island had hitherto undergone, they removed its entire population to Adramyttium, where they obtained a settlement from the Persian satrap Pharnaces. (Thucyd., 5, 1.) Here many of these unfortunate Delians were afterward treacherously murdered by order of Arsaces, an officer of Tissaphernes. (Thucyd., 8, 108.) Finally, however, the Athenians restored those that survived to their country after the battle of Amphipolis, as they considered that their ill success in the war proceeded from the anger of the god on account of their conduct towards this unfortunate people. (Thucyd., 5, 32.) Strabo says that Delos became a place of great commercial importance after the destruction of Corinth, as the merchants who had frequented that city then withdrew to this island, which afforded great facilities for carrying on trade on account of the convenience of its port, its advantageous situation with respect to the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor, as well as from the great concourse of people who resorted thither at stated times. (Plin., 4, 12.-Liv., 36, 43.) The Romans especially favoured the interests of the Delians, though they had conceded

to the Athenians the sovereignty of the island and | tablished at a very early period, from the mention made the administration of the temple. (Polyb., 30, 18.) But, on the occupation of Athens by the generals of Mithradates, they landed troops in Delos, and committed the greatest devastations there in consequence of the inhabitants refusing to espouse their cause. After this calamity it remained in an impoverished and deserted state. (Strabo, 486.-Appian, Bell. Mithrad., c. 28.-Pausan., 3, 23.-Antip., Thess. Anal., vol. 2, p. 118.) The town of Delos was situate in a plain watered by the little river Inopus (Strabo, l. c. -Callim., Hymn. in Del., 206), and by a lake, called Trochoeides by Herodotus (2, 170), and Theognis (v. 7). Callimachus and Euripides also allude to it. (Hymn. in Del., 261.-Iph. Taur., 1097.) The island is now called Delo or Sdille, and is so covered with ruins and rubbish as to admit of little or no culture. (Wheeler, vol. 1, p. 88.-Spon., vol. 1, p. 176. -Tournefort, vol. 1, p. 307.- Choiseul Gouffier, Voyage Putoresque, vol. 1, p. 396, seqq.)

of it by Homer, and the accounts supplied by Pausanias and Strabo. The Homeric hymn to Apollo informs us (v. 391, seqq.), that, when the Pythian god was establishing his oracle at Delphi, he beheld on the sea a merchant-ship from Crete; this he directs to Crissa, and appoints the foreigners the servants of his newly-established sanctuary, near which they settled. When this story, which we would not affirm to be historically true, is stripped of the language of poetry, it can only mean, that a Cretan colony founded the temple and oracle of Delphi. (Heeren, Ideen, vol. 3, p. 94.) Strabo reports, that it was at first consulted only by the neighbouring states; but that, after its fame became more widely spread, foreign princes and nations eagerly sought responses from the sacred tripod, and loaded the altar of the god with rich presents and costly offerings (420). Pausanias states that the most ancient temple of Apollo at Delphi was formed, according to some, out of branches of bay, and that DELPHI, a small but important city of Phocis in these branches were cut from the tree that was at Greece, situate on the southern side of Mount Par- Tempe. The form of this temple resembled that of a nassus, and built in the form of an amphitheatre. cottage. After mentioning a second and a third temJustin (24, 6) says it had no walls, but was defended ple, the one raised, as the Delphians said, by bees by its precipices. Strabo (418) gives it a circuit from wax and wings, and sent by Apollo to the Hyof sixteen stadia; and Pausanias (10, 5) calls it perboreans, and the other built of brass, he adds, that Tóλ, which seems to imply that it was walled like to this succeeded a fourth and more stately edifice of other cities. In earlier times it was, perhaps, like stone, erected by two architects named Trophonius Olympia, defended by the sanctity of its oracle and and Agamedes. (Pausan., 10, 5.) Here were dethe presence of its god. These being found not to af- posited the sumptuous presents of Gyges and Midas, ford sufficient protection against the enterprises of the Alyattes and Croesus (Herodot., 1, 14, 50, 51), as well profane, it was probably fortified, and became a regu- as those of the Sybarites, Spinetæ, and Siceliots, each lar city after the predatory incursions of the Phocians. prince and nation having their separate chapel or treasThe walls may, however, be coeval with the founda-ury for the reception of these offerings, with an intion of the city itself; their high antiquity is not dis- scription attesting the name of the donor and the cause proved by the use of mortar in the construction. of the gift. (Strabo, 420.) This temple having been Some of the Egyptian pyramids are built in a similar accidentally destroyed by fire in the first year of the manner. (Consult Hamilton's Egyptiaca.-Dodwell's fifty-eighth Olympiad, or 548 B.C. (Pausan., l. c.), Tour, vol. 1, p. 164.)-The more ancient name of the Amphictyons undertook to build another for the Delphi was Pytho, from the serpent Python, as is com- sum of three hundred talents, of which the Delphians monly supposed, which was said to have been slain were to pay one fourth. The remainder of the amount by Apollo. (Apollod., Biblioth., 1, 4, 3.) Whence is said to have been obtained by contributions from the name Delphi itself was derived we are not in- the different cities and nations. Amasis, king of formed. Some make the city to have received this Egypt, furnished a thousand talents of alumina. The name from Delphus, a son of Apollo. Others deduce Alcmæonidæ, a wealthy Athenian family, undertook the appellation from the Greek adeλpoí, “brethren," the contract, and agreed to construct the edifice of Pobecause Apollo and his brother Bacchus were both rine stone, but afterward liberally substituted Parian worshipped there, each having one of the summits of marble for the front, a circumstance which is said to Parnassus sacred to him. The author of the Hymn have added considerably to their influence at Delphi. to Apollo seems to pun on the word Delphi, in making (Herodot., 2, 180.-Id., 5, 62.) According to StraApollo transform himself into a dolphin (dɛ2øíç.—v. bo and Pausanias, the architect was Spintharus, a 494). Some supposed, that the name was intended Corinthian. The vast riches accumulated in this temto designate Delphi as the centre or navel of the earth. ple, led Xerxes, after having forced the pass of TherFaber makes it Tel Phi, "the oracle of the Sun" (Ca- mopyla, to detach a portion of his army into Phocis, biri, vol. 1, p. 66), and Bryant would tempt us to re- with a view of securing Delphi and its treasures, which, solve the Nymph who originally presided over the as Herodotus affirms, were better known to him than sacred precincts of Delphi, into Ain omphe, i. e., "fons the contents of his own palace. The enterprise, howoraculi." (Mythology, vol. 1, p. 110 and 345.) Jones ever, failed, owing, as it was reported by the Delphians, derives the name of Delphi from the Arabic Telb, "to to the manifest interposition of the deity, who terrified inquire." (Greek Lex., s. v.) If, amid these various the barbarians and hurled destruction on their scatetymological theories, we might venture to adduce one tered bands. (Herodot, 8, 37.) Many years subseof our own, it would be, that Beλpoi, the Eolic form quent to this event, the temple fell into the hands of for Aeλpoí (Maittaire, Dial., p. 139, c.), contains the the Phocians, headed by Philomelus, who scrupled not true germe of the name, viz., Bɛλ, or the old term 2 to appropriate its riches to the payment of his troops (i. e., "the sun"), with the digamma prefixed in place in the war he was then waging against Thebes. The of the aspirate. (Compare the Greek forms oç, Phocians are said to have plundered the temple, dui. e., ¿λ-15, σéλaç, i. e., oɛλ-aç, and the Latin Sol.) ring this contest, of gold and silver, to the enormous Delphi will then be the city of the Sun. (Compare amount of 10,000 talents, or nearly 10,600,000 dolwith the term Beλ the Orientel Baal.)-In speaking lars. (Compare Pausanias, 10, 2.-Strabo, 421.) of this city, the poets commonly use the appellation At a still later period, Delphi became exposed to a of Pytho, but Herodotus and historians in general pre- formidable attack from a large body of Gauls, headed fer that of Delphi, and are silent as to the other. A by their king Brennus. These barbarians, having short sketch of the history of this most celebrated ora- forced the defiles of Mount Eta, possessed themcle and temple will not, perhaps, be unacceptable to the selves of the temple and ransacked its treasures. The reader. Though not so ancient as Dodona, it is evi- booty which they obtained on this occasion is stated dent that the fame of the Delphic shrine had been es- to have been immense; and this they must have suc