625 



DOMITIANUS, TITUS FLAVIUS. 



DONALDS9N, THOMAS LEVERTON. 



628 



which one was published in 1617, and the other in 1620, both in 

 London. The work was much esteemed at the time, but is now 

 scarcely remembered. He also published a sermon, which he preached 

 in 1617, in the chapel belonging to the Mercers' Company; and, in the 

 following year, a work entitled 'Scogli del C'ristiano Naufragio quali va 

 scopendo la Santa Chiesa.' De Dominis appears to have been restless 

 and inconstant; for after a few years he expressed a wish to return to 

 the bosom of the Catholic Church, and having received from the pope 

 (Gregory XV.) a promise of pardon, he get out for Rome. Soon after 

 his arrival, some intercepted letters gave indications that his repentance 

 was not sincere, and he was in consequence committed to the castle of 

 St. Angelo, where, after au imprisonment of a few months, he died, 

 September 1024. Being convicted after his death of heresy, his body 

 was disinterred and burnt. 



De Dominis has the merit of being the first who assumed that the 

 rainbow was produced by two refractions of light in each drop of rain, 

 with an intermediate reflection from the back part of the drop ; and 

 he verified the hypothesis by receiving the ray of light from a globe 

 of glass exposed to the sun in the same manner as the drops of rain 

 are supposed to be situated with respect to that luminary. He knew 

 nothing of the different refrangibilities of the rays of light; and he 

 conceived that the colours were produced by the different forces with 

 which the rays strike the eye in consequence of the different lengths 

 of path described within the drop, by which it was supposed that 

 they retain more or less of the original impulsive force. He erred 

 also in supposing that the rays which formed one of the bows came 

 from the upper part of the sun's disc, and those which formed the 

 other from the lower. 



DOMITIA'NUS, TIT0S FLAVIUS, younger Bon of the Emperor 



towards others. He punished satirists, but encouraged secret informers. 

 He took a delight iu inspiring others with terror, and Dion relates a 

 singular banquet, to which he invited the senators, with all the appa- 

 ratus of a funeral and an execution. He is also said to have spent 

 whole hours in hunting after and killing flies. At one time, before 

 his becoming emperor, he had applied himself to literature and poetry, 

 and he is said to have composed several poems and other works. 

 (Tacitus, Suetonius, Dion, and Pliny the Younger.) 



British Museum. 



Coin of Domitian. 

 Actual size. Copper. 



Weight 432J grains. 



of justice bordering upon severity. He affected great zeal for the 

 reformation of public morals, and punished with death several persons 

 guilty of adultery, as well as some vestals who had broken their vows. 

 He completed several splendid buildings begun by Titus ; among others 

 an Odeum, or theatre for musical performances. The most important 

 event of his reign was the conquest of Britain by Agricola; but 

 Domitian grew jealous of that great commander's reputation, and 

 recalled him to Rome. His suspicious temper and his pusillanimity 

 made him afraid of every man who was distinguished either by birth 

 and connexions or by merit and popularity, and he mercilessly sacri- 

 ficed many to his fears, while his avarice led him to put to death a 

 number of wealthy persons for the sake of then- property. The usual 

 pretext for these murders was the charge of conspiracy or treason ; 

 and thug a numerous race of informers was created and maintained by 

 this system of spoliation. His cruelty was united to a deep dissimu- 

 lation, and in this particular he resembled Tiberius rather than Caligula 

 or Nero. He either put to death or drove away from Home the philo- 

 sophers and men of letters; Epictetus was one of the exiled. He 

 found however some flatterers among the poets, such as Martial, Silius 

 Italicus, and Statins. The latter dedicated to him his ' Thebaia' and 

 ' Achilleis,' and commemorated the events of his reign in his ' Silvae.' 

 But in reality the reign of Domitian was anything but favourable to 

 the Roman arms, except iu Britain. In Mcesia and Dacia, in Germany 

 and Pannonia, the armies were defeated, and whole provinces lost. 

 (Tacitus, 'Agricola,' 41.) Domitian himself went twice into Mccsia to 

 oppose the Dacians, but after several defeats he concluded a disgraceful 

 peace with their chief Decebalus, whom he acknowledged as king, and 

 agreed to pay a tribute, which was afterwards discontinued by Trajan ; 

 and yet Domitian made a pompous report of his victories to the 

 senate, and assumed the honour of a triumph. In the same manner 

 he triumphed over the Catti and the Sann.iti.tns, which made Pliny 

 the Younger say that the triumphs of Domitian were always evidence 

 of gome advantages gained by the enemies of Rome. In A.D. 95 

 Domitian assumed the consulship for the seventeenth time, together 

 with Flavius Clemens, who had married Domitilla, a relative of the 

 emperor. In that year a persecution of the Christians is recorded in 

 the history of the Church, but it appears to have been directed par- 

 ticularly against the Jews, with whom the Christians were then con- 

 founded by the Romans. Suetonius ascribes the proscriptions of the 

 Jews, or those who lived after the manner of the Jews, and whom he 

 styles as ' iiuprofessi,' to the rapacity of Domitian. Flavius Clemens 

 and his wife were among the victims. [CLEMENS ROMANOS.] In the 

 following year (96), under the consulship of Fabius Valens and C. 

 AntUtius Vetus, a conspiracy was formed against Domitian among the 

 officers of hia guards and several of his intimate friends, and his wife 

 herself is said to have participated in it. The immediate cause of it 

 was his increasing suspicions, which threatened the life of eveiy one 

 around him, and which are said to have been stimulated by the pre- 

 dictions of astrologers and soothsayers, whom he was very ready to 

 consult. He was killed in his apartments by several of the conspira- 

 tors, after struggling with them for some time ; he was iu his forty- 

 fifth year, and had reigned fifteen years. On the news of his death the 

 senate assembled and elected M. Cocccius Nerva emperor. 



The character of Domitian is represented by all ancient historians 

 in the darkest colouro, as being a compound of timidity and cruelty, 

 of dissimulation and arrogance, of self-indulgence and stem severity 



DON, DAVID, was born at Forfar in Scotland, in 1800. His 

 father was proprietor of a nursery and botanic garden in this place, 

 and is well known as having been an acute practical butanist, and one 

 who cultivated the botany of his native country with great success. 

 When David was still a young man his father was appointed to the 

 charge of the botanic garden at Edinburgh, aud the knowledge which 

 David then possessed of botany attracted the notice of Mr. Patrick 

 Neill, and other gentlemen connected with the garden, and they pro- 

 cured for him the means of attending on some of the classes in the 

 university. His father however soon quitted Edinburgh, and again 

 opened his garden in Forfar. David afterwards procured a situation 

 in the establishment of Messrs. Dickson of Broughtou, near Edinburgh, 

 where he had the care of the finest collection of plants in Scotland. 

 In 1819 he came to London, and was recommended to Mr. Lambert, 

 who had at that time a large collection of plants. He was soon 

 appointed by Mr. Lambert to be his librarian and curator, aud lived 

 entirely in his house. 



One of his earliest publications was the description of a number of 

 species of plants which were either entirely new, or had only been 

 found iu a few localities where they had been collected by his father 

 and others in Scotland. It was entitled 'Descriptions of several New 

 or Rare Native Plants, found in Scotland chiefly by the late Mr. 

 George Don of Forfar,' and was published in vol. iii of the Memoirs 

 of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. He shortly after published 

 in the ' Transactions of the Linncean Society,' vol. xiii. ' A Monograph 

 of the genus Saxifraga ; ' this attempt at describing the various species of 

 the genus gained for him a reputation as a sound botanist. In 1822 the 

 office of librarian to the Linnseau Society became vacant, and he was 

 appointed to that post. In this position he had great opportunities 

 of improving his knowledge of botany. The collections of plants irom 

 India iu the Linnscan Museum turned his attention to that part of the 

 world, and in 1825 he published descriptions of species of plants iu 

 Nepaul under the title ' Prodromus Flora; Nepaleusis,' 12mo. Almost 

 every volume of the ' Transactions of the Linnrean Society ' after his 

 appointment as librarian contains papers by him on various depart- 

 ments of systematic botany. 



Or the death of Professor Burnett, in 1836, he was appointed to the 

 chair of botany at King's College, London, a position which he held 

 with great credit to himself and advantage to the institution, till his 

 decease. His numerous papers descriptive of various uew genera and 

 species, and on various points in the physiology of plants, which are 

 contained iu every volume of the ' Transactions of the Linusean 

 Society,' from vol. xiii. to vol. xviii. ; iu the 'Memoirs of the 

 Wernerian Society of Edinburgh,' vols. iii.-v. ; and in the ' Edinburgh 

 New Philosophical Journal,' vols. ii.-xix., are sufficient proof of his 

 industry : and they have a real value. Don's knowledge of plants 

 was most extensive, and his appreciation of species ready and exact. 

 He was not however fully alive to the importance of studying plants 

 in their morphological relations, aud many of his papers are open to 

 criticism on this ground. His constitutiou was robust and stroug, but 

 at the end of 1840 a malignant tumour appeared on his lip, which, 

 although removed at first, speedily reappeared, and terminated his 

 existence on thib 8th of December of the same year. 

 (Proceedings of the Linnaan Society. Don's Works.) 

 DONALDSON, THOMAS LEVERTON, Architect, Professor of 

 Architecture id University College London, and author of literary and 

 illustrative works relating to architecture, was born October 17th, 

 1795, in Eloomsbury Square, London. At nine years of age Douald- 

 sou was sent to St. Albans Grammar School, where he remained till 

 the age of fourteen. He then accompanied one of his father's friends 

 to the Cape of Good Hope, whence he was allowed to join the 87th 

 Regiment in the expedition to the Isle of France, with the prospect 

 of receiving a commission. Before 1'ort Louis ho had joined those 

 chosen for a storming party, when the place was yielded by the 



