828 



DIOMEDE8 



DION CHRYSOSTOMUS 



Dioine'des, the bravest, after Achilles, of all 

 the Greeks who took part in the Trojan war. The 

 son of Tydeus, he is constantly called by his 

 patronymic, Tydides. He vanquished in fight 

 Hector and /Eneas, the most valiant of the Tro- 

 jans ; and even Ares and Aphrodite, when they 

 took the field on the Trojan side, were attacked 

 and wounded by him. In the games instituted by 

 Achilles in honour of Patroclus, he gained the 

 prize in the chariot-race, and worsted the mighty 

 Ajax in single combat. Along with Ulysses, he 

 carried off the Palladium, on which the fate of 

 Troy depended. On returning to Argos, to the 

 crown of which he had succeeded after the death of 

 Adrastus, he found that his wife had proved un- 

 faithful in his absence, whereupon he sailed away 

 to Italy, there married the daughter of King 

 Daunus, and lived to a good old age. The towns 

 of Beneventum, Venusia, Canusium, and Brun- 

 disium claimed to have been founded by him. 



Dion, a Syracusan, whose sister became the 

 second wife of the elder Dionysius the Tyrant, 

 while he himself was married to a daughter of 

 Dionysius, his own niece. His close connection 

 with the tyrant brought him great wealth, but his 

 austere manners and devotion to philosophy made 

 him hateful to Dionysius the Younger, who under 

 the guidance of Phihstus and his party disregarded 

 the advice of Plato, and banished Dion. There- 

 upon he retired to Athens to devote himself to the 

 study of philosophy under the guidance of Plato. 

 His expedition to Syracuse resulted in his making 

 himself master of the city ( 356 B.C. ), but his severity 

 made him unpopular among its luxurious citizens, 

 and a plot was formed against him through which 

 he was murdered in his own house three years 

 later. His life was written by both Plutarch and 

 Cornelius Nepos, and he is the subject of a noble 

 poem by Wordsworth. 



a very curious and interesting genus 

 of Droseracese. Only one species is known, D. 

 muscipula, sometimes called Venus's Fly-trap and 

 the Carolina Catchfly Plant. It grows in marshy 

 places in North and South Carolina. The remark- 

 able insect-catching and digestive powers exhibited 

 by the leaves are described under INSECTIVOROUS 

 PLANTS. 



Dion Cassius, surnamed Cocceianus, from the 

 orator Dion Chrysostomus Cocceianus, most likely 

 ms maternal grandfather, a celebrated Greek 



historian, was born at Nicaea, in Bithynia, 155 A.D. 

 About 180 he went to Rome, held successively all 

 the high offices of state, was twice consul, and en- 

 joyed the intimate friendship of Alexander Severus, 

 who sent him as legate to Dalmatia and Pannonia. 

 About 229 he retired to his native city, where he 

 passed the remainder of his life. He is best known 

 by his History of Rome, from the landing of tineas 

 in Italy down to 229 A.D., in eighty books, of which 

 but nineteen, from, the thirty-sixth to the fifty- 

 fourth, have reached us complete. These embrace 

 the history from the wars of Lucullus and Pompey 

 against Mithridates, down to the death of Agrippa, 

 10 A. D. The first twenty -four books exist only in 

 the merest fragments ; of the last twenty we have 

 only the 11th-century epitome of Xiphilinus. The 

 Annals of Zonaras followed Dion Cassius so closely, 

 that we may almost consider that work as an 

 epitome. The position of Dion Cassius gave him 

 free access to the national archives, and his work 

 has considerable value for the imperial epoch of 

 Roman history. His model was Thucydides, and 

 he need not be abused because he did not equal his 

 original. The best editions of his History are those 

 of Sturz (1824), Bekker 1849 , and L. Dindorf 

 (5 vols. 1863-65 ; revised by Melber, 1890). 



Dion Cliryso'stomilS ('the golden -mouthed'), 

 an eminent Greek rhetorician, surnamed Cocceianus 

 from his intimate friendship with the Emperor 

 Cocceius Nerva, was born at Prusa, in Bithynia, 

 about 50 A.D. His father, Pasicrates, paid great 

 attention to his education, which was perfected by 

 travel. He came to Rome under Vespasian, but had 

 afterwards to leave the city, having had the mis- 

 fortune to excite the suspicion of Domitian. He 

 next visited in the disguise of a beggar, and on 

 advice of the Delphic oracle Thrace, Mysia, and 

 Scythia. On the accession of Nerva (96 A.D.) he 

 returned to Rome, and lived in great honour under 

 that ruler and his successor Trajan till his own 

 death, about 117 A.D. As many as eighty of his 

 orations are still extant, with fragments of fifteen 

 others. They are, however, treatises rather than 

 orations proper, discussing questions in politics, 

 morals, and philosophy. These are well reasoned, 

 clear, and eloquent, and are written in pure Attic 

 Greek. Dion Chrysostomus was ' the first writer 

 after Tiberius,' says Niebuhr, 'that greatly con- 

 tributed towards the revival of Greek literature.' 

 Good editions are by Reiske ( 1784), Emper (1844), 

 Dindorf ( 1857), and Von Arnim ( 1893-95). 



END OF VOL. HI. 



