Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/422

LEFT DIOCLETIAN, BATHS OF 368 DIOMEDES frontiers, and Roman power restored from Britain to Egypt. In 305, in con- junction with Maximian, he resigned the imperial dignity at Nicomedia, and re- tired to Salona in Dalmatia, where he died in 313. In the latter part of his reign he was induced to sanction a per- secution of the Christians. DIOCLETIAN, BATHS OF. See Baths of Diocletian. DIODON, a genus of toleostean fish, family Gyyn-nodontes, order Plectognathi, deriving their name from the fact that the ivory-clad terminations of the jaws show no suture, and the fish thus appear to possess but two teeth. The body, as in other members of the family, can be inflated with air till the creature floats on the surface of the water under side uppermost; it is likewise covered with ossifications in the skin. The rotundity of these fish has earned for them the name of globe-fish, or prickly globe-fish, and sea hedgehog. The four species of diodon are found in all the seas between the tropics, and range to the Cape of Good Hope. The largest species (D. hystrix) attains the length of two feet six inches. dividual (female) and the spermatozoid by another (male). It is opposed to monoecious. DIOGENES (di-oj'e-nez), a celebrated Greek cynic; was a native of Sinope, in Pontus, where he was born 413 B. C He was banished from his country for coining false money, and repaired to Athens, where he studied philosophy under Antisthenes. He walked about the streets with a tub on his head, in which it is said he lodged at night. Being on a voyage, he was taken by pirates and sold into slavery at Corinth, where he became tutor to the sons of a rich citizen, but died in the greatest misery, 324 B. C. The inhabitants of Sinope raised statues to his memory, and the marble figure of a dog was placed on a high column erected on his tomb. DIOMEDEA (after Diomedes, one of the Greek warriors before Troy), a genus of birds belonging to the Procel- laridse, or petrels. D. exulans is the albatross. DIOMEDE ISLANDS, a group of three small islands in Bering's Strait, and mid- way between Asia and America. '"^^K ^^^tS.^7?^^ DINOTHERIUM DIODORUS SICTJLUS, a native of Agyrium, in Sicily, who wrote a "Uni- versal History" in 40 books, of which only 15 books and a few fragments re- main. He flourished about B. C. 10. DICECIOUS (di-e'shus), in botany, a term applied to unisexual plants, such as the willow and the hemp, in which the staminiferous and pistilliferous flowers are on separate individuals. In zoology, a term applied to those animals in which the sexes are distinct; that is, those in Vrhich the ovum is produced by one in- DIOMEDES (di-o-me'dez), in Greek mythology, (1) a king of the Bistones, who fed his horses on human flesh, and used to throw all strangers who entered his territories to those animals to be devoured. He was killed by Hercules, who carried off the horses. (2) One of the heroes at the siege of Troy, the son of Tydeus and Deipyle, and King of Argos, one of the suitors of Helen. After she was carried off Diomedes engaged in the expedition against Troy, in which his courage and the protection of Pal-