Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1009

Rh DEMOTIMIIS. DEMO'STHENES MASSALIOTES, or MAS6ILIENSIS {6 Mao-o-aAioirTjs), a native of -Marseilles, and the author of several medical tormulae preserved by (lalen, must have lived in or before the first century after Christ, as he is quoted by Asclepiades Phamiacion. (Gal. De Com- By some persons he is supposed to be the same as Demosthenes Philalethes, which seems to be quite possible. He is sometimes called simply Afassaliotes or Massifiertsis. (Gal. /. c. p. 855 ; Aetius, iv. 2. 58, p. 726.) See C.G. Kuhn, Additam. ad Elench. Medicor. Veter. a J. A. Fabricio^ ^c, exhibitum^ where he has collected all the fragments of Demos- thenes that remain. [W. A. G.] DEMO'STHENES PHILALE'THES (Atj- fjLocr6evT)s 6 *jAaA7?07js), a physician, who was one of the pupils of Alexander Philalethes, and be- longed to the school of medicine founded by Hero- philus. (Gal. De Differ. Puis. iv. 4. vol. viii. p. 727.) He probably lived about the beginning of the Christian aera, and was especially celebrated for his skill as an oculist. He wrote a work on the Pulse, which is quoted by Galen {I. c), and jilso one on Diseases of the Eyes, which appears to have been extant in the middle ages, but of which nothing now remains but some extracts preserved by Aetius, Paulus Aegineta, and other later wri- ters. [W. A. G.] DEMO'STRATUS (AWo-Tparos). 1. An Athenian orator and demagogue, at whose propo- sition Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus were ap- pointed to command the Athenian expedition .ngainst Sicily. He was brought on the stage by Eupolis in his comedy entitled 'Rov^vyns. (Plut. Ale. 18, Nic. 12 ; Ruhnken, Hist. C'rit. Or. Graec. p xlvi.) 2. The son of Aristophon, an ambassador from Athens to Sparta, is supposed by Ruhnken (I. c.) to have been the grandson of the orator, (Xen. Hell. vi. 3. § 2.) 3. A person in whose name Eupolis exhibited his comedy AutoAu/cos. (Ath. v. p. 216, d.) He is ranked among the poets of the new comedy on the authority of Suidas (s. v. X'^P"!? Ajinoarparos Ar)/xowoLT^T<f/) : but here we ought probably to read Ttfw<TTpaT0Sy who is known as a poet of the new comedy. [Timostratus.] (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. i. pp. 110, 500.) 4. A Roman senator, who wrote a work on fish- ing (di€VTiKd) in twenty-six books, one on aqua- tic divination ('wepl TTjy ivvdpou fxavriKrjs)., and other miscellaneous works connected with history, (Suid. s. V. AaixSa-Tparos ; Aelian, A''. ^, xiii. 21, XV. 4, 9, 19.) He is probably the same person from whose history, meaning perhaps a natural history. Pliny quotes (//. A^. xxxvii. 6), and the same also as Deniostratus of Apameia, the second book of whose work " On Rivers" (irepi iroranwy) Plutarch quotes. (De Flnv. 1 3 ; comp. Eudoc. p. 128; Phot, Bihl. Cod. clxi. ; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 427, 428, ed. Westermann.) [P. S.] DEMO'TELES (AvfioTfKvs), one of the twelve authors, who according to Pliny (//. A^. xxxvi. 1 2 ) had written on the pyramids, but is other- wise unknown. [L. S.] DEMOTI'MUS (AT?;udT</ios), an Athenian and intimate friend of Theophrastus, with whom he dtnoted himself to the study of philosophy. Theo- phrastus in his will bequeathed to him a house, and appointed him one of his executors; but fur- DENTATUS. 991 ther particulars are not known. (Diog. I^aert. v. 53, 56, 56.) [L. S.J DEMO'XENUS. [Damoxenus,] DEM US (A7)/ios). If the reading in Athen- aeus ( xiv. p. 660) is correct, Demus was the au- thor of an Atthis, of which the first book is there quoted. But as Demus is not mentioned any- where else, Casaubon proposed to change the name into KA6(T<J57;/tios, who is well known to have written an Atthis. If the name Demus is wrong, it would be safer to substitute At^/xwu than KA«(- rSdrf/xoSy as Demon wrote an Atthis, which con- sisted of at least four books, [L. S.] DENDRITES (AivSpirris), the god of the tree, a surname of Dionysus, which has the same import as Dasyllius, the giver of foliage. (Plut, Sympoa. 5; Paus. i. 43. §5,) [L. S.] DENDRI'TIS (Afj/Sprrts), the goddess of the tree, occurs as a surname of Helen at Rhodes, and the following story is related to account for it. After the death of Menelaus, Helen was driven from her home by two natural sons of her husband. She fled to Rhodes, and sought the protection of her friend Polyxo, the widow of Tlepoleraus. But Polyxo bore Helen a grudge, since her own husband Tlepolemus had fallen a victim in the Trojan war. Accordingly, once while Helen was bathing, Polyxo sent out her servants in the dis- guise of the Erinnyes, with the command to hang Helen on a tree. For this reason the Rhodians afterwards built a sanctuary to Helena Dendritis. (Paus. iii. 19. § 10.) [L. S.] DENSUS, JU'LIUS, a man of equestrian rank of the time of Nero. In a. d. 56, he was ac- cused of being too favourably disposed towards Britannicus, but his accusers were not listened to. (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 10.) [L. S.] DENSUS, SEMPRO'NIUS, a most distin- guished and noble-minded man of the time of the emperor Galba, He was centurion of a praeto- rian cohort, and was commissioned by Galba to protect his adopted son Piso Licinianus, at the time when the insurrection against Galba broke out, A.D. 70. When the rebels approached to seek and murder Piso, Densus rushed out against them with his sword drawn, and thus turned the atten- tion of the persecutors towards himself, so that Piso had an opportunity of escaping, though he was afterwards caught and put to death. (Tacit. Hist. i. 43.) According to Dion Cassius (Ixiv. 6) and Plutarch {Galb. 26) it was not Piso, but Galba himself who was thus defended and protected by Densus, who fell during the struggle. [L. S.] DENTA'TUS, M.' CU'RIUS (some writers call him M. Curius Dentatus), the most celebrated among the Curii, is said to have derived his cog- nomen Dentatus from the circumstance of having been bom with teeth in his mouth. (Plin. //. N. vii. 15.) Cicero {pro Muren. 8) calls him a homo novus, and it appears that he was of Sabine descent. (Cic. pro Sulla^ 7 ; Schol. Bob. p. 364 ed. Orelli.) The first office which Curius Dentatus is known to have held was that of tribune of the people, in which he distinguished himself by his opposition to Appius Clsiudius the Blind, who while presiding as interrex at the elec- tion of the consuls, refused, in defiance of the law, to accept any votes for plebeian candidates. Curius Dentatus then compelled the senate to make a decree by which any legal election was sanctioned beforehand. (Cic. Brut. 14 ; AureL
 * >o,v. iMcdicam. st-c. Gen. v. 15. vol, xiii. p. 856.)