Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/951

Rh DAMASTES.- ships of the Pompeians were taken and eiink, and Damasippus perished with the rest. (Cues, de li. C. ii. 44 ; Hirt. de Bell. Aft. 9G.) 2. LiciNius Damasippus, a contemporary of Cicero, who speaks (ud Fain. vii. 23) of him as a lover of statues. In other passages, Cicero, in B. c. 45, speaks of his intention of buying a garden from Damasippus. {Ad Alt. xii. 29, 33.) He ap- pears to have been a connoisseur and dealer in ancient statues, and to have purchased and hiid out gardens for the purpose of selling them agtiin. He is in all probability the same person as the Damasippus who is ridiculed by Horace. {Sat. ii. 3. 16, 6'4.) It appears from Horace that he had become a bankrupt in his trade as a dealer in statues, in consequence of which he intended to put an end to himself ; but he was prevented by the Stoic Stertinius, and then turned Stoic himself, or at least affected to be one by his long beard. The Damasippus mentioned by Juvenal {Sat. viii. 147, 151, 167) is undoubtedly a fictitious name, under which the satirist ridicided some noble lover of horses. [L. S.] _ DAMASTES {Aafidarris), of Sigeum, a Greek historian, and a contemporary of Herodotus and Hellanicus of Lesbos, with the latter of whom he is often mentioned. Suidas even calls him a disciple of Hellanicus, while Porphyry {ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix. p. 468) states, that Hellanicus borrowed from Damastes and Herodotus several statements concerning the manners and customs of foreign nations. This latter statement has led some critics to assume, that Porphyry alludes to a later Hellanicus of Miletus ; but there is no reason for such a supposition, and the simpler solution is, that the work of Damastes was pub- lished before that of Hellanicus, or what is more likely, that Porphyry made a blunder. Accord- ing to Suidas (comp. Eudoc. p. 127), Damastes wrote, — 1. A History of Greece (Trepi twv kv 'EWaSt yevofxevav). 2. On the ancestors of those who had taken part in the war against Troy, and 3. A catalogiie of nations and towns {idvwv Kara- oyos KaX TToXfwi/), which is probably the same work as the one quoted by Stephanus of Byzan- tium (s. V. vir€p§6peoi) under the simple title of TTffjl idvwu. Besides these, a irepiirXovs also is mentioned as the work of Damastes by Agathe- merus (i. p. 2, ed. Hudson), who states, that Da- mastes copied from Hecataeus. All these works are lost, with the exception of a few insignificant fragments, Eratosthenes made great use of them, for which he is censured by Strabo (i. p. 47, xiii. p. 583, xiv. p. 684), who set little value upon the opinions of Damastes, and charges him with igno- rance and credulity. From Dionysius of Ilalicar- nassus {A. Ii. i. 72) we learn that Damastes spoke of the foundation of Rome. (Comp. Val. !Max. viii. 13, ^j:^ 6; Phit. Camill. 19; Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Thucyd. p. 818 ; Plin. H.N. Elench. libb. iv. V. vi. vii. and vii. 48 ; Avienus Ruf. de Ora Marit. ; Sturz. Fragin. Ilellanici, p. 14, &c. ; Ukert, Untersuchung. uber die Geographic de^ He- cataeus und Damastes, Weimar, 1814, p. 26.) Another person of this name is Damastes, the brother of Democritus the philosopher. (Suid. s. v. ArifMKpiTos; Diog. Laert. ix. 39.) [L.S.] DA'MASUS (Aa/xaaos), of Tralles in Cilicia, is mentioned by Strabo (xiv. p. 649) among the cele- brated orators of Tralles. He is surnamed Scom- brus {'2,KOfji.€pos), and ia in all probability the same DAMASUS. 933 as the Damos Scombros mentioned by Seneca {Coutrov. ii. 14), and may possibly be the same as the rhetorician who is also spoken of by Se- neca {Suas. I ; comp. Schott, ad Controv. ii. 1 4) under the name of Damaseticus. But nothing further is known about him. [L. S.] DA'MASUS, whose father's name was Anto- nius, by extraction a Spaniard, must have been bom near the beginning of the fourth century (Hieron. de Viris Illustr. c. 103), and upon the death of Liberius, in a. d. 366, was chosen bishop of Rome. His election, however, was strenuously opposed by a party who supported the claims of a certain Ursicinus or Ursinus : a fierce strife arose between the followers of the rival factions ; the praefect Juventius, unable to appease or withstand their violence, was compelled to fly, and upwards of a hundred and thirty dead bodies were found in the basilica of Sicininus, which had been the chief scene of the stniggle. Damasus prevailed ; his pretensions were favoured by the emperor, and his antagonists were banished ; but having been permitted to return within a year, fresh disturb- ances broke forth which, although promptly sup- pressed, were renewed from time to time, to the great scandal of the church, until peace was at length restored by the exertions of the praefect Praetextatus, not without fresh bloodshed. While these angry passions were still raging, Damasus was impeached of impurity before a public council, and was honourably acquitted, while his calum- niators, the deacons Concordius and Calistus, were deprived of their sacred office. During the re- mainder of his career, until his death in a. d. 384, he was occupied in waging war against the rem- nants of the Arians in the West and in the East, in denouncing tlie heresy of Apollinaris in the Roman councils of a. d. 377 and 382, in advocating the cause of Paulinus against Meletius, and in erecting two basilicae. He is celebrated in the history of sacred music firom having ordained that the psalms should be regularly chaimted in all places of public worship by day and by night, concluding in each case with the doxology ; but his chief claim to the gratitude of posterity rests upon the circumstance, that, at his instigation, St. Jerome, with whom he maintained a most steady and cordial friendship, was first induced to undertake the great task of producing a new trans- lation of the Bible. To Damasus was addressed the famous and most important edict of Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. 16. tit. 2. 8. 20), by which, in combination with some subsequent enactments, ecclesiastics were strictly prohibited from receiving the testamentary bequests of their spiritual children, — a regulation rendered imperative by the shameless avarice displayed by too many of the clergy of that period and the dis- reputable arts by which they had notoriously abused their influence over female penitents. Da- masus himself, who was obliged to give publicity to the decree, had not escaped the imputation of these heredipetal propensities ; for his insinuating and persuasive eloquence gained for him among his enemies the nickname of Awiscalpiiis (ear- tickler) matronarum. At the same time, while the outward pomp and luxury of the church were for a while checked, her real power was vastly in' creased by the law of Valentinian (367) after- wards enforced and extended by Gratian (378), in virtue of which the clergy were relieved from