Dicomas, a king of the Getæ. Plutarch, Antonius.
Dictæ and Dictæus mons, a mountain of Crete. The island is often known by the name of Dictæa arva. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 6; Æneid, bk. 3, li. 171.——Jupiter was called Dictæus, because worshipped there, and the same epithet was applied to Minos. Virgil, Georgics, bk. 2, li. 536.—Ovid. Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 43.—Ptolemy, bk. 3, ch. 17.—Strabo, bk. 10.
Dictamnum and Dictynna, a town of Crete, where the herb called dictamnus chiefly grows. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 12, li. 412.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 50.
Dictātor, a magistrate at Rome, invested with regal authority. This officer, whose magistracy seems to have been borrowed from the customs of the Albans or Latins, was first chosen during the Roman wars against the Latins. The consuls being unable to raise forces for the defence of the state, because the plebeians refused to enlist, if they were not discharged from all the debts they had contracted with the patricians, the senate found it necessary to elect a new magistrate, with absolute and incontrollable power to take care of the state. The dictator remained in office for six months, after which he was again elected, if the affairs of the state seemed to be desperate; but if tranquillity was re-established, he generally laid down his power before the time was expired. He knew no superior in the republic, and even the laws were subjected to him. He was called dictator, because dictus, named by the consul, or quoniam dictis ejus parebat populus, because the people implicitly obeyed his command. He was named by the consul in the night, vivâ voce, and his election was confirmed by the auguries, though sometimes he was nominated or recommended by the people. As his power was absolute, he could proclaim war, levy forces, conduct them against an enemy, and disband them at pleasure. He punished as he pleased; and from his decision there was no appeal, at least till later times. He was preceded by 24 lictors, with the fasces: during his administration, all other offices, except the tribunes of the people, were suspended, and he was the master of the republic. But amidst all his independence he was not permitted to go beyond the borders of Italy, and he was always obliged to march on foot in his expeditions; and he never could ride in difficult and laborious marches, without previously obtaining a formal leave from the people. He was chosen only when the state was in imminent dangers from foreign enemies or inward seditions. In the time of a pestilence, a dictator was sometimes elected, as also to hold the comitia, or to celebrate the public festivals, to hold trials, to choose senators, or drive a nail in the Capitol, by which superstitious ceremonies the Romans believed that a plague could be averted, or the progress of an enemy stopped. This office, so respectable and illustrious in the first ages of the republic, became odious by the perpetual usurpations of Sylla and Julius Cæsar; and after the death of the latter the Roman senate, on the motion of the consul Antony, passed a decree, which for ever after forbade a dictator to exist in Rome. The dictator, as soon as elected, chose a subordinate officer, called his master of horse, magister equitum. This officer was respectable, but he was totally subservient to the will of the dictator, and could do nothing without his express order, though he enjoyed the privilege of using a horse, and had the same insignia as the pretors. This subordination, however, was some time after removed; and during the second Punic war the master of the horse was invested with a power equal to that of the dictator. A second dictator was also chosen for the election of magistrates at Rome, after the battle of Cannæ. The dictatorship was originally confined to the patricians, but the plebeians were afterwards admitted to share it. Titus Lartius Flavus was the first dictator, A.U.C. 253. Dionysius of Halicarnassus.—Cicero, de Legibus, bk. 3.—Dio Cassius.—Plutarch, Fabius Maximus.—Appian, bk. 3.—Polybius, bk. 3.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 28.—Livy, bk. 1, ch. 23; bk. 2, ch. 18; bk. 4, ch. 57; bk. 9, ch. 38.
Dictidienses, certain inhabitants of mount Athos. Thucydides, bk. 5, ch. 82.
Dictynna, a nymph of Crete, who first invented hunting nets. She was one of Diana’s attendants, and for that reason the goddess is often called Dictynnia. Some have supposed that Minos pursued her, and that, to avoid his importunities, she threw herself into the sea, and was caught in fishermen’s nets, δικτυα, whence her name. There was a festival at Sparta in honour of Diana, called Dictynnia. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 30; bk. 3, ch. 12.——A city of Crete.
Dictys, a Cretan, who went with Idomeneus to the Trojan war. It is supposed that he wrote a history of this celebrated war, and that at his death he ordered it to be laid in his tomb, where it remained till a violent earthquake, in the reign of Nero, opened the monument where he had been buried. This convulsion of the earth threw out his history of the [♦]Trojan war, which was found by some shepherds, and afterwards carried to Rome. This mysterious tradition is deservedly deemed fabulous; and the history of the Trojan war, which is now extant as the composition of Dictys of Crete, was composed in the 15th century, or, according to others, in the age of Constantine, and falsely attributed to one of the followers of Idomeneus. The edition of Dictys is by Mascellus Venia, 4to, Milan, 1477.——A king of the island of Seriphus, son of Magnes and Nais. He married the nymph Clymene, and was made king of Seriphus by Perseus, who deposed Polydectes, because he behaved with wantonness to Danae. See: [Polydectes]. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 9; bk. 2, ch. 4.——A centaur, killed at the nuptials of Pirithous. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, li. 334.
[♦] ‘Trojon’ replaced with ‘Trojan’
Didas, a Macedonian who was employed by Perseus to render Demetrius suspected to his father Philip. Livy, bk. 40.
Didia lex, de Sumptibus, by Didius, A.U.C. 606, to restrain the expenses that attended public festivals and entertainments, and limit the number of guests which generally attended them, not only at Rome, but in all the provinces of Italy. By it, not only those who received guests in these festive meetings, but the guests themselves, were liable to be fined. It was an extension of the Oppian and Fannian laws.