Dŏlŏpes, a people of Thessaly, near mount Pindus. Peleus reigned there, and sent them to the Trojan war under Phœnix. They became also masters of Scyros, and like the rest of the ancient Greeks, were fond of migration. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 2, li. 7.—Flaccus, bk. 2, li. 10.—Livy, bk. 36, ch. 33.—Strabo, bk. 9.—Plutarch, Cimon.
Dŏlŏpia, the country of the Dolopes, near Pindus, through which the Achelous flowed.
Dŏlops, a Trojan, son of Lampus, killed by Menelaus. Homer, Iliad, bk. 15, li. 525.
Domidūcus, a god who presided over marriage. Juno also was called Domiduca, from the power she was supposed to have in marriages.
Domīnĭca, a daughter of Petronius, who married the [♦]emperor Valens.
[♦] ‘emperior’ replaced with ‘emperor’
Domitĭa lex, de Religione, was enacted by Domitius Ahenobarbus the tribune, A.U.C. 650. It transferred the right of electing priests from the college to the people.
Domĭtia Longīna, a Roman lady who boasted in her debaucheries. She was the wife of the emperor Domitian.
Domĭtiānus Titus Flavius, son of Vespasian and Flavia Domatilla, made himself emperor of Rome at the death of his brother Titus, whom, according to some accounts, he destroyed by poison. The beginning of his reign promised tranquillity to the people, but their expectations were soon frustrated. Domitian became cruel, and gave way to incestuous and unnatural indulgencies. He commanded himself to be called God and Lord in all the papers which were presented to him. He passed the greatest part of the day in catching flies and killing them with a bodkin, so that it was wittily answered by Vibius to a person who asked him who was with the emperor, “Nobody, not even a fly.” In the latter part of his reign Domitian became suspicious, and his anxieties were increased by the predictions of astrologers, but still more poignantly by the stings of remorse. He was so distrustful even when alone, that round the terrace, where he usually walked, he built a wall with shining stones, that from them he might perceive as in a looking-glass whether anybody followed him. All these precautions were unavailing; he perished by the hand of an assassin the 18th of September, A.D. 96, in the 45th year of his age and the 15th of his reign. He was the last of the 12 Cæsars. He distinguished himself for his love of learning, and in a little treatise which he wrote upon the great care which ought to be taken of the hair to prevent baldness, he displayed much taste and elegance, according to the observations of his biographers. After his death he was publicly deprived by the senate of all the honours which had been profusely heaped upon him, and even his body was left in the open air without the honours of a funeral. This disgrace might proceed from the resentment of the senators, whom he had exposed to terror as well as to ridicule. He once assembled that august body, to know in what vessel a turbot might be most conveniently dressed. At another time they received a formal invitation to a feast, and when they arrived at the palace, they were introduced into a large gloomy hall hung with black, and lighted with a few glimmering tapers. In the middle were placed a number of coffins, on each of which was inscribed the name of some one of the invited senators. On a sudden a number of men burst into the room, clothed in black, with drawn swords and flaming torches, and after they had for some time terrified the guests, they permitted them to retire. Such were the amusements and cruelties of a man who, in the first part of his reign, was looked upon as the father of his people, and the restorer of learning and liberty. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.—Eutropius, bk. 7.
Domĭtilla Flavia, a woman who married Vespasian, by whom she had Titus a year after her marriage, and, 11 years after, Domitian.——A niece of the emperor Domitian, by whom she was banished.