DISTYLE (from Gr. δι, two, and στῦλος, column), the architectural term given to a portico which has two columns between antae, known as distyle-in-antis (see [Temple]).
DITHMARSCHEN, or Ditmarsh (in the oldest form of the name Thiatmaresgaho, Dietmar’s Gau), a territory between the Eider, the Elbe and the North Sea, forming the western part of the old duchy of Holstein, and now included in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. It contains about 550 sq. m. with 90,000 inhabitants. The territory consists to the extent of one half of good pasture land, which is preserved from inroads of the sea by banks and dams, the other half being mostly waste. It was originally colonized mainly from Friesland and Saxony. The district was subjugated and Christianized by Charlemagne in 804, and ranked as a separate Gau, included perhaps in the countship of Stade, or Comitalus utriusque ripae. From the same century, according to one opinion, or from the year 1182, when the countship was incorporated with their see, according to another, the archbishops of Bremen claimed supremacy over the land; but the inhabitants, who had developed and consolidated a systematic organism for self-government, made obstinate resistance, and rather attached themselves to the bishop of Schleswig. Ditmarsken, to use the Scandinavian form of the name, continued part of the Danish dominions till the disastrous battle of Bornhöved in 1227, when its former independence was regained. The claims of the archbishop of Bremen were now so far recognized that he exercised the royal rights of Heerbann and Blutbann,[1] enjoyed the consequent emoluments, and was represented first by a single advocatus, or Vogt, and afterwards by one for each of the five Döffts, or marks, into which the land was divided after the establishment of Meldorf. The community was governed by a Landrath of forty-eight elective consuls, or twelve from each of the four marks; and even in the 14th century the power of the episcopal advocati was so slight that a chronicler quoted by Conrad von Maurer says, De Ditmarschen leven sunder Heren und Hovedt unde dohn wadt se willen, “the Ditmarschen live without lord and head, and do what they will.” In 1319 and in 1404 they succeeded in defeating the invasions of the Holstein nobles; and though in 1474 the land was nominally incorporated with the duchy by the emperor Frederick III., the attempt of the Danish king Hans and the duke of Gottorp to enforce the decree in 1500 resulted only in their complete rout in the marshes of the Dussend-Düwels-Warf. During the early part of the century which began with such prestige for Ditmarsh, it was the scene of violent internal conflict in regard to the religious questions of the time; and, thus weakened, it was obliged in 1559 to submit to partition among its three conquerors—King Frederick II. of Denmark and Dukes John and Adolphus. A new division took place on Duke John’s death in 1581, by which Frederick obtained South Ditmarsh, with its chief town of Meldorf, and Adolphus obtained North Ditmarsh, with its chief town of Heide; and this arrangement continued till 1773, when all the Gottorp possessions were incorporated with the Danish crown.
See Dahlmann’s edition of Neocorus, Chronik von Dithmarschen (Kiel, 1827), and Geschichte Dänemarks (1840-1844); Michelsen, Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte des Landes Dithmarschen (1834), Sammlung altdithmarscher Rechtsquellen (1842), and Dithmarschen im Verhältniss zum bremischen Erzstift; Kolster, Geschichte Dithmarschens, nach F. R. Dahlmanns Vorlesungen (1873).
[1] That is, the right of claiming military service, and the right of bringing capital offenders to justice.
DITHYRAMBIC POETRY, the description of poetry in which the character of the dithyramb is preserved. It remains quite uncertain what the derivation or even the primitive meaning of the Greek word διθύραμβος is, although many conjectures have been attempted. It was, however, connected from earliest times with the choral worship of Dionysus. A dithyramb is defined by Grote as a round choric dance and song in honour of the wine-god. The earliest dithyrambic poetry was probably improvised by priests of Bacchus at solemn feasts, and expressed, in disordered numbers, the excitement and frenzy felt by the worshippers. This element of unrestrained and intoxicated vehemence is prominent in all poetry of this class. The dithyramb was traditionally first practised in Naxos; it spread to other islands, to Boeotia and finally to Athens. Arion is said to have introduced it at Corinth, and to have allied it to the worship of Pan. It was thus “merged,” as Professor G. G. Murray says, “into the Satyr-choir of wild mountain-goats” out of which sprang the earliest form of tragedy. But when tragic drama had so far developed as to be quite independent, the dithyramb did not, on that account, disappear. It flourished in Athens until after the age of Aristotle. So far as we can distinguish the form of the ancient Greek dithyramb, it must have been a kind of irregular wild poetry, not divided into strophes or constructed with any evolution of the theme, but imitative of the enthusiasm created by the use of wine, by what passed as the Dionysiac delirium. It was accompanied on some occasions by flutes, on others by the lyre, but we do not know enough to conjecture the reasons of the choice of instrument. Pindar, in whose hands the ode took such magnificent completeness, is said to have been trained in the elements of dithyrambic poetry by a certain Lasus of Hermione. Ion, having carried off the prize in a dithyrambic contest, distributed to every Athenian citizen a cup of Chian wine. In the opinion of antiquity, pure dithyrambic poetry reached its climax in a lost poem. The Cyclops, by Philoxenus of Cythera, a poet of the 4th century b.c. After this time, the composition of dithyrambs, although not abandoned, rapidly declined in merit. It was essentially a Greek form, and was little cultivated, and always without success, by the Latins. The dithyramb had a spectacular character, combining verse with music. In modern literature, although the adjective “dithyrambic” is often used to describe an enthusiastic movement in lyric language, and particularly in the ode, pure dithyrambs have been extremely rare. There are, however, some very notable examples. The Baccho in Toscana of Francesco Redi (1626-1698), which was translated from the Italian, with admirable skill, by Leigh Hunt, is a piece of genuine dithyrambic poetry. Alexander’s Feast (1698), by Dryden, is the best example in English. But perhaps more remarkable, and more genuinely dithyrambic than either, are the astonishing improvisations of Karl Mikael Bellman (1740-1795), whose Bacchic songs were collected in 1791 and form one of the most remarkable bodies of lyrical poetry in the literature of Sweden.
(E. G.)