DONATUS, AELIUS, Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished in the middle of the 4th century a.d. The only fact known regarding his life is that he was the tutor of St Jerome. He was the author of a number of professional works, of which there are still extant:—Ars grammatica; the larger portion of his commentary on Terence (a compilation from other commentaries), but probably not in its original form; and a few fragments of his notes on Virgil, preserved and severely criticized by Servius, together with the preface and introduction, and life of Virgil. The first of these works, and especially the section on the eight parts of speech, though possessing little claim to originality, and in fact evidently based on the same authorities which were used by the grammarians Charisius and Diomedes, attained such popularity as a school-book that in the middle ages the writer’s name, like the French Calepin, became a common metonymy (in the form donet) for a rudimentary treatise of any sort. On the introduction of printing editions of the little book were multiplied to an enormous extent. It is extant in the form of an Ars Minor, which only treats of the parts of speech, and an Ars Major, which deals with grammar in general at greater length.
Aelius Donatus is to be distinguished from Tiberius Claudius Donatus, the author of a commentary (Interpretationes) on the Aeneid (of far less value than that of Servius), who lived about fifty years later.
The best text of the Ars and the commentaries upon it by Servius and others is in H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, iv.; of the commentary on Terence there is an edition by P. Wessner (1902, Teubner series), with bibliography and full account of MSS. See generally E. A. Gräfenhan, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie im Altertum, iv. (1850); P. Rosenstock, De Donato, Terenti ... explicatore (1886); H. T. Karsten, De comm. Don. ad Terenti fabulas origine et compositione (Leiden, 1907). For the commentary of Tiberius Donatus see O. Ribbeck, Prolegomena to Virgil, Gräfenhan (as above), and V. Burkas, De Tiberii Claudii Donati in Aeneidem commentario (1889). The text will be found in G. Fabricius’s edition of Virgil (1561), ed. by H. George, i. (1905 foll.).
DONAUWÖRTH, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the left bank of the Danube, at the confluence of the Wörnitz, 25 m. N. of Augsburg by rail and at the junction of lines to Ulm and Ingolstadt. Pop. 5000. It is an ancient town and has several medieval buildings of interest. Notable among its seven churches (six Roman Catholic) are the Kloster-Kirche (monasterial), a beautiful Gothic edifice with the sarcophagus of Maria of Brabant, and that of the former Benedictine abbey, Heilig-Kreuz, with a lofty tower. Remarkable among secular buildings are the Gothic town hall, and the so-called Tanz-haus, which now includes both a theatre and a school. The industries embrace machinery, brewing and saw-milling; the place is of some importance as a river port, and the centre of a considerable agricultural trade.
Donauwörth grew up in the course of the 11th and 12th centuries under the protection of the castle of Mangoldstein, became in the 13th a seat of the duke of Upper Bavaria, who, however, soon withdrew to Munich to escape from the manes of his wife Maria of Brabant, whom he had there beheaded on an unfounded suspicion of infidelity. The town received the freedom of the Empire in 1308, and maintained its position in spite of the encroachments of Bavaria till 1607, when the interference of the Protestant inhabitants with the abbot of the Heilig-Kreuz called forth an imperial law authorizing the duke of Bavaria to inflict chastisement for the offence. In the Thirty Years’ War it was stormed by Gustavus Adolphus (1632), and captured by King Ferdinand (1634). In the vicinity, on the Schellenberg, the Bavarians and French were defeated by Marlborough and Prince Louis of Baden on the 2nd of July 1704. The imperial freedom restored to the town by Joseph I. in 1705 was again lost by reincorporation with Bavaria in 1714. In the neighbourhood the Austrians under Mack were, on the 6th of October 1805, decisively defeated by the French under Soult.
See Königsdörfer, Geschichte des Klosters zum Heiligen Kreuz in Donauwörth (1819-20).
DON BENÍTO, a town of western Spain, in the province of Badajoz; near the left bank of the river Guadiana, on the Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon railway. Pop. (1900) 16,565. Don Beníto is a thriving and comparatively modern town; for it dates only from the 15th century, when it was founded by refugees from Don Llorente, who deserted their own town owing to the danger of floods from the Guadiana. Besides manufactures of brandy, flour, oil, soap, linen and cloth, it has an active trade in wheat, wine and fruit, especially melons.