Diodo´rus of Agyrium, in Sicily, and therefore called Siculus; a Greek historian in the time of Julius Cæsar and Augustus. His universal history, in the composition of which he travelled through a great part of Europe and Asia, occupied him thirty years, and consisted of 40 books, but only books 1-5 and 11-20, with certain fragments, are now extant.
Diœcious (Gr. di, double, oikos, a house), in botany, a term applied to plants which have flowers with stamens on one individual and those with pistils on another; as opposed to monœcious. The willow, the yew, the poplar, &c., are diœcious.
Diogenes Laërtius, author of a sort of history of philosophy in Greek, appears to have been born at Laerte, in Cilicia, and to have lived towards the close of the second century after Christ; but no certain information exists either as to his life, studies, or age. The work is divided into ten books, and bears in MSS. the title, On the Lives, Doctrines, and Apothegms of those who have distinguished themselves in Philosophy. It is full of absurd and improbable anecdotes, but contains valuable information regarding the private life of the Greeks, and many fragments of works now lost. It was the foundation of the earlier modern histories of philosophy. A translation of his work by C. D. Yonge was published in Bohn's Classical Library.
Diogenes (di-oj´ē-nēz) of Apollonia (Crete), known also as the Physicist, a Greek philosopher of the fifth century B.C., who belonged to the Ionian school, and considered air as the element of all things. He was a pupil of Anaximenes and a contemporary of Anaxagoras.
Diogenes of Sinopē (on the Black Sea), the most famous of the Cynic philosophers, born about 412 B.C., died about 323 B.C. Having been banished from his native place with his father, who had been accused of coining false money, he went to Athens, and thrust himself upon Antisthenes as a disciple. Like Antisthenes he despised all philosophical speculations, and opposed the corrupt morals of his time; but while the stern austerity of
Antisthenes was repulsive, Diogenes exposed the follies of his contemporaries with wit and good humour. As an exemplar of Cynic virtue he satisfied his appetite with the coarsest food, practised the most rigid temperance, walked through the streets of Athens barefoot, without any coat, with a long beard, a stick in his hand, and a wallet on his shoulders, and by night, according to the popular story, slept in a tub (or large earthenware vessel). On a voyage to the Island of Ægina he fell into the hands of pirates, who sold him as a slave to the Corinthian Xeniades. The latter emancipated him, and entrusted him with the education of his children. He attended to the duties of his new employment with the greatest care, commonly living in summer at Corinth and in winter at Athens. It is at Corinth that he is said to have had his famous interview with Alexander the Great. The Macedonian conqueror was so struck with the philosopher's self-possession that he went away remarking: "If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes". Of the many stories related of him the majority are probably fictions; many, indeed, are chronologically impossible. Concerned with practical wisdom, Diogenes established no system of philosophy. To gain virtue, he maintained, man must avoid physical pleasure, despise the conventions of society, and adopt a simple and natural life. His enemies accused him of various scandalous offences, but there is no ground for supposing him guilty of any worse fault than that of elevating impertinence to the rank of a fine art. See Cynics.
Diomedes (dī-o-mē´dēz), in Greek mythology, (1) the son of Mars and Cyrene, and King of the Bistŏnes in Thrace, who fed his horses on human flesh, and used to throw all strangers who entered his territories to those animals to be devoured. He was killed by Hercules, who carried off the horses. (2) One of the heroes at the siege of Troy, the son of Tydeus and Deïpyle, and King of Argos, one of the suitors of Helen. After she was carried off, Diomedes engaged in the expedition against Troy, in which his courage and the protection of Pallas rendered him one of the most distinguished heroes. He wounded Aphrodite and Ares, and thrice assailed Apollo; and by carrying off the horses of Rhœsus from the enemies' tents, and aiding Ulysses in the removal of Philoctetes from Lemnos, he fulfilled two of the conditions on which alone Troy could be conquered. Finally he was one of the heroes concealed in the wooden horse by which the capture of Troy was at length accomplished. Different accounts were given of his after-life. He is often called Diomede.
Dionæ´a, a genus of plants, nat. ord. Droseraceæ. Only one species is known, D. muscipŭla (Venus's fly-trap), a native of the sandy savannas of Carolina and Florida. It has a rosette of root-leaves, from which rises a naked scape bearing a corymb of largish white flowers. The leaves have a dilated petiole and a slightly stalked 2-lobed lamina, with three short stiff bristles on each lobe. The bristles are remarkably irritable, and when touched by a fly, or other insect, the lobes of the leaf suddenly close on and capture the insect. It dissolves the food thus captured by means of digestive fluid similar to ordinary gastric juice.
Dion Cassius, or Dio Cassius, a Greek historian, born about A.D. 155 at Nicæa, in Bithynia. After accompanying his father to Cilicia, of which he held the administration, he came to Rome about 180, and obtained the rank of a Roman Senator. On the accession of Pertinax Dion was appointed Prætor, and in the reign of Caracalla he was one of the Senators whom it had become customary to select to accompany the emperor in his expeditions, of which he complains bitterly. In 219 he was raised to the consulship, and about 224 became Proconsul of Africa. In 229 he was again appointed Consul; but feeling his life precarious under Alexander Severus, he obtained permission to retire to his native town of Nicæa. The period of his death is unknown. The most important of his writings, though only a small part is extant, is a History of Rome, written in Greek and divided into eighty books, from the arrival of Æneas in Italy and the foundation of Alba and Rome to A.D. 229.
Dion Chrysostom, a Greek sophist and rhetorician and a favourite of Trajan; born A.D. 50, died about A.D. 110. Eighty of his orations (in excellent Attic) have been preserved.