Provisional accounts of the excavations have appeared during the excavations in theBulletin de correspondance hellénique. A summary is given in J. G. Frazer,Pausanias, vol. v. The official account is entitledFouilles de Delphes. For history see Hiller von Gärtringen in Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie, s.v.“Delphi.” For cult see L. R. Farnell,Cults of the Creek States, iv. 179-218. For the works of art discovered seeGreek Art.
Provisional accounts of the excavations have appeared during the excavations in theBulletin de correspondance hellénique. A summary is given in J. G. Frazer,Pausanias, vol. v. The official account is entitledFouilles de Delphes. For history see Hiller von Gärtringen in Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie, s.v.“Delphi.” For cult see L. R. Farnell,Cults of the Creek States, iv. 179-218. For the works of art discovered seeGreek Art.
(E. Gr.)
DELPHINIA,a festival of Apollo Delphinius held annually on the 6th (or 7th) of the month Munychion (April) at Athens. All that is known of the ceremonies is that a number of girls proceeded to his temple (Delphinium) carrying suppliants’ branches and seeking to propitiate Apollo, probably as a god having influence on the sea. It was at this time of year that navigation began again after the storms of winter. According to the story in Plutarch (Theseus, 18), Theseus, before setting out to Crete to slay the Minotaur, repaired to the Delphinium and deposited, on his own behalf and that of his companions on whom the lot had fallen, an offering to Apollo, consisting of a branch of consecrated olive, bound about with white wool; after which he prayed to the god and set sail. The sending of the maidens to propitiate the god during the Delphinia commemorates this event in the life of Theseus.
See A. Mommsen,Festeder Stadt Athen(1898); L. Preller,Griechische Mythologie(4th ed., 1887); P. Stengel,Die griechische Kultusaltertümer(1898); Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités; G. F. Schömann,Griechische Altertümer(4th ed., 1897-1902).
See A. Mommsen,Festeder Stadt Athen(1898); L. Preller,Griechische Mythologie(4th ed., 1887); P. Stengel,Die griechische Kultusaltertümer(1898); Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités; G. F. Schömann,Griechische Altertümer(4th ed., 1897-1902).
DELPHINUS(“The Dolphin”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th centuryB.C.) and Aratus (3rd centuryB.C.); and catalogued by Ptolemy (10 stars), Tycho Brahe (10 stars), and Hevelius (14 stars), ΓDelphiniis a double star: a yellowish of magnitude 4, and a bluish of magnitude 5.
DELTA(from the shape of the Gr. letter Δ, delta, originally used of the mouth of the Nile), a tract of land enclosed by the diverging branches of a river’s mouth and the seacoast, and traversed by other branches of the stream. This triangular tract is formed from the fine silt brought down in suspension by a muddy river and deposited when the river reaches the sea. When tidal currents are feeble, the delta frequently advances some distance seawards, forming a local prolongation of the coast.
DELUC, JEAN ANDRÉ(1727-1817), Swiss geologist and meteorologist, born at Geneva on the 8th of February 1727, was descended from a family which had emigrated from Lucca and settled at Geneva in the 15th century. His father, François Deluc, was the author of some publications in refutation of Mandeville and other rationalistic writers, which are best known through Rousseau’s humorous account of his ennui in reading them; and he gave his son an excellent education, chiefly in mathematics and natural science. On completing it he engaged in commerce, which principally occupied the first forty-six years of his life, without any other interruption than that which was occasioned by some journeys of business into the neighbouring countries, and a few scientific excursions among the Alps. During these, however, he collected by degrees, in conjunction with his brother Guillaume Antoine, a splendid museum of mineralogy and of natural history in general, which was afterwards increased by his nephew J. André Deluc (1763-1847), who was also a writer on geology. He at the same time took a prominent part in politics. In 1768 he was sent to Paris on an embassy to the duc de Choiseul, whose friendship he succeeded in gaining. In 1770 he was nominated one of the Council of Two Hundred. Three years later unexpected reverses in business made it advisable for him to quit his native town, which he only revisited once for a few days. The change was welcome in so far as it set him entirely free for scientific pursuits, and it was with little regret that he removed to England in 1773. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year, and received the appointment of reader to Queen Charlotte, which he continuedto hold for forty-four years, and which afforded him both leisure and a competent income. In the latter part of his life he obtained leave to make several tours in Switzerland, France, Holland and Germany. In Germany he passed the six years from 1798 to 1804; and after his return he undertook a geological tour through England. When he was at Göttingen, in the beginning of his German tour, he received the compliment of being appointed honorary professor of philosophy and geology in that university; but he never entered upon the active duties of a professorship. He was also a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and a member of several other scientific associations. He died at Windsor on the 7th of November 1817.
His favourite studies were geology and meteorology. The situation of his native country had naturally led him to contemplate the peculiarities of the earth’s structure, and the properties of the atmosphere, as particularly displayed in mountainous countries, and as subservient to the measurement of heights. According to Cuvier, he ranked among the first geologists of his age. His principal geological work,Lettres physiques et morales sur les montagnes el sur l’histoire de la terre et de l’homme, first published in 1778, and in a more complete form in 1779, was dedicated to Queen Charlotte. It dealt with the appearance of mountains and the antiquity of the human race, explained the six days of the Mosaic creation as so many epochs preceding the actual state of the globe, and attributed the deluge to the filling up of cavities supposed to have been left void in the interior of the earth. He published later an important series of volumes on geological travels in the north of Europe (1810), in England (1811), and in France, Switzerland and Germany (1813). These were translated into English.
Deluc’s original experiments relating to meteorology were valuable to the natural philosopher; and he discovered many facts of considerable importance relating to heat and moisture. He noticed the disappearance of heat in the thawing of ice about the same time that J. Black founded on it his ingenious hypothesis of latent heat. He ascertained that water was more dense about 40° F. (4° C.) than at the temperature of freezing, expanding equally on each side of the maximum; and he was the originator of the theory, afterward readvanced by John Dalton, that the quantity of aqueous vapour contained in any space is independent of the presence or density of the air, or of any other elastic fluid.
HisRecherches sur les modifications de l’atmosphère(2 vols. 4to, Geneva, 1772; 2nd ed., 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1784) contains many accurate and ingenious experiments upon moisture, evaporation and the indications of hygrometers and thermometers, applied to the barometer employed in determining heights. In thePhil. Trans., 1773, appeared his account of a new hygrometer, which resembled a mercurial thermometer, with an ivory bulb, which expanded by moisture, and caused the mercury to descend. The first correct rules ever published for measuring heights by the barometer were those he gave in thePhil. Trans., 1771, p. 158. HisLettres sur l’histoire physique de la terre(8vo, Paris, 1798), addressed to Professor Blumenbach, contains an essay on the existence of a General Principle of Morality. It also gives an interesting account of some conversations of the author with Voltaire and Rousseau. Deluc was an ardent admirer of Bacon, on whose writings he published two works—Bacon tel qu’il est(8vo, Berlin, 1800), showing the bad faith of the French translator, who had omitted many passages favourable to revealed religion, andPrécis de la philosophie de Bacon(2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1802), giving an interesting view of the progress of natural science.Lettres sur le Christianisme(Berlin and Hanover, 1801, 1803) was a controversial correspondence with Dr Teller of Berlin in regard to the Mosaic cosmogony. HisTraité élémentaire de géologie(8vo, Paris, 1809, also in English, by de la Fite, the same year) was principally intended as a refutation of the Vulcanian system of Hutton and Playfair, who deduced the changes of the earth’s structure from the operation of fire, and attributed a higher antiquity to the present state of the continents than is required in the Neptunian system adopted by Deluc after D. Dolomieu. He sent to the Royal Society, in 1809, a long paper on separating the chemical from the electrical effect of the pile, with a description of the electric column and aerial electroscope, in which he advanced opinions so little in unison with the latest discoveries of the day, that the council deemed it inexpedient to admit them into theTransactions. The paper was afterwards published in Nicholson’sJournal(xxvi.), and the dry column described in it was constructed by various experimental philosophers. This dry pile or electric column has been regarded as his chief discovery.
Many other of his papers on subjects kindred to those already mentioned are to be found in theTransactionsand in thePhilosophical Magazine. SeePhilosophical Magazine(November 1817).
Many other of his papers on subjects kindred to those already mentioned are to be found in theTransactionsand in thePhilosophical Magazine. SeePhilosophical Magazine(November 1817).
DELUGE, THE(through the Fr. from Lat.diluvium, flood,diluere, to wash away), a great flood or submersion of the earth (so far as the earth was known to the narrators), or of heaven and earth, or simply of heaven, by which, according to primitive and semi-primitive races, chaos was restored. It is, of course, not meant that all the current flood stories, as they stand, answer to this description. There are flood stories which, at first sight, may plausibly be held to be only exaggerated accounts of some ancient historical occurrences. The probability of such traditions being handed down is, however, extremely slight. If some flood stories are apparently local, and almost or quite without mythical colouring, it may be because the original myth-makers had a very narrow conception of the earth, and because in the lapse of time the original mythic elements had dwindled or even disappeared. The relics of the traditional story may then have been adapted by scribes and priests to a new theory. Many deluge stories may in this way have degenerated. It is at any rate undeniable that flood stories of the type described above, and even with similar minor details, are fairly common. A conspectus of illustrative flood stories from different parts of the world would throw great light on the problems before us; see the articleCosmogony, especially for the North American tales, which show clearly enough that the deluge is properly a second creation, and that the serpent is as truly connected with the second chaos as with the first. One of them, too, gives a striking parallel to the Babylonian name Ḫasis-andra (the Very Wise), whence comes the corrupt form Xisuthrus; the deluge hero of the Hare Indians is called Kunyan, “the intelligent.” Polynesia also gives us most welcome assistance, for its flood stories still present clear traces of the primitive imagination that the sky was a great blue sea, on which the sun, moon and stars (or constellations) were voyagers. Greece too supplies some stimulus to thought, nor are Iran and Egypt as unproductive as some have supposed. But the only pauses that we can allow ourselves are in Hindustan, Babylonia and Canaan. The peoples of these three countries, which are religiously so prominent in antiquity, have naturally connected their name equally with thoughts about earth production and earth destruction.
The Indian tradition exists in several forms.1The earliest is preserved in the Satapatha Brahmana. It is there related that Manu, the first man, the son of the sun-god Vivasvat, found, in bathing, a small fish, which asked to beIndian Tradition.tended, and in reward promised to save him in the coming flood. The fish grew, and at last had to be carried to the sea, where it revealed to Manu the time of the flood, and bade him construct a ship for his deliverance. When the time came, Manu, unaccompanied, went on board; the grateful fish towed the ship through the water to the summit of the northern mountain, where it bade Manu bind the vessel to a tree. Gradually, as the waters fell, Manu descended the mountain; he then sacrificed and prayed. In a year’s time his prayer was granted. A woman appeared, who called herself his daughter Idā (goddess of fertility). It is neither stated, nor even hinted, that sin was the cause of the flood.
Another version occurs in the great epic, the Mahābhārata. The lacunae of the earlier story are here supplied. Manu, for instance, embarks with the seven “rishis” or wise men, and takes with him all kinds of seed. The fish announces himself as the God Brahman, and enables Manu to create both gods andmen. A third account is given in the Bhāgavata Purāna. It contains the details of the announcement of the flood seven days beforehand (cf. Gen. vii. 4) and of the taking of pairs of all kinds of animals (cf. Gen. vi. 19), besides the seeds of plants (as the epic; cf. Gen. vi. 21). This story, however, is a late composition, not earlier than the 12th centuryA.D.A first glance at these stories is somewhat bewildering. We shall return, however, to this problem later with a good hope of mastering it.
The Israelite (Biblical) and the Babylonian deluge-stories remain to be considered. Neither need be described here in detail; for the former see Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, and for the latterGilgamesh. As most students are aware, theIsraelite and Babylonian.Biblical deluge-story is composite, being made up of two narratives, the few lacunae in which are due to the ancient redactor who worked them together.2The narrators are conventionally known as J. (= the Yahwist, from the divine name Yahweh) and P. (= the Priestly Writer) respectively. It is important to notice that P., though chronologically later than J., reproduces certain elements which must be archaic. For instance, while J. speaks only of a rain-storm, P. states that “all the fountains of the great ocean were broken up, and the windows of heaven opened” (Gen. vii. 11),i.e.the lower and the upper waters met together and produced the deluge. It is also P. who tells the story of the appointment of the rainbow (Gen ix. 12-17), which is evidently ancient, though only paralleled in a Lithuanian flood-story, and near it we find the divine declaration (Gen. ix. 2-6) that the golden age of universal peace (cf. Gen. i. 29, 30), already sadly tarnished, is over.3Surely this too has a touch of the archaic; nor can we err in connecting it with the tradition of man’s first home in Paradise, where no enemy could come, because, in the original form of the tradition, Paradise was the abode of God. (SeeParadise.)
The Babylonian tradition exists in two main forms,4nor can we affirm that the shorter form, due to Berōssus, is superseded by the larger one in the Gilgamesh epic, for it communicates four important points: (1) Xisuthrus, the heroBerōssus: four points.of the deluge, was also the tenth Babylonian king; cf. Noah, in P., the tenth patriarch as well as the survivor from the deluge; (2) the destination of Xisuthrus is said to be “to the gods,” a statement which virtually records his divine character. In accordance with this, the final reward of the hero is declared to be “living with the gods.” This suggests that Noah (?) may originally have been represented as a supernatural man, a demigod. True, Gen. ix. 20, 21 is not consistent with this, but it is very possible that Noah was substituted by a scribe’s error for Enoch,5who, like Xisuthrus, “walked with God (learning the heavenly wisdom) and disappeared, for God had taken him” (Gen. v. 22, 24); (3) the birds, when sent out by Xisuthrus the second time, return with mud on their feet. This detail reminds us of points in some archaic North American myths which probably supply the key to its meaning;6(4) in the time of Berōssus the mountain on which the ark grounded was considered to be in Armenia.
We pass on to the relation of J. and P. to the Babylonian story. (1) The polytheistic colouring of the latter contrasts strongly with the far simpler religious views of J. and P. Note the capricious character of the god Bel who sends theDetails on relation of Israelite story to Babylonian.deluge, while at the end of the story the catastrophe is represented as a judgment upon human sins. It is the latter view which is adopted by J. and P. We cannot, however, infer from this that the narratives which doubtless underlie J. and P. were directly taken from some such story as that in the Gilgamesh epic. The theory of an indirect and unconscious borrowing on the part of the Israelitish compilers will satisfy all the conditions of the case. (2) In the general scheme the three accounts very nearly agree, for J. must originally have contained directions as to the building of the vessel, and a notice that the ark grounded on a certain mountain. P.’s omission of the sacrifice at the close seems to be arbitrary. His theory of religious history forbade a reference to an altar so early, but his document must have contained it. J. expressly mentions it (Gen. viii. 20, 21), though not in such an original way as the cuneiform text. (3) As to the directions for building the ship (epic) or chest (J. and P.). Here the Babylonian story and P. have a strong general resemblance; note,e.g., the mention of bitumen in both. Whether the Hebrew reference to a chest (tēbah) is, or is not, more archaic than the Babylonian reference to a ship (elippu) is a question which admits of different answers. (4) As to the material cause of the deluge. According to P. (see above) the water came both from above and from below; J. only speaks of continuous rain. The Gilgamesh epic, however, mentions besides thunder, lightning and rain, a hurricane which drove the sea upon the land. We can hardly regard this as more original than P.’s representation. (5) As to the extent of the flood. From the opening of the story in the epic we should naturally infer that only a single S. Babylonian city was affected. The sequel, however, implies that the flood extended all over Babylonia and the region of Niṣir. More than this can hardly be claimed. Similarly the earlier story which underlies J. and P. need only have referred to the region of the myth-framers,i.e.either Canaan or N. Arabia. (6) As to the duration of the flood the traditions differ. P. reckons it at 365 days,i.e.a solar year, which is parallel to the 365 years of the life of Enoch (who, as we have seen, may have been the original hero of the flood). It is probable (see below) that P.’s ultimate authority, far back in the centuries, represented the deluge as a celestial occurrence. The origin of J.’s story is not quite so clear, owing to the lacunae in the narrative. If the text may be followed, this narrator made the flood last forty days and nights, after which two periods of seven days elapse, and then the patriarch leaves the ark. The epic shortens the duration of the flood to seven days, after which the ship remains another seven days (more strictly six full days) on the mountain of the land of Niṣir (P., the mountains of Ararat; J., unrecorded). (7) As to the despatch of the birds. J. begins, the epic closes, with the raven. Clearly the epic is more original. Besides, one of the two missions of the dove is evidently superfluous. Dove, swallow, raven, as in the epic, must be more primitive than raven, dove, dove.
That the Hebrew deluge-story in both its forms has been at least indirectly influenced by the Babylonian is obvious. We cannot indeed reconstruct the form either of the Canaanitish (or N. Arabian) story, which was recast partly at least under the influence of a recast Babylonian myth, nor can we conjecture where the sanctuary was, the priests of which, yielding to a popular impulse, adopted and modified the fascinating story. But the fact of the ultimate Babylonian origin of the Israelitish narratives cannot seriously be questioned. The Canaanites or the N. Arabians handed on at least a portion of their myths to the Israelites, and the creation and deluge stories were among these. That the Israelitish priests gradually recast them is an easy and altogether satisfactory conjecture.
It remains to ask, What is the history and significance of the deluge-myth? The question carries us into far-off times. We have no version of the Babylonian myth which goes back to about 2100B.C., while its text was apparentlyHistory and significance of deluge-myths.derived from a still older tablet. But even this is not primitive; behind it there must have been a much shorter and simpler myth. The recast represented by the existing versions of the myth must have been produced partly by the insertion, partly by the omission or modification, of mythic details, and by the application to the story thus produced of a particular mythic theory respecting the celestial world. The shorter myth referred to may—if we take hints from the very primitive myths of N. America—have run somewhat thus,omitting minor details: “The earth (a small enough earth, doubtless) and its inhabitants proved so imperfect that the beneficent superhuman Being, who had created it, or perhaps another such Being, determined to remake it. He, therefore, summoned the serpent or dragon who controlled the cosmic ocean, and had been subjugated at creation, to overwhelm the earth, after which the creator remade it better,7and the survivor and his family became the ancestors of a new human race.”
This, however, is only one possible representation. It may have been said that the serpent of his own accord, not having been killed by the creator, maliciously flooded the earth (cf. the Algonquian myth), but was again overcome in battle, or that the serpent, after filling the earth with violence and wrong, was at length slain by the Good Being, and that his blood, streaming, out, produced a deluge.8In any case it is unnatural to hold that the first flood (that which preceded creation) had a dragon, but not the second. An old cuneiform text, recopied late, however, appears to call the year of the deluge (i.e.of what we here call the second flood) “the year of the raging (or red-shining) serpent,”9and certainly the N. American myths distinctly connect serpents with the deluges.
Among the probable minor details (omitted above) of the presumed shorter and older myth we may include: (1) the warning of “Very-Wise,”10either by friendly animals or by a dream; (2) the construction of a chest to contain “Very-Wise,” his wife and his sons, together with animals;11(3) the despatch of three birds with a special object (see below); (4) the landing of the survivors on a mountain. As to (1), Berōssus suggests that the notice came to Xisuthrus in a dream; in the Indian myth it is the sacred fish which warns Manu. In the archaic N. American myths, however, it is some animal which gives the notice—an eagle or a coyote (a kind of wolf). As to (2), nothing is more common than the story of a divine child cast into the sea in a box.12The ship-motive is also found,13but it is not too rash to assume that the box-motive is the earlier, and, in accordance with the parallels, that the hero of the deluge was originally a god or a demigod. The translation of the hero to be with the gods is a transparent modification of the original tradition. As to (3), the original object of sending out the birds was probably not to find out where dry land was, but to use them as helpers in the work of re-creation. Take the story of the Tlatlasik Indians, where the diving-bird (one of three sent out) comes back with a branch of a fir-tree, out of which O’meatl made mountains, earth and heaven;14so, too, the Caingangs relate15that those who escaped from the flood, as they tarried on a mountain, heard the song of thesaracurabirds, who came carrying earth in baskets, and threw it into the waters, which slowly subsided. As to (4), the mountain would naturally be thought of as a place of refuge even in the old, simple flood-story. But when Babylonian mythology effected an entrance, the mountain would receive a new and much grander significance. It would then come to represent the summit of that great and most holy mountain, which, save by the special favour of the gods, no human eye has seen.
That a didactic element entered the deluge-tradition but slowly, may be surmised, not only from the genuinely old N. American stories, but from the inconsistent statements, to which Jastrow has already referred, in the Babylonian story. We may imagine that between the creation and the deluge some great and wise Being had initiated the early men, not only in the necessary arts of life, but in the “ways” that were pleasing to the heavenly powers. The Babylonians apparently think of neglected sacrifices, the Australians of a desecrated mystery as the cause of the flood. Some such violation of a sacred rule is the origin that naturally occurs to an adapter or expander of primitive myths.
And now as to the application of the celestial mythic theory to the early deluge-story. In the agricultural stage it was natural that men should take a deeper interest than before in the appearance of the sky, and especially of the sunCelestial myth theory.and moon, and of the constellations, even though an astrological science or quasi-science would very slowly, if at all, grow up. That the Polynesian myths (which show no vestige of science) originally referred to the supposed celestial ocean, seems to be plain. Schirren16regarded the New Zealand cosmogonies as myths of sunrise, and the deluge-stories as myths of sunset. We may at any rate plausibly hold, with the article “Deluge” (by Cheyne) in the ninth edition of this work17(1877), that the deluge-stories of Polynesia and early Babylonia (we may now probably add India) were accommodated to an imaginative conception of the sun and moon as voyagers on the celestial ocean. “When this story had been told and retold a long time, rationalism suggested that the sea was not in heaven but on earth, and observation of the damage wrought in winter by excessive rains and the inundations of great rivers suggested the introduction of corresponding details into the new earthly deluge-myth.” “This accounts for the strongly mythological character of Par-napishti (Ut-napishti) in Babylonia and Maui in New Zealand, who are in fact solar personages. Enoch, too, must be classed in this category, his perfect righteousness and superhuman wisdom now first become intelligible. Moreover, we now comprehend how the goddess Sabitu (the guardian of the entrance to the sea) can say to Gilgamesh (himself a solar personage), ‘Shamash the mighty (i.e.the sun-god) has crossed the sea; besides (?) Shamash, who can cross it?’ For though the sea in the epic is no doubt the earth-circling ocean, it was hardly this in the myth from which the words were taken.”18And, what is still more important, we can understand better how, in the Gilgamesh epic (lines 115-116), the gods, after cowering like dogs, go up to the “heaven of Ana.” They, too, fear the deluge, and only in the highest heaven can they feel themselves secure.
Such an explanation seems indispensable if the wide influence of the Babylonian form of the deluge-myth is to be accounted for. As Gunkel well remarks,19neither the tenacity and self-propagating character of this myth, nor the solemn utterance of Yahweh (who corresponds to the Babylonian Marduk) in Gen. viii. 21b(J.) and ix. 8-17 (P.) can be understood, if the deluge-story is nothing more than an exaggerated account of a historical, earthly occurrence. We, therefore, venture to hold that it is an insufficient account to give of the story in the Gilgamesh epic that it is a combination of a local tradition of the destruction of a single city with a myth of the destruction of mankind—a myth exaggerated in its present form, but based on accurate knowledge of the yearly recurring phenomenon of the overflow of the Euphrates.20There are no doubt points in the story as it now stands which indicate a composite origin, but it is probable that even the tradition which apparently limits the destruction to a single city, equally with many other local flood-stories, has a basis in what we may fairly call a celestial myth.
We can now return with some confidence to the Indian deluge-story. It is unlikely that so richly gifted a race as the Aryans of India should not have produced their own flood-story out of the same primeval germs which grew up into theIndian myth reconsidered.earliest Babylonian flood-story,21and almost inconceivable that in its second form the Indian story should not have become adapted to what may be called the celestial mythictheory. The phrase “the northern mountain” for the place where the ship grounded may quite well be the name of an earthly substitute (the epic has “the highest summit of the Himalaya”) for the mythic mountain of heaven. Nor is it unimportant that Manu is the son of the sun-god, and that the phrase “the seven rishis” in classical Sanskrit is a designation of the seven stars of the Great Bear. For such problems all that we can hope for is a probable solution. The opposite view22that the deluge is a historical occurrence implies a self-propagating power in early tradition which is not justified by critical research, and leaves out of sight many important facts revealed by comparative study.
For a conspectus of deluge-stories see Andree,Die Flutsagen, ethnographisch betrachtet(1891), by a competent anthropologist; E. Suess,Face of the Earth, i. 17 (1904); also Elwood Worcester,Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge(New York, 1901), Appendix ii., in tabular form, from Schwarz’sSintfluth und Völkerwanderungen. Dr Worcester’s work is popular, but based on well-chosen authorities. The article “Flood” in Hastings’D. B.is comprehensive; it represents the difficult view that flood-stories, &c., are generally highly-coloured traditions of genuine facts.
For a conspectus of deluge-stories see Andree,Die Flutsagen, ethnographisch betrachtet(1891), by a competent anthropologist; E. Suess,Face of the Earth, i. 17 (1904); also Elwood Worcester,Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge(New York, 1901), Appendix ii., in tabular form, from Schwarz’sSintfluth und Völkerwanderungen. Dr Worcester’s work is popular, but based on well-chosen authorities. The article “Flood” in Hastings’D. B.is comprehensive; it represents the difficult view that flood-stories, &c., are generally highly-coloured traditions of genuine facts.
(T. K. C.)
1See Muir,Sanscrit Texts, i. 182, 206 ff.2Cf. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby,The Hexateuch, ii. 9, where the documents are printed separately in a tabular form.3Isa. xi. 6-8 prophesies that one day this idyllic state shall be restored.4For a discussion of the Babylonian version of the Deluge Legend, recently discovered among the tablets from Nippur, seeNippur.5The genealogy in Gen. v. is hardly in its original form. Enoch is probably misplaced, and Noah inserted in error.6Cf.Cosmogony, and Cheyne’sTraditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel(on deluge-story).7Cf. the myths of the Pawnees and the Quichés of Guatemala.8See the cuneiform text described inKAT3, pp. 498-499.9Zimmern,KAT3, p. 554.10i.e.Atraḫasīs (Xisuthrus).11To have omitted the animals would have been an offence against primitive views of kinship.12Usener,Die Sintflutsagen, pp. 80-108, 115-127.13Ib. p. 254.14Stucken,Astralmythen, pp. 233-234.15Amer. Journ. of Folklore, xviii. 223 ff.16Schirren,Wandersagen der Neuseeländer(1856), p. 193.17Referring for Polynesia to Gerland in Waitz-Gerland,Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 270-273 (1872). After a long interval, this theory has been taken up by Zimmern,KAT³, p. 355, and by Jensen,Das Gilgamesch-Epos(1906), p. 120; Winckler (AOF, 3rd series, i. 96) also speaks of the deluge as a “celestial occurrence.” For other forms of this view see Jeremias,ATAO, pp. 134-136; Usener, p. 239.18Cheyne,Ency. Bib.cols. 1063-1064.19Genesis, p. 67.20Jastrow,Religion of Babylonia and Assyria(1898), pp. 502, 506.21The view here adopted is that of Lindner and Usener. On the opposite side are Zimmern, Tiele, Jensen, Oldenberg, Nöldeke, Stucken, Lenormant.22Held by Franz Delitzsch, Dillmann and Lenormant.
1See Muir,Sanscrit Texts, i. 182, 206 ff.
2Cf. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby,The Hexateuch, ii. 9, where the documents are printed separately in a tabular form.
3Isa. xi. 6-8 prophesies that one day this idyllic state shall be restored.
4For a discussion of the Babylonian version of the Deluge Legend, recently discovered among the tablets from Nippur, seeNippur.
5The genealogy in Gen. v. is hardly in its original form. Enoch is probably misplaced, and Noah inserted in error.
6Cf.Cosmogony, and Cheyne’sTraditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel(on deluge-story).
7Cf. the myths of the Pawnees and the Quichés of Guatemala.
8See the cuneiform text described inKAT3, pp. 498-499.
9Zimmern,KAT3, p. 554.
10i.e.Atraḫasīs (Xisuthrus).
11To have omitted the animals would have been an offence against primitive views of kinship.
12Usener,Die Sintflutsagen, pp. 80-108, 115-127.
13Ib. p. 254.
14Stucken,Astralmythen, pp. 233-234.
15Amer. Journ. of Folklore, xviii. 223 ff.
16Schirren,Wandersagen der Neuseeländer(1856), p. 193.
17Referring for Polynesia to Gerland in Waitz-Gerland,Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 270-273 (1872). After a long interval, this theory has been taken up by Zimmern,KAT³, p. 355, and by Jensen,Das Gilgamesch-Epos(1906), p. 120; Winckler (AOF, 3rd series, i. 96) also speaks of the deluge as a “celestial occurrence.” For other forms of this view see Jeremias,ATAO, pp. 134-136; Usener, p. 239.
18Cheyne,Ency. Bib.cols. 1063-1064.
19Genesis, p. 67.
20Jastrow,Religion of Babylonia and Assyria(1898), pp. 502, 506.
21The view here adopted is that of Lindner and Usener. On the opposite side are Zimmern, Tiele, Jensen, Oldenberg, Nöldeke, Stucken, Lenormant.
22Held by Franz Delitzsch, Dillmann and Lenormant.
DELYANNI, THEODOROS(1826-1905), Greek statesman, was born at Kalavryta, Peloponnesus, in 1826. He studied law at Athens, and in 1843 entered the ministry of the interior, of which department he became permanent secretary in 1859. In 1862, on the deposition of King Otho, he became minister for foreign affairs in the provisional government. In 1867 he was minister at Paris. On his return to Athens he became a member of successive cabinets in various capacities, and rapidly collected a party around him consisting of those who opposed his great rival, Tricoupi. In the so-called “Oecumenical Ministry” of 1877 he voted for war with Turkey, and on its fall he entered the cabinet of Koumoundoros as minister for foreign affairs. He was a representative of Greece at the Berlin Congress in 1878. From this time forward, and particularly after 1882, when Tricoupi again came into power at the head of a strong party, the duel between these two statesmen was the leading feature of Greek politics. (SeeGreece:History.) Delyanni first formed a cabinet in 1885; but his warlike policy, the aim of which was, by threatening Turkey, to force the powers to make concessions in order to avoid the risk of a European war, ended in failure. For the powers, in order to stop his excessive armaments, eventually blockaded the Peiraeus and other ports, and this brought about his downfall. He returned to power in 1890, with a radical programme, but his failure to deal with the financial crisis produced a conflict between him and the king, and his disrespectful attitude resulted in his summary dismissal in 1892. Delyanni, by his demagogic behaviour, evidently expected the public to side with him; but at the elections he was badly beaten. In 1895, however, he again became prime minister, and was at the head of affairs during the Cretan crisis and the opening of the war with Turkey in 1897. The humiliating defeat which ensued—though Delyanni himself had been led into the disastrous war policy to some extent against his will—caused his fall in April 1897, the king again dismissing him from office when he declined to resign. Delyanni kept his own seat at the election of 1899, but his following dwindled to small dimensions. He quickly recovered his influence, however, and he was again president of the council and minister of the interior when, on the 13th of June 1905, he was murdered in revenge for the rigorous measures taken by him against gambling houses.
The main fault of Delyanni as a statesman was that he was unable to grasp the truth that the prosperity of a state depends on its adapting its ambitions to its means. Yet, in his vast projects, which the powers were never likely to endorse, and without their endorsement were vain, he represented the real wishes and aspirations of his countrymen, and his death was the occasion for an extraordinary demonstration of popular grief. He died in extreme poverty, and a pension was voted to the two nieces who lived with him.
DEMADES(c.380-318B.C.), Athenian orator and demagogue. He was originally of humble position, and was employed at one time as a common sailor, but he rose partly by his eloquence and partly by his unscrupulous character to a prominent position at Athens. He espoused the cause of Philip in the war against Olynthus, and was thus brought into bitter and life-long enmity with Demosthenes, whom he at first supported. He fought against the Macedonians in the battle of Chaeroneia, and was taken prisoner. Having made a favourable impression upon Philip, he was released together with his fellow-captives, and was instrumental in bringing about a treaty of peace between Macedonia and Athens. He continued to be a favourite of Alexander, and, prompted by a bribe, saved Demosthenes and the other obnoxious Athenian orators from his vengeance. It was also chiefly owing to him that Alexander, after the destruction of Thebes, treated Athens so leniently. His conduct in supporting the Macedonian cause, yet receiving any bribes that were offered by the opposite party, caused him to be heavily fined more than once; and he was finally deprived of his civil rights. He was reinstated (322) on the approach of Antipater, to whom he was sent as ambassador. Before setting out he persuaded the citizens to pass sentence of death upon Demosthenes and his followers, who had fled from Athens. The result of his embassy was the conclusion of a peace greatly to the disadvantage of the Athenians. In 318 (or earlier), having been detected in an intrigue with Perdiccas, Antipater’s opponent, he was put to death by Antipater at Pella, when entrusted with another mission by the Athenians. Demades was avaricious and unscrupulous; but he was a highly gifted and practised orator.
A fragment of a speech (Περὶ δωδεκαετίας), bearing his name, in which he defends his conduct, is to be found in C. Müller’sOratores Attici, ii. 438, but its genuineness is exceedingly doubtful.
A fragment of a speech (Περὶ δωδεκαετίας), bearing his name, in which he defends his conduct, is to be found in C. Müller’sOratores Attici, ii. 438, but its genuineness is exceedingly doubtful.
DEMAGOGUE(Gr.δημαγωγός, fromἄγειν, to lead, andδῆμος, the people), a leader of the popular as opposed to any other party. Being particularly used with an invidious sense of a mob leader or orator, one who for his own political ends panders to the passions and prejudices of the people, the word has come to mean an unprincipled agitator.
DEMANTOID,the name given by Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld to a green garnet, found in the Urals and used as a gem stone. As it possesses high refractive and dispersive power, it presents when properly cut great brilliancy and “fire,” and the name has reference to its diamond-like appearance. It is sometimes known as “Uralian emerald,” a rather unfortunate name inasmuch as true emerald is found in the Urals, whilst it not infrequently passes in trade as olivine. Demantoid is regarded as a lime-iron garnet, coloured probably by a small proportion of chromium. The colour varies in different specimens from a vivid green to a dull yellowish-green, or even to a brown. The specific gravity of an emerald-green demantoid was found to be 3.849, and that of a greenish-yellow specimen 3.854 (A. H. Church). The hardness is only 6.5, or lower even than that of quartz—a character rather adverse to the use of demantoid as a gem. This mineral was originally discovered as pebbles in the gold-washings at Nizhne Tagilsk in the Ural Mountains, and was afterwards found in the stream called Bobrovka, in the Sysertsk district on the western slope of the Urals. It occurs not only as pebbles but in the form of granular nodules in a serpentine rock, and occasionally, though very rarely, shows traces of crystal faces.
(F. W. R.*)
DEMARATUS(DoricΔαμάρατος, IonicΔημάρητος), king of Sparta of the Eurypontid line, successor of his father Ariston. He is known chiefly for his opposition to his colleague Cleomenes I. (q.v.) in his attempts to make Isagoras tyrant in Athens and afterwards to punish Aegina for medizing. He did his utmost to bring Cleomenes into disfavour at home. Thereupon Cleomenes urged Leotychides, a relative and personal enemy of Demaratus, to claim the throne on the ground that the latter was not really the son of Ariston but of Agetus, his mother’s first husband. The Delphic oracle, under the influence of Cleomenes’ bribes, pronounced in favour of Leotychides, who became king (491B.C.). Soon afterwards Demaratus fled to Darius, who gave him the cities of Pergamum, Teuthrania and Halisarna, where his descendants were still ruling at the beginning of the 4th century (Xen.Anabasis, ii. 1. 3, vii. 8. 17;Hellenica, iii. 1. 6); to theseGambreum should perhaps be added (Athenaeus i. 29 f). He accompanied Xerxes on his expedition to Greece, but the stories told of the warning and advice which on several occasions he addressed to the king are scarcely historical.