he surrounded himself with a guard and no longer showed himself to the people, but gave his judgments in writing and controlled the people by officials and spies. He united all the Median tribes, and ruled fifty-three years (c. 699–647 B.C.), though perhaps, as G. Rawlinson supposed, the fifty-three years of his reign are exchanged by mistake with the twenty-two years of his son Phraortes, under whom the Median conquests began.
The narration of Herodotus is only a popular tradition which derives the origin of kingship from its judicial functions, considered as its principal and most beneficent aspect. We know from the Assyrian inscriptions that just at the time which Herodotus assigns to Deioces the Medes were divided into numerous small principalities and subjected to the great Assyrian conquerors. Among these petty chieftains, Sargon in 715 mentions Dāyukku, “lieutenant of Man” (he probably was, therefore, a vassal of the neighbouring king of Man in the mountains of south-eastern Armenia), who joined the Urartians and other enemies of Assyria, but was by Sargon transported to Hamath in Syria “with his clan.” His district is called “bit-Dāyaukki,” “house of Deioces,” also in 713, when Sargon invaded these regions again. So it seems that the dynasty, which more than half a century later succeeded in throwing off the Assyrian yoke and founded the Median empire, was derived from this Dāyukku, and that his name was thus introduced into the Median traditions, which contrary to history considered him as founder of the kingdom. (Ed. M.)
DEÏOTARUS, a tetrarch of Galatia (Gallo-Graecia) in Asia Minor, and a faithful ally of the Romans. He is first heard of at
the beginning of the third Mithradatic war, when he drove out
the troops of Mithradates under Eumachus from Phrygia. His
most influential friend was Pompey, who, when settling the
affairs of Asia (63 or 62 B.C.), rewarded him with the title of king
and an increase of territory (Lesser Armenia). On the outbreak
of the civil war, Deïotarus naturally sided with his old patron
Pompey, and after the battle of Pharsalus escaped with him to
Asia. In the meantime Pharnaces, the son of Mithradates, had
seized Lesser Armenia, and defeated Deïotarus near Nicopolis.
Fortunately for Deïotarus, Caesar at that time (47) arrived in
Asia from Egypt, and was met by the tetrarch in the dress of a
suppliant. Caesar pardoned him for having sided with Pompey,
ordered him to resume his royal attire, and hastened against
Pharnaces, whom he defeated at Zela. In consequence of the
complaints of certain Galatian princes, Deïotarus was deprived
of part of his dominions, but allowed to retain the title of king.
On the death of Mithradates of Pergamum, tetrarch of the Trocmi,
Deïotarus was a candidate for the vacancy. Other tetrarchs also
pressed their claims; and, further, Deïotarus was accused by
his grandson Castor of having attempted to assassinate Caesar
when the latter was his guest in Galatia. Cicero, who entertained
a high opinion of Deïotarus, whose acquaintance he had
made when governor of Cilicia, undertook his defence, the case
being heard in Caesar’s own house at Rome. The matter was
allowed to drop for a time, and the assassination of Caesar
prevented any final decision being pronounced. In his speech
Cicero briefly dismisses the charge of assassination, the main
question being the distribution of the provinces, which was the
real cause of the quarrels between Deïotarus and his relatives.
After Caesar’s death, Mark Antony, for a large monetary
consideration, publicly announced that, in accordance with
instructions left by Caesar, Deïotarus was to resume possession
of all the territory of which he had been deprived. When civil
war again broke out, Deïotarus was persuaded to support
Brutus and Cassius, but after the battle of Philippi went over
to the triumvirs. He remained in possession of his kingdom
till his death at a very advanced age.
See Cicero, Philippica, ii. 37; Ad fam. viii. 10, ix. 12, xv. 1, 2, 4; Ad Att. xiv. 1; De divin. i. 15, ii. 36, 37; De harusp. resp. 13, and above all Pro rege Deiotaro; Appian, Bell. Mithrid. 75, 114; Bellum Alexandrinum, 34-41, 65-77; Dio Cassius xli. 63, xlii. 45, xlvii. 24, 48, xlviii. 33.
DEIR, or Deir Ez-Zor, a town of Asiatic Turkey, on the
right bank of the Euphrates, 271/2 m. above its junction with the
Khabor, lat. 35° 20′ N., long. 40° 12′ E. Pop. 8000 and upward,
about one-tenth Christians; except in the official classes, there
are no Turks. It is the capital and the only considerable town
of the Zor sanjak, formed in 1857, which includes Ras el-ʽAin on
the north and Palmyra on the south, with a total area of 32,820
sq. m., chiefly desert, and an estimated population of 100,000,
mostly Arab nomads. Deir itself is a thrifty and rising town,
having considerable traffic; it is singularly European in appearance,
with macadamized streets and a public garden. The name
Deir means monastery, but there is no other trace or tradition of
the occupation of the site before the 14th century, and until it
became the capital of the sanjak it was an insignificant village.
It is an important centre for the control of the Bedouin Arabs,
and has a garrison of about 1000 troops, including a special corps
of mule-riders. It is also a road centre, the roads from the
Mediterranean to Bagdad by way of Aleppo and Damascus
respectively meeting here. A road also leads northward, by
Sinjar, to Mosul, crossing the river on a stone bridge, built in
1897, the only permanent bridge over the Euphrates south of
Asia Minor.
(J. P. Pe.)
DEIRA, the southern of the two English kingdoms afterwards
united as Northumbria. According to Simeon of Durham it
extended from the Humber to the Tyne, but the land was waste north of the Tees. York was the capital of its kings. The date
of its first settlement is quite unknown, but the first king of whom
we have any record is Ella or Ælle, the father of Edwin, who is
said to have been reigning about 585. After his death Deira
was subject to Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria, until the accession
of Edwin, in 616 or 617, who ruled both kingdoms (see Edwin) till 633. Osric the nephew of Edwin ruled Deira (633–634), but his son Oswine was put to death by Oswio in 651. For a few years subsequently Deira was governed by Æthelwald son of Oswald.
See Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ii. 14, iii. 1, 6, 14 (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Nennius, Historia Brittonum, § 64 (ed. Th. Mommsen, Berlin, 1898); Simeon of Durham, Opera, i. 339 (ed. T. Arnold, London, 1882–1885).
DEISM (Lat. deus, god), strictly the belief in one supreme God.
It is however the received name for a current of rationalistic
theological thought which, though not confined to one country,
or to any well-defined period, was most conspicuous in England in
the last years of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century.
The deists, differing widely in important matters of belief, were
yet agreed in seeking above all to establish the certainty and
sufficiency of natural religion in opposition to the positive
religions, and in tacitly or expressly denying the unique
significance of the supernatural revelation in the Old and New
Testaments. They either ignored the Scriptures, endeavoured
to prove them in the main by a helpful republication of the
Evangelium aeternum, or directly impugned their divine character,
their infallibility, and the validity of their evidences as a
complete manifestation of the will of God. The term “deism”
not only is used to signify the main body of the deists’ teaching,
or the tendency they represent, but has come into use as a
technical term for one specific metaphysical doctrine as to the
relation of God to the universe, assumed to have been characteristic
of the deists, and to have distinguished them from atheists,
pantheists and theists,—the belief, namely, that the first cause
of the universe is a personal God, who is, however, not only distinct from the world but apart from it and its concerns.
The words “deism” and “deist” appear first about the middle of the 16th century in France (cf. Bayle’s Dictionnaire, s.v. “Viret,” note D), though the deistic standpoint had already been foreshadowed to some extent by Averroists, by Italian authors like Boccaccio and Petrarch, in More’s Utopia (1515), and by French writers like Montaigne, Charron and Bodin. The first specific attack on deism in English was Bishop Stillingfleet’s Letter to a Deist (1677). By the majority of those historically known as the English deists, from Blount onwards, the name was owned and honoured. They were also occasionally called “rationalists.” “Free-thinker” (in Germany, Freidenker) was generally taken to be synonymous with “deist,” though obviously
