DURIS, of Samos, Greek historian, according to his own account a descendant of Alcibiades, was born about 340 B.C. He must have been born and passed his early years in exile, since from 352 to 324 Samos was occupied by Athenian cleruchs, who had expelled the original inhabitants. He was a pupil of Theophrastus of Eresus, whom he met at Athens. When quite young, he obtained a prize for boxing at the Olympic games; a statue by Hippias was set up in commemoration of his victory (Pausanias vi. 13. 5). He was for some time despot of his native island. Duris was the author of a comprehensive historical work (Ἱστορίαι) on Hellenico-Macedonian history, from the battle of Leuctra (371) down to the death of Lysimachus (281), which was largely used by Diodorus Siculus. Other works by him included a life of Agathocles of Syracuse, the annals (ῶροι) of Samos chronologically arranged according to the lists of the priests of Hera, and a number of treatises on literary and artistic subjects. Ancient authorities do not appear to have held a very high opinion of his merits as a historian. Plutarch (Pericles, 28) expresses doubt as to his trustworthiness, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De compos. verborum, 4) speaks disparagingly of his style, and Photius (cod. 176) regards the arrangement of his work as altogether faulty. Cicero (ad Att. vi. 1) accords him qualified praise as an industrious writer.
Fragments in C. W. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. 446, where the passage of Pausanias referred to above and the date of Duris’s victory at Olympia are discussed.
DÜRKHEIM, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, near the foot of the Hardt Mountains, and at the entrance of the valley of the Isenach, 15 m. N.W. of Spires on the railway Monsheim-Neustadt. Pop. 6300. It possesses two Evangelical churches and one Roman Catholic, a town hall occupying the site of the castle of the princes of Leiningen-Hartenburg, an antiquarian and a scientific society, a public library and a high school. It is well known as a health resort, for the grape cure and for the baths of the brine springs of Philippshalle, in the neighbourhood, which not only supply the bathing establishment, but produce considerable quantities of marketable salt. There is a brisk trade in wine and oil; tobacco, glass and paper are manufactured.
As a dependency of the Benedictine abbey of Limburg, which was built and endowed by Conrad II., Dürkheim or Thurnigheim came into the possession of the counts of Leiningen, who in the 14th century made it the seat of a fortress, and enclosed it with wall and ditch. In the three following centuries it had its full share of the military vicissitudes of the Palatinate; but it was rebuilt after the French invasion of 1689, and greatly fostered by its counts in the beginning of next century. In 1794 its new castle was sacked by the French, and in 1849 it was the scene of a contest between the Prussians and the insurrectionists. The ruins of the Benedictine abbey of Limburg lie about 1 m. S.W. of the town; and in the neighbourhood rises the Kastanienberg, with the ancient rude stone fortification of the Heidenmauer or Heathen’s Wall.
DURLACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, 212 m. by rail from Carlsruhe, with which it is connected by a canal and an avenue of poplars, on the left bank of the Pfinz, at the foot of the vineyard-covered Thurmberg, which is crowned by a watch-tower and to the summit of which a funicular railway ascends. Pop. (1905) 6207. It possesses a castle erected in 1565 and now used as barracks, an ancient town hall, a church with an excellent organ, a high-grade school, an orphan asylum, and in the market-place a statue of the margrave Charles II. It has manufactures of sewing-machines, brushes, chemicals, tobacco, beer, vinegar and chicory; and considerable trade in market produce.
Durlach was bestowed by the emperor Frederick II. on the margrave Hermann V. of Zähringen as an allodial possession, but afterwards came into the hands of Rudolph of Habsburg. It was chosen as his residence by the margrave Charles II. in 1565, and retained this distinction till the foundation of Carlsruhe in 1715, though it was almost totally destroyed by the French in 1688. In 1846 it was the seat of a congress of the Liberal party of the Baden parliament; and in 1849 it was the scene of an encounter between the Prussians and the insurgents. Reichenbach the mechanician, and E. L. Posselt (1763–1804) the historian, were natives of the town.
See Fecht, Geschichte der Stadt Durlach (Heidelberg, 1869).
DUROC, GÉRAUD CHRISTOPHE MICHEL, duc de Frioul (1772–1813), French general, was born at Pont à Mousson (Meurthe et Moselle) on the 25th of October 1772. The son of an officer, he was educated at the military schools of his native town and of Châlons. He was gazetted second lieutenant (artillery) in the 4th regiment in 1793, and advanced steadily in the service. Captain Duroc became aide-de-camp to Napoleon in 1796, and distinguished himself at Isonzo, Brenta and Gradisca in the Italian campaigns of 1796–97. He served in Egypt, and was seriously wounded at Aboukir. His devotion to Napoleon was rewarded by complete confidence. He became first aide-de-camp (1798), general of brigade (1800), and governor of the Tuileries. After the battle of Marengo he was sent on missions to Vienna, St Petersburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen. As grand marshal of the Tuileries he was responsible for the measures taken to secure Napoleon’s personal safety whether in France or on his campaigns, and he directed the minutest details of the imperial household. After Austerlitz, where he commanded the grenadiers in the absence of General Oudinot, he was employed in a series of important negotiations with Frederick William of Prussia, with the elector of Saxony (December 1806), in the incorporation of certain states in the Confederation of the Rhine, and in the conclusion of the armistice of Znaim (July 1808). In 1808 he was created duke of Friuli, and after the Russian campaign he became senator (1813). He was in attendance on Napoleon at the battle of Bautzen (20th-21st May 1813) in Saxony, when he was mortally wounded, and died in a farmhouse near the battlefield on the 23rd of May. Napoleon bought the farm and erected a monument to his memory. Duroc was buried in the Invalides.
The chief source for Duroc’s biography is the Moniteur (31st of May 1797, 24th of October 1798, 30th of May 1813, &c.).
DUROCHER, JOSEPH MARIE ELISABETH (1817–1858), French geologist, was born at Rennes on the 31st of May 1817. Educated at the École Polytechnique and École des Mines in Paris, he qualified as a mining engineer. Early in his career he travelled in the northern parts of Europe to study the metalliferous deposits, and he contributed the articles on geology, mineralogy, metallurgy and chemistry to Paul Gaimard’s Voyages de la Commission scientifique du nord, en Scandinavie, en Laponie, au Spitzberg et aux Feröe, pendant les années 1838–1840. In 1844 he became professor of geology and mineralogy at Rennes. His attention was now largely directed to the study of the artificial production of minerals, to the metamorphism of rocks, and to the genesis of igneous rocks. In 1857 he published his famous Essai de pétrologie comparée, in which he expressed the view that the igneous rocks have been derived from two magmas which coexist beneath the solid crust, and are respectively acid and basic. He died at Rennes on the 3rd of December 1858.
DURRA (also written dourah, dhura, &c.; Arabic for a pearl, hence a grain of corn), a cereal grass, Sorghum vulgare, extensively cultivated in tropical and semi-tropical countries, where the grain, made into bread, forms an important article of diet. In non-Arabic-speaking countries it is known by other names, such as Indian or African millet, pearl millet, Guinea corn and Kaffir corn. In India it is called jowari, jowaree, jawari, &c. (Hindī, jawārī).
DURUY, JEAN VICTOR (1811–1894), French historian and statesman, was born in Paris on the 11th of September 1811. The son of a workman at the factory of the Gobelins, he was at first intended for his father’s trade, but succeeded in passing brilliantly through the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied under Michelet, whom he accompanied as secretary in his travels through France, supplying for him at the École Normale in 1836, when only twenty-four. Ill-health forced him to resign, and poverty drove him to undertake that extensive series of school textbooks which first brought him into public notice.
