See Migne, _Patrol. Graec._ xxxix.; O. Bardenhewer, _Patrologie_, pp. 290-293 (Freiburg, 1894).
DIDYMUS CHALCENTERUS (c. 63 B.C.-A.D. 10), Greek scholar and grammarian, flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus. His surname (Gr. [Greek: Chalkenteros], brazen-bowelled) came from his indefatigable industry; he was said to have written so many books (more than 3500) that he was unable to recollect their names ([Greek: bibliolathas]). He lived and taught in Alexandria and Rome, where he became the friend of Varro. He is chiefly important as having introduced Alexandrian learning to the Romans. He was a follower of the school of Aristarchus, upon whose recension of Homer he wrote a treatise, fragments of which have been preserved in the Venetian Scholia. He also wrote commentaries on many other Greek poets and prose authors. In his work on the lyric poets he treated of the various classes of poetry and their chief representatives, and his lists of words and phrases (used in tragedy and comedy and by orators and historians), of words of doubtful meaning, and of corrupt expressions, furnished the later grammarians with valuable material. His activity extended to all kinds of subjects: grammar (orthography, inflexions), proverbs, wonderful stories, the law-tablets ([Greek: axones]) of Solon, stones, and different kinds of wood. His polemic against Cicero's _De republica_ (Ammianus Marcellinus xxii. 16) provoked a reply from Suetonius. In spite of his stupendous industry, Didymus was little more than a compiler, of little critical judgment and doubtful accuracy, but he deserves recognition for having incorporated in his numerous writings the works of earlier critics and commentators.
See M. W. Schmidt, _De Didymo Chalcentero_ (1853) and _Didymi Chalcenteri fragmenta_ (1854); also F. Susemihl, _Geschichte der griech. Literatur in der Alexandrinerzeit_, ii. (1891); J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, i. (1906).
DIE, a town of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Drôme, 43 m. E.S.E. of Valence on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 3090. The town is situated in a plain enclosed by mountains on the right bank of the Drôme below its confluence with the Meyrosse, which supplies power to some of the industries. The most interesting structures of Die are the old cathedral, with a porch of the 11th century supported on granite columns from an ancient temple of Cybele; and the Porte St Marcel, a Roman gateway flanked by massive towers. The Roman remains also include the ruins of aqueducts and altars. Die is the seat of a sub-prefect, and of a tribunal of first instance. The manufactures are silk, furniture, cloth, lime and cement, and there are flour and saw mills. Trade is in timber, especially walnut, and in white wine known as _clairette de Die_. The mulberry is largely grown for the rearing of silkworms. Under the Romans, Die (_Dea Augusta Vocontiorum_) was an important colony. It was formerly the seat of a bishopric, united to that of Valence from 1276 to 1687 and suppressed in 1790. Previous to the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 it had a Calvinistic university.