upon a Time") had a great success on the boards of the
Royal theatre, Copenhagen; and his tragedies of _Volund Smed_ ("Wayland
the Smith") and _Brav-Karl_ (1897) made him the most popular playwright
of Denmark. He published in 1894 a volume of exquisitely fantastic
_Melodramas_ in rhymed verse, a collection which contains some of
Drachmann's most perfect work. His novel _Med den brede Pensel_ ("With
a Broad Brush," 1887) was followed in 1890 by _Forskrevet_, the history
of a young painter, Henrik Gerhard, and his revolt against his bourgeois
surroundings. With this novel is closely connected _Den hellige Ild_
("The Sacred Fire," 1899), in which Drachmann speaks in his own person.
There is practically no story in this autobiographical volume, which
abounds in lyrical passages. In 1899 he produced his romantic play
called _Gurre_; in 1900 a brilliant lyrical drama, _Hallfred
Vandraadeskjald_; and in 1903, _Det gronne Haab_. He died in Copenhagen
on the 14th of January 1908.

See an article by K. Gjellerup in Dansk _Biografisk Lexikon_ vol. iv.
(Copenhagen, 1890). (E. G.)

DRACO (7th century B.C.), Athenian statesman, was Archon Eponymus (but
see J. E. Sandys, _Constitution of Athens_, p. 12, note) in 621 B.C. His
name has become proverbial as an inexorable lawgiver. Up to his time the
laws of Athens were unwritten, and were administered arbitrarily by the
Eupatridae. As at Rome by the twelve Tables, so at Athens it was found
necessary to allay the discontent of the people by publishing these
unwritten laws in a codified form, and Draco, himself a Eupatrid,
carried this out. According to Plutarch (_Life of Solon_): "For nearly
all crimes there was the same penalty of death. The man who was
convicted of idleness, or who stole a cabbage or an apple, was liable to
death no less than the robber of temples or the murderer." For the
institution of the 51 Ephetae and their relation to the Areopagus in
criminal jurisdiction see GREEK LAW, The orator Demades (d. c. 318 B.C.)
said that Draco's laws were written in blood. Whether this implies
peculiar severity, or merely reflects the attitude of a more refined age
to the barbarous enactments of a primitive people, among whom the
penalty of death was almost universal for all crimes, cannot be decided.
According to Suidas, however, in his _Lexicon_, the people were so
overjoyed at the change he made, that they accidentally suffocated him
in the theatre at Aegina with the