OOTNOTE:

[1] A passage (long overlooked) in Cicero, _De republica_, shows
that, by the 1st century B.C. the interpolation had already been
made; the quotation is evidently taken from the list in c. xli. of
the _Constitution_, which it reproduces.

DRACO ("the Dragon"), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern
hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd
century B.C.); it was catalogued by Ptolemy, 31 stars, Tycho Brahe, 32,
Hevelius, 40. The Greeks had many fables concerning this constellation;
one is that when Heracles killed the dragon guarding the Hesperian fruit
Hera transferred the creature to heaven as a reward for its services.
The planetary nebula _H. IV. 37 Draconis_ is of a decided pale blue
colour, and one of the most conspicuous objects of its class.

DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS, of Carthage (according to the early
tradition, of Spanish origin), Christian poet, flourished in the latter
part of the 5th century A.D. He belonged to a family of landed
proprietors, and practised as an advocate in his native place. After the
conquest of the country by the Vandals, Dracontius was at first allowed
to retain possession of his estates, but was subsequently deprived of
his property and thrown into prison by the Vandal king, whose triumphs
he had omitted to celebrate, while he had written a panegyric on a
foreign and hostile ruler. He subsequently addressed an elegiac poem to
the king, asking pardon and pleading for release. The result is not
known, but it is supposed that Dracontius obtained his liberty and
migrated to northern Italy in search of peace and quietness. This is
consistent with the discovery at Bobbio of a 15th-century MS., now in
the Museo Borbonico at Naples, containing a number of poems by
Dracontius (the _Carmina minora_). The most important of his works is
the _De laudibus Dei_ or _De Deo_ in three books, wrongly attributed by
MS. tradition to St Augustine. The account of the creation, which
occupies the greater part of the first book, was at an early date edited
separately under the title of _Hexaemeron_, and it was not till 1791
that the three books were edited by Cardinal Arevalo. The apology
(_Satisfactio_) consists of 158 elegiac couplets; it is generally
supposed that the king addressed is Gunthamund (484-496). The _Carmina
minora_, nearly all in hexameter verse, consist of school exercises and
rhetorical declamations, amongst others the