DONITIAN, TITUS FLAVIUS AU GUSTUS (do-mish'yan), the last of the "Twelve Cmsars," and youngest son of the Emperor Vespasian; born in 51 A. D. He early displayed the licentiousness and cruelty of his disposition, and was kept— both by his father and by his brother, the noble Titus, who succeeded Vespasian —entirely apart from public life. When proclaimed emperor, on the death of Titus, which he is suspected of having accelerated, if not procured, he proved the wisdom of the restraint which had been put upon him by the ferocity of his conduct. Aspiring to military fame he was unsuccessful in his undertakings, and after his defeat by the Dacians, who compelled him to make a humiliating peace, his natural disposition, suspicious, savage, gloomy and morose, manifested itself in all its naked deformity. To be honorable and virtuous was to be a mark for destruction, the mere suspicion Of patriotism a warrant for death. His bloody reign furnishes some of the most thrilling pages of Tacitus; and points with its keenest shafts the withering irony of the satirist Juvenal. After escap ing from many conspiracies, the monster fell, on Sept. 18, 96, the victim of a plot in which his wife, Domicia, bore a promi nent part.
DON (ancient, Tanals), a river of Russia, which issues from Lake Ivan Ozero, in the government of Tula; and flows S. E. through governments Riazan, Tambov, Voronej, and Don Cossacks, to within 37 miles of the Volga, where it turns abruptly S. W. for 236 miles, and falls into the Sea of Azof; whole course nearly 900 miles. The chief tributaries
are: Right bank, the Donetz and Voronej; left, the Khoper and Manitsch. Al though not admitting vessels of much draught, the Don carries a large traffic especially during the spring floods, and a canal connects it with the Volga system of navigation. It has also very extensive and productive fisheries.
DON, a river of Scotland, county of Aberdeen, rising near the Banffshire bor der. It flows tortuously E. through the whole breadth of Aberdeenshire, and falls into the North Sea a little to the N. of Aberdeen, after a total course of 82 miles. Its salmon fisheries are of considerable value. Also, a river of Yorkshire, Eng land, which rises near Cheshire, and joins the Ouse after a course of about 70 miles. It is navigable for small craft to Sheffield.
DON, or DOM (lord), a title originally assumed by the popes, from whom it de scended to bishops and other dignitaries, and finally to monks. In France, the title dom was conferred on the Carlo vingian kings; in Portugal and Brazil it is now the universal title of the higher classes. The Spanish don was originally confined to the nobility, but is now be stowed by courtesy as indiscriminately as the English Mr. or Esq. The feminine is dofia (Ital. donna). The Dan in "Dan Chaucer" is a form of the same word, and we still speak of "college dons.'