DĒMŎSĬI (δημόσιοι), public slaves at Athens, who were purchased by the state. The public slaves, most frequently mentioned, formed the city guard; it was their duty to preserve order in the public assembly, and to remove any person whom the prytaneis might order. They are generally called bowmen (τοξόται); or from the native country of the majority, Scythians (Σκύθαι); and also Speusinians, from the name of the person who first established the force. They originally lived in tents in the market-place, and afterwards upon the Areiopagus. Their officers had the name of toxarchs (τόξαρχοι). Their number was at first 300, purchased soon after the battle of Salamis, but was afterwards increased to 1200. DĒMUS (δῆμος), originally indicated a district or tract of land; and in this meaning of a country district, inhabited and under cultivation, it is contrasted with πόλις. When Cleisthenes, at Athens, broke up the four tribes of the old constitution, he substituted in their place ten local tribes (φυλαὶ τοπικαί), each of which he subdivided into ten _demi_ or country parishes, possessing each its principal town; and in some one of these demi were enrolled all the Athenian citizens resident in Attica, with the exception, perhaps, of those who were natives of Athens itself. These subdivisions corresponded in some degree to the _naucrariae_ (ναυκραρίαι) of the old tribes, and were originally one hundred in number. These demi formed independent corporations, and had each their several magistrates, landed and other property, with a common treasury. They had likewise their respective convocations or “parish meetings,” convened by the _demarchi_, in which was transacted the public business of the demus, such as the leasing of its estates, the elections of officers, the revision of the registers or lists of δημόται, and the admission of new members. Independent of these bonds of union, each demus seems to have had its peculiar temples and religious worship. There were likewise judges, called δικασταὶ κατα δημους, who decided cases where the matter in dispute was of less value than ten drachmae. Admission into a demus was necessary before any individual could enter upon his full rights and privileges as an Attic citizen. The register of enrolment was called ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον. DĒNĀRĬUS, the principal silver coin among the Romans, was so called because it was originally equal to ten asses; but on the reduction of the weight of the as [AS], it was made equal to sixteen asses, except in military pay, in which it was still reckoned as equal to ten asses. The denarius was first coined five years before the first Punic war, B.C. 269. [ARGENTUM.] The average value of the denarii coined at the end of the commonwealth is about 8½_d._, and those under the empire about 7½_d._ If the denarius be reckoned in value 8½_d._, the other Roman coins of silver will be of the following value: