or BONUNI; an ancient people of Britain, who possessed the territory which now forms the counties of Oxford and Gloucester. Both the names of this British nation seem to have been derived from the low situation of a great part of the country which they inhabited: for both Duon and Bodan signify "profound" or "low," in the ancient language of Gaul and Britain. The Dobuni are not mentioned among the British nations who resisted the Romans under Julius Caesar, which was probably owing to the distance of their country from the scene of action; and before the next invasion under Claudius, they had been so much oppressed by their ambitious neighbours the Cattivellauni, that they submitted with pleasure to the Romans, in order to be delivered from that oppression. Cogidunus, who was at that time (as his name imports) prince of the Dobuni, recommended himself so effectually to the favour of the emperor Claudius, by his ready submission, and other means, that he was not only continued in the government of his own territories, but had some other states put under his authority. This prince lived so long, and remained so steady a friend and ally to the Romans, that his subjects, being habituated to their obedience in his time, never revolted, nor stood in need of many forts or forces to keep them in subjection. This is certainly the reason that we meet with so few Roman towns and stations in the country anciently inhabited by the Dobuni. The Durocornovium of Antoninus, and the Corinium of Ptolemy, are believed by antiquaries to have been the same place, the capital of the Dobuni, and situated at Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, where there are many marks of a Roman station, Cleveum or Glevum, in the thirteenth iter of Antoninus, flood where the city of Gloucester now stands; and Abone, in the fourteenth iter, was probably situated at Avinton on the Severn. The country of the Dobuni was comprehended in the Roman province Britannia Prima.

DOCETÆ (from doco to appear), in ecclesiastical history, the followers of Julius Caillianus, one of the Valentinian sects, towards the close of the second century, who revived a notion that had been adopted by a branch of the Gnostics, against whom St John, Ignatius, and Polycarp, had asserted the truth of the incarnation. They believed and taught, as their name imports, that the actions and sufferings of Jesus Christ were not in reality, but only in appearance.