(dactylus), a foot in the Latin and Greek poetry, consisting of a long syllable, followed by two short ones; as carmina.

Some say it is derived from δακτυλος, "a finger," because it is divided into three joints, the first of which is longer than the other two.

The dactyl is said to have been the invention of Dionysius or Bacchus, who delivered oracles in this measure at Delphos, before Apollo. The Greeks call it πολυτροπος. The dactyl and spondee are the most considerable of the poetical feet; as being the measures used in heroic verse by Homer, Virgil, &c. These two are of equal time, but not equal motion. The spondee has an even, strong, and steady pace, like a trot: the dactyl resembles the nimble strokes of a gallop.

DACTYLI IDEI; the Fingers of Mount Ida. Concerning these, Pagan theology and fable give very different accounts. The Cretans paid divine worship to them, as those who had nursed and brought up the god Jupiter; whence it appears that they were the fame as the Corybantes and Curetes. Nevertheless Strabo makes them different; and says, that the tradition in Phrygia was, that "the Curetes and Corybantes were descended from the Dactyli Idei: that there were originally an hundred men in the island, who were called Dactyli Idei; from whom sprang nine Curetes, and each of these nine produced ten men, as many as the fingers of a man's two hands; and that this gave the name to the ancestors of the Dactyli Idei." He relates another opinion, which is, that there were but five Dactyli Idei; who, according to Sophocles, were the inventors of iron: that these five brothers had five sisters, and that from this number they took the name of Fingers of Mount Ida, because they were in number ten: and that they worked at the foot of this mountain. Diodorus Siculus reports the matter a little differently. He says, "the first inhabitants of the island of Crete were the Dactyli Idei, who had their residence on Mount Ida: that some said they were an hundred; others only five in number, equal to the fingers of a man's hand, whence they had the name of Dactyli: that they were magicians, and addicted to mystical ceremonies: that Orpheus was their disciple, and carried their mysteries into Greece: that the Dactyli invented the use of iron and fire, and that they had been recompensed with divine honours."

Diomedes the grammarian says, the Dactyli Idei were priests of the goddess Cybele: called Idei, because that goddess was chiefly worshipped on Mount Ida in Phrygia; and Dactyli, because that, to prevent Saturn from hearing the cries of infant Jupiter, whom Cybele had committed to their custody, they used to sing certain verses of their own invention, in the Dactylic measure. See Curetes and Corybantes.