an extensive open town of Arabia, in the country of Yemen, and the capital of a district. It has a large castle, and also a university, which, according to Niebuhr, contained five hundred persons, who were taught to read the Koran. It contains five thousand houses. It is fifty-six miles north from Sanaa, and ninety-four north-east from Mocha. Long. 44. 12. E. Lat. 14. 32. N.

Damascenus, John, an illustrious father of the church in the eighth century, born at Damascus, where his father, though a Christian, enjoyed the office of counsellor of state to the Saracen caliph, to which the son succeeded. He retired afterwards to the monastery of St Sabas, and spent the remainder of his life in writing books of divinity. His works have often been printed; but the Paris edition of 1712, in two volumes folio, is esteemed the best.

Damascius, a celebrated heathen philosopher, born at Damascus in the year 540, when the Goths reigned in Italy. He wrote the life of his master Isidorus, and dedicated it to Theodora, a learned and philosophical lady, who had also been a pupil to Isidorus. In this life, which was copiously written, he frequently made oblique attacks on the Christian religion. We have nothing remaining of it, however, except some extracts preserved by Photius. Damascius succeeded Theon in the rhetorical school, and Isidorus in that of philosophy, at Athens.