DINOCRATES (called by Pliny Dinochares), a Greek architect, who lived in the reign of Alexander the Great. He applied to that king’s courtiers for an introduction to the Macedonian king, but was put off from time to timu with vain promises. Impatient at the delay, he is said to have laid aside his usual dress, besmeared his body with oil in the manner of an athlete, thrown a lion’s skin over his shoulders, and, with his head adorned with a wreath of palm branches, and a club in his hand, made his way through a dense crowd which surrounded the royal tribunal to the place where the king was dispensing justice. Amazed at the strange sight, Alexander asked him who he was. He replied that he had come into the royal presence to make known a scheme which would be worthy of the consideration of the greatest monarch in the world. Out of Mount Athos, a mountain rising like a pyramid to a height of 6780 feet topped with a cone of white limestone, ho proposed to construct the gigantic figure of a man, holding a large city in his right hand, while in his left he held a gigantic tank large enough to contain all the water from the brooks in the peninsula. The story goes that the king was not displeased with the idea, but, as he thought it chimerical, it came to nothing. Alexander, however, was so delighted with the man, and with his bold and darin g conceptions, that he carried Dinocrates with him when he went on his campaigns against Darius. He was employed by the king to design and lay out the city of Alexandria. This city was founded in 332 b.c., but the untimely death of Dinocrates prevented it from assuming the proportions intended by its designer. The Ephesians, whose temple of Diana had just been burnt down, employed him in its reconstruction. But perhaps the most original ...