Dehavites
Deha'vites (Chald. Dehaye', דֶּהָיֵא, or Dehave', דֶּהָוֵא, Sept. Δαναῖοι, Vulg. Dievi), one of the Assyrian tribes from which a colony was led out by Asnapper to repopulate Samaria, and who there joined their neighbors in opposing the reconstruction of the Temple at Jerusalem (Ezr 4:9). These Dahi were probably the Δάοι, Dai (Herod. 1:125), a nomade Persian tribe east of the Caspian Sea (Ammian. Marc. 20:8, p. 300, ed. Bip.), in the neighborhood of the Mardians, or Hyrcanians (Strabo, 11:508, 511; Pliny, 6:19; 37:33; Solin. 20), towards Margiana (Ptol. 6:10), under the rule of Darius (Curt. 4:126), and later of Alexander (Curt. 8:14, 5; 9:2, 24) and his successors (Livy, 27:40). This people appears to have been widely diffused, being found as Dahac (Δάαι) both in the country east of the Caspian (Strab. 11:8, 2; Arrian, Exped. Al. 3, 11, etc.), and in the vicinity of the Sea of Azof (Strab. 11:9, 3); and again as Dihi (Δῖοι, Thucyd. 2:96), or Daci (Δακοί, Strab., D. Cass., etc.), upon the Danube. Their name perhaps survives in the present district Daghestan. They were an Arian race, and are regarded by some as having their lineal descendants in the modern Danes (see Grimm's Geschicht. der Deutsch. Sprach. 1:192-3). The name is derived from the Persian dah, "a village;" Dehavites will therefore be equivalent to the Latin "Rustici." Their love of war and plunder induced them to serve as mercenaries under various princes (Arrian, 3, 11; v. 12); and their valor has immortalized them in the pages of Virgil as "indomiti Dahae" (AEn. 8:728). A band of them had doubtless entered the service of the Persian monarch, followed him to Palestine, and received for their reward grants of land in Samaria (Stephanus Byzant. s.v.; Ritter, Erdkunde, 7:668; Rawlinson's Herodotus, 1:338).
