DICAEARCHUS, of Messene in Sicily, Peripatetic philos opher and pupil of Aristotle, historian, and geographer, flourished about 320 B.C. He was a friend of Theophrastus, to whom he dedi cated the majority of his works. Of his writings only the titles and a few fragments survive. The most important of them was his O%os T?s `EXXkSos (Life in Greece), in which the moral, political, and social condition of the people was fully discussed. In his Tripolitikos he described the best form of government as a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and illustrated it by the example of Sparta. Among the philosophical works of Dicaearchus may be mentioned the Lesbiakoi, a dialogue in three books, showing that the soul is mortal, to which he added a sup plement called Korinthiakoi. He also wrote a Description of the World, illustrated by maps, in which was probably included his Measurements of Mountains. A description of Greece (15o iam bics, in C. Muller Frag. hist. Graec. i. 238-243) was formerly attributed to him, but was really the work of Dionysius, son of Calliphon. The De republica is supposed to be founded on one of Dicaearchus's works.
The best edition of the fragments is by M. Fuhr (1841) , a work of great learning; see also a dissertation by F. G. Osann, Beitrage zur rom. and griech. Literatur, ii. pp. 1-117 (1839) ; Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopddie der klass. Altertumswiss, v. pt. 1 (1905) .