DIONYSIUS THRAX (so called because his father was a Thracian), the author of the first Greek grammar, flourished about 100 B.C. He was a native of Alexandria, where he attended the lectures of Aristarchus, and afterwards taught rhetoric in Rhodes and Rome. His grammar, which we possess (though probably not in its original form), begins with the definition of grammar and its functions. Dealing next with accent, punctuation marks, sounds and syllables, it goes on to the eight parts of speech and their inflections. No rules of syntax are given, and nothing is said about style. The authorship of Dionysius was doubted in the middle ages, and in modern times its origin has been attributed to the oecumenical college founded by Constantine the Great, which existed till 73o. But there seems no reason for doubt; the great grammarians of imperial times (Apollonius Dyscolus and Herodian) knew the work in its present form, although addi tions and alterations may have been made later. Dionysius also wrote commentaries on Homer and Hesiod and various other works, including an account of Rhodes, and a collection of MEMrac (literary studies), to which the considerable fragment in the Stromata (v. 8) of Clement of Alexandria probably belongs. The grammar, first edited by J. A. Fabricius from a Hamburg ms., was published in his Bibliotheca Graeca, vi. (ed. Harles). An Armenian translation, belonging to the 4th or 5th century, con taining five additional chapters, was published with the Greek text and a French version, by M. Cirbied (183o).