DIONYSIITS, OF HALIcAuxAssus, a learned critic, historian, and rhetorician, was the. son of one Alexander of Halicarnassus, and was b. probably about the middle of the century before Christ. He came to Rome at the termination of the civil wars, 29 B.c., and resided there for 22 years, familiarizing himself with the language, literature, and antiquities of the Romans. His death occurred shortly after 7 B.C. D.'s most val.., liable work is unquestionably his Ilistoru of Rome, although it does not exhibit the, finest qualities of his mind. The author was an admirable rhetorician, but had very little political discrimination, and no perception of the difference between a myth and a historic fact. Yet, inasmuch as it contains a mine of information about the con-, stitution, religion, history, laws, and private life of the Romans, it will always command + the regard of scholars. Of the 20 books of which it originally consisted, we possess only the first 9 in a complete form, the 10th and 11th nearly so: and of the rest, only a few fragments. The first edition of the Creek 'original was that by Stephens (Paris,:
1546), but a very good Latin version was published as early as 1480. Amrelo Mai published (Milan, 1816) a collection of the fragments of the lost books from a MS. in the library at Milan, the genuineness of which has been doubted by Niebuhr. The rhetorical and critical works of D. are of the highest literary merit. The principal are his Censures Veteran), Seriptorum, his Ars Rlaetorica, and his De. Composition Verborvm. The first complete edition of the history (or Arclixologia, as D. called it) and rhetorical works was that of Fr. Sylburg (Frankfort, 1586); one of the best is that of Reiske (6 vols., Leip., 1774-77).