DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS, Greek critic, historian and rhetorician : b. about 50 B.c.; d. 7 s.c. He came to Rome about 29 B.C., and lived there on terms of intimacy with many distinguished contemporaries till his death. His most valuable work is his 'Archmologia,) writ ten in Greek, a history of Rome down to 264 s.c. Of the original 20 books, we possess only the first nine in a complete form. It is a mine of information on the constitution, history, law, religion and social life of Rome, and is highly regarded by scholars despite the author's lack of historical discrimination and his inability to distinguish clearly between fable and fact. He was a greater rhetorician and critic than his torian, and his extant works on oratory, on the criticism in detail of the great Greek orators, on the characteristics of poets and historians from the time of Homer to Euripides, and upon Thucydides and Dinarchus possess great in terest and value. A Latin edition of the Archzologia appeared in 1480, but the first edi tion of the Greek original was that by Stephens (Paris 1546). Fragments of the lost books from
a Milan manuscript were published by Angelo Mai (Milan 1816), but are of doubtful au thenticity. His complete works on oratory, etc., including 'Censura Veterum Scriptorutn) ; 'Ars Rhetoric'' ; (De Composition Ver ; Imitation& ; 'On the Style of Demosthenes) and (On the Character of Thucydides,' were edited by Usener and Rack macher (Leipzig 1899). There is a good edi tion of the (Archzeologia) by Jacoby (Leipzig 1891) and of the (De Compositione Verborum' by W. Rhys Roberts (Cambridge 1901) ; the latter also edited Three Literary Letters> of Dionysius (ib. 1901), containing valuable biographical and bibliographical material. Con sult Boksch, °De Fontibus Dionysii Halicarnen sis,' in (Leipziger Studien' (VoL XVII, 1895) and Sandys, 'A History of Classical Scholar ship' (Vol. I, 2d ed., Cambridge 1906).