out, he attempted to flee, but was seized and carried to Taposiris, whence he escaped. In the persecution under Valerian in 257, he was banished to Cephar in Libya; then to Colluthion in Mareotis. Here he was an exile three years, till Gallienus' edict in favour of the christians gave him his liberty in 260. The rest of his life was spent in theological controversies. In the true spirit of the Alexandrian school he combated millennarianism. In explaining the doctrine of the trinity he held the Origenist view. Against the Sabellian heresy his zeal carried him away, so that he uttered things by no means orthodox; such as, that the Logos was created by the Father, was not equal to him in nature, and began to exist in time. These, however, he explained or retracted in a treatise addressed to Dionysius, bishop of Rome. To the synod at Antioch, which was summoned to condemn the tenets of Paul of Samosata, the infirmities of age did not allow him to go; but he wrote a letter on the subject. He died in 265, having been bishop of Alexandria seventeen years. Dionysius was a right-spirited theologian, possessing much of the temper of his great master Origen. Though he combated prevailing heresies, he generally did so with a moderation which ecclesiastical combatants seldom exhibit. Respecting the baptism of heretics, christian benevolence, the propriety of flight in time of persecution, millennarianism and other subjects, he avoided extreme views. Of his numerous writings, polemical, exegetical, ascetic, and apologetic, only inconsiderable fragments have come down to our day.—S. D.
DIONYSIUS, surnamed the Areopagite. Little if any thing certain is known of his history, except that he was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the apostle Paul at Athens. (Acts xvii. 34.) It is said that he studied first at Athens, then in Egypt; and that when he perceived the eclipse of the sun, which happened at the crucifixion of Christ, he said, "Either God suffers, or sympathizes with one who is suffering." After returning to Athens, he became a member of the court of Areopagus. Dionysius of Corinth states that he was the first bishop of Athens. Tradition represents him as suffering martyrdom. Certain writings are ascribed to him, which have been much discussed and criticized: they are, concerning the heavenly hierarchy; concerning the ecclesiastical hierarchy; concerning divine names; concerning mystical theology; and ten epistles. An eleventh epistle, which was subsequently added, is from another writer. After the time of Le Nourry the Catholic theologian, who strengthened and confirmed Daille's arguments against the authenticity of these works, all learned men united in believing them spurious; nor did Kestner's defence in 1819 avail in the least degree to reverse the sentence. The works of Dionysius contain a mixture of neo-platonism with Christianity; and exercised an important influence on the theology of the middle ages. They are highly mystical and speculative. It is impossible to ascertain their author, or the precise century he belonged to. They could hardly have appeared so early as the third century of the christian era, in which Baumgarten-Crusius puts them. They belong rather to the fifth; and therefore to the later period of neo-platonism, whose most eminent representative was Proclus. So Engelhardt judges; and Vogt agrees with him. The best edition is that of Balthasar Corderius, Paris, 1615, which was reprinted various times. The ablest treatises upon them are those of Baumgarten-Crusius and Engelhardt, published in 1822 and 1823; to which may be added Vogt, in Herzog's Encyklopædie, under the word "Dionysius."—S. D.
DIONYSIUS of Colophon, a Greek painter of the period of Polignotus, 450 b.c., whom he vainly attempted to rival. The greatest fault of this otherwise highly-praised artist was the total absence of idealizing power and excess of patient, strict imitation of nature. He was, therefore, nicknamed the Painter of Men, whilst Polignotus was called the Painter of Gods.—R. M.
DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSEUS, received his surname from his birthplace, Halicarnassus, a city of Asia Minor, in the Dorian colony of Caria. Of his early life we have no authentic records; but he seems to have been between thirty and forty years of age, when he removed to Rome, 29 b.c., immediately after the death of Antony had given Augustus the undisputed possession of the empire. The following twenty-two years were spent by him in literary studies and archæological investigations among the savans of the imperial city, with many of whom he was on terms of friendship. Quintilian mentions his name in conjunction with that of the rhetorician Cæcilius; from whom and from the accomplished jurist Tubero, he would derive stimulus and aid in those critical studies which contributed in no small degree to his eminence. His works in this department exhibit an unusually high tone of judgment and literary taste, with a disposition to censure in the severest terms whatever tended to lower the aim of eloquence from the practical and useful to the showy and fallacious. Besides his treatise on the art of rhetoric, and another on the collocation of words in oratory, there are extant, either in whole or in part, six or seven productions of his pen, which are principally occupied with critical essays on the most celebrated orators. Lysias, Isocrates, Isæus, Demosthenes, Æschines, and others, along with some of the historical writers also, are examined and judged with unusual ability; while his account of the life and works of Deinarchus has been justly pronounced a most careful and correct estimate of the last of the great Attic pleaders. Although these critical disquisitions are the most valuable of his writings, he is probably better known as a historian, having spent much time and labour on his "History of Ancient Rome," which he published about seven years before the christian era. Of the twenty books into which it was divided the first half has been preserved, with fragments of the remainder; it brought down the narrative to the beginning of the Punic wars, but the extant portion of it terminates about two hundred years earlier. As it was written with the avowed object of proving to his Grecian countrymen, that their conquerors were not the rude barbarians they supposed, it combines with the narrative of events an analysis of the Roman character and civilization, tracing the influence which the political constitution, religion, and manners of the people, had on the wonderful course of their national progress and triumphs. Niebuhr's estimate of it is high; he says, "The careful use which Dionysius made of his authorities renders him invaluable to us. . . The longer and the mere carefully the work is examined, the more must true criticism acknowledge that it is deserving of all respect, and the more will it be found a storehouse of most solid information." A later writer. Sir G. C. Lewis, though he has formed a more moderate estimate of its value, has felt it due to the author's integrity to say, "There is every reason for believing, that not only for the general outline of the history, but with respect to each successive event, he took for his groundwork the narrative formed by some one of the historians or antiquarian writers who preceded him; and that the nucleus of his facts was in no case drawn from his own imagination. We may reasonably assume that in writing his book he adhered to the pursuit of truth and honesty, which he declared to be his paramount object; and that he showed that regard for veracity in his own book, which he admired in the works of other historians, and prescribed to all." Dionysius apparently died towards the beginning of the christian era.—W. B.
DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, seems to have lived in the early period of the Roman empire, but the exact date is now uncertain. The place of his birth also is matter of doubt; according to some, Byzantium, and, in the opinion of others, a city near the Persian gulf, was his original residence. He wrote a description of the earth in Greek hexameters; and from its title, "Periegetes," he has received his surname. The book, which extends to nearly 1200 lines, is still extant, and has been carefully edited in Bernhardy's Geographi Græci Minores; but it possesses little or no value, poetic or geographical.—W. B.
DIONYSIUS THRAX, has been supposed to owe his surname to the hoarseness of his voice, but it probably denoted his extraction—his father being of Thrace. His own birthplace is uncertain; some referring it to Alexandria, others naming Byzantium. He was a distinguished grammarian, taught for some time in Rhodes, and subsequently had a school in Rome about eighty years before the christian era. Of the several works written by him, the most noted was a treatise on the art of grammar, which attained great popularity in former times, and continued long in use as a model of elementary academic instruction. He has gained a high reputation also as a critic by his notes on the Iliad. It is not known whether these were published in a separate form; they are now embodied in the Scholia Veterûm, and contribute largely to the value of these ancient commentaries.—W. B.
DIOPHANTUS, a mathematician of Alexandria, who probably belongs to the middle of the fourth century. The only work by which his name is preserved from oblivion is his "Arithmetic," originally consisting of thirteen books, but of which only six
