Dares Phrygius ( grc, Δάρης), according to

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...

, was a Trojan priest of

Hephaestus Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter ...

. He was supposed to have been the author of an account of the destruction of Troy, and to have lived before Homer. A work in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, purporting to be a translation of this, and entitled ''Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae historia'', was much read in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, and was then ascribed to

Cornelius Nepos Cornelius Nepos (; c. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman Empire, Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona. Biography Nepos's Cisalpine birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls ...

, who is made to dedicate it to

Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisan ...

; but the language better fits a period much later than the time of Nepos (probably the 5th century AD). It is doubtful whether the existing work is an abridgment of a larger Latin work or an adaptation of a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

original. Together with the similar work of

Dictys Cretensis Dictys Cretensis, i.e. Dictys of Crete (, ; grc, Δίκτυς ὁ Κρής) of Knossos was a legendary companion of Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and the purported author of a diary of its events, that deployed some of the same materials work ...

(with which it is generally printed), the ''De excidio'' forms the chief source for the numerous medieval accounts of the Trojan legend, the so-called Matter of Troy. Dares has claimed 866,000 Greeks and 676,000 Trojans were killed in this war, but archaeology has uncovered nothing that suggests a war this large was ever fought on that site. The work was a significant source for Joseph of Exeter's '' De bello Troiano''. It was also completely reworked in the 8th century in Merovingian Gaul into the work entitled ''Historia de origine Francorum'' ('History of the Origins of the Franks'). It purports to describe the descent of the

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

from the Trojans and is attributed to Dares.Nurgül Kıvılcım Yavuz, ''Transmission and Adaptation of the Trojan Narrative in Frankish History between the Sixth and Tenth Centuries'', PhD diss. (University of Leeds, 2015), pp. 182–187.

References

Sources

* *O.S. von Fleschenberg, ''Daresstudie'', i, 1908. * *(fr) Louis Faivre d'Arcier, ''Histoire et géographie d’un mythe. La circulation des manuscrits du De excidio Troiae de Darès le Phrygien (VIIIe-XVe s.)'', Paris, 2006 (). *(de) Andreas Beschorner, ''Untersuchungen zu Dares Phrygius-Narr,'' Tübingen, 1992 ().

External links

*
Daretis phrygii de excidio Troiae historia
', Ferdinand Meister (ed.), Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1873.

translated by Jason Colavito (2011) *Jonathan Cornil
''Dares Phrygius' de excidio Trojae historia: philological commentary and translation''
Scriptie voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van Master in de Taal- en letterkunde (Latijn-Engels), 2011–2012, Universiteit Gent. *R. M. Frazer

Indiana University Press, 1966. {{Authority control Trojan War literature Characters in the Aeneid Trojans Phrygian characters in Greek mythology