Dionysius of Miletus ( el, Διονύσιος, translit=Dionýsios) was an ancient

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 ...

ethnographer and historian. He may have lived in the 5th century BC and was a contemporary of

Hecataeus of Miletus Hecataeus of Miletus (; el, Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC), son of Hegesander, was an early Greek historian and geographer. Biography Hailing from a very wealthy family, he lived in Miletus, then under Per ...

according to the ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...

'' (a tenth century

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

encyclopedia).

Works

Dionysius is the alleged author of several works: * ''Troica'' (in three books) * ''History of Persia'' (''Persica''). Written in

Ionic Greek Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek. History The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...

. * ''Description of the Inhabited World'' * ''The Events after Darius'' (in five books) * ''Historical Cycle'' (in seven books) According to the

Iranologist Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...

Rüdiger Schmitt Rüdiger Schmitt (born 1 July 1939) is a German linguist, Iranologist, and educator. He was a professor of Comparative Indo-European Philology and Indo-Iranian Studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany, from 1979 until 200 ...

, Dionysius was reportedly the author of a book about

Persian history The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Step ...

after the death of

Darius the Great Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his d ...

(522–486 BC). Schmitt adds: According to the modern historian Klaus Meister in the ''

Oxford Classical Dictionary The ''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (''OCD'') is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity," an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first pub ...

'', except for the possible exception of the ''Persica'' and ''The Events after Darius'' (as they might be genuine), the actual historicity of Dionysius's works are contested. Meister adds:

References

Sources

* * {{Authority control Ancient Milesians Ancient Greeks from the Achaemenid Empire Historians of the Achaemenid Empire 5th-century BC Greek people Ancient Greek historians Ethnographers