A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

DICAEARCHUS.
tades was said to have invented, were used to ornament the pediments of temples. (See Diet. of
Ant. s. v. Fastigium.) [P. S.]
DICAEARCHUS (AuIcalapxo), an Aetolian,
who played a conspicuous part in the Aetolian war
against the Romans. He was employed on several
embassies, and afterwards engaged in the service
of Philip of Macedonia, who sent him out to conquer the Cyclades, and employed him with a fleet
of twenty sail to carry on piracy. He appears to
have been a most audacious and insolent person,
for on his expedition against the Cyclades he erected
altars to 'Aoe'et3ia and lapavoleta, wherever he
landed. (Polyb. xvii. 10, xviii. 37, xx. 10, xxii.
14; Liv. xxxv. 12; Diod. Excerpt. de Virt. et Vit.
p. 572; Brandstifter, Die Geschicht. des Aetol.
Landes, p. 273.) [L. S.]
DICAEARCHUS (AucaiapXos). 1. A celebrated Peripatetic philosopher, geographer, and
historian, and a contemporary of Aristotle and
Theophrastus. He was the son of one Pheidias,
and born at Messana in Sicily, though he passed
the greater part of his life in Greece Proper, and
especially in Peloponnesus. He was a disciple of
Aristotle (Cic. de Leg. iii. 6), and a friend of Theophrastus, to whom he dedicated some of his writings. Most of Aristotle's disciples are mentioned
also among those of Plato, but as this is not the
case with Dicaearchus, Osann (Beitr'ige zur Griech.
u. RMm. Lit. ii. p. 1, &c.) justly infers that Dicaearchus was one of Aristotle's younger disciples.
From some allusions which we meet with in the
fragments of his works, we must conclude that he
survived the year B. C. 296, and that he died about
B. c. 285. Dicaearchus was highly esteemed by
the ancients as a philosopher and as a man of most
extensive information upon a great variety of things.
(Cic. Tusc. i. 18, de Off. ii. 5; Varro, de Re Rust.
i. 2.) His works, which were very numerous, are
frequently referred to, and many fragments of them
are still extant, which shew that their loss is one
of the most severe in Greek literature. His works
were partly geographical, partly political or historical, and partly philosophical; but it is difficult to
draw up an accurate list of them, since many which
are quoted as distinct works appear to have been
only sections of greater ones. The fragments extant, moreover, do not always enable us to form a
clear notion of the works to which they once belonged. Among his geographical works may be
mentioned-1. On the heights of mountains. (Plin.
fH. N. ii. 65; Geminus, Elem. Astron. 14.) Suidas (s. v. AuclaapXos) mentions caraeq'Trps-eits TrcV
v1 IfleXoroovv-or dp v, but the quotations in Pliny
and Geminus shew that Dicaearchus's measurements
of heights were not confined to Peloponnesus, and
Suidas therefore probably quotes only a section of
the whole work. 2. Frs 7reploos (Lydus, delMlens.
p. 98. 17, ed. Bekker). This work was probably
the text written in explanation of the geographical
maps which Dicaearchus had constructed and given
to Theophrastus, and which seem to have comprised the whole world, as far as it was then known.
(Cic. ad Att. vi. 2; comp. Diog. Laert. v. 51.)
3. 'A'a-ypa(ps Ts 'EAAXdos. A work of this title,
dedicated to Theophrastus, and consisting of 150
iambic verses, is still extant under the name of
Dicaearchus; but its form and spirit are both unworthy of Dicaearchus, and it is in all probability
the production of a much later writer, who made a
metrical paraphrase of that portion of the rs orepl

DICAEARCHUS. 1001
o3,s which referred to Greece. Buttmann is the
only modern critic who has endeavoured to claim
the work for Dicaearchus in his " de Dicaearcho
ejusque operibus quae inscribuntur Bios 'EAAados
et 'Avaypap) T57s 'EAAados," Naumburg, 1832, 4to.
But his attempt is not very successful, and has
been ably refuted by Osann. (Allgem. Schulzeitung
for 1833, No. 140, &c.) 4. Bios rTs 'EA Ados,
was the most important among the works of Dicaearchus, and contained an account of the geographical
position, the history, and the moral and religious
condition of Greece. It contained, in short, all the
information necessary to obtain a full knowledge
of the Greeks, their life, and their manners. It
was probably subdivided into sections; so that
when we read of works of Dicaearchus 'rep) icovoicrs, 'rep'i.touvo'ciwv dY'v,,, 7repc Atovvo-'atacv
dycwov, and the like, we have probably to consider
them only as portions of the great work, BLos r Ts
'EAAalos. It is impossible to make out the plan
of the work in detail with any accuracy: the attempt, however, has been made by Marx. (Creuzer's Meletem. iii. 4, p. 173, &c.) We know that
the work consisted of three books, of which the
first contained the history and a geographical description of Greece, so as to form a sort of introduction to the whole work. The second gave
an account of the condition of the several Greek
states; and the third, of the private and domestic
life, the theatres, games, religion, &c. of the Greeks.
Of the second book a considerable fragment is still
extant; but in its present form it cannot be considered the work of Dicaearchus himself, but it is a
portion of an abridgment which some one made of
the 'Bios T-rs 'EAAdios. To this class of writings
we may also refer-5. 'H els Tpoocwviov Kcarde't-is,
a work which consisted of several books, and, as
we may infer from the fragments quoted from it,
contained an account of the degenerate and licentious proceedings of the priests in the cave of Trophonius. (Cic. ad Att. vi. 2, xiii. 31; Athen. xiii.
p. 594, xiv. p. 641.) The geographical works of
Dicaearchus were, according to Strabo (ii. p. 104),
censured in many respects by Polybius; and Strabo
himself (iii. p. 170) is dissatisfied with his descriptions of western and northern Europe, which countries Dicaearchus had never visited. Of a political
nature was-6. TptroALTrKOcs (Athen. iv. p. 141;
Cic. ad Att. xiii. 32), a work which has been the
subject of much dispute. Passow, in a programme
(Breslau, 1829), endeavoured to establish the opinion that it was a reply to Anaximenes's Tpucdpavos
or TpTroXTruco's, in which the Lacedaemonians,
Athenians, and Thebans, had been calumniated.
Buttmann thought it to have been a comparison of
the constitutions of Pellene (Pallene), Corinth, and
Atheris (comp. Cic. ad Att. ii. 2), and that Dicaearchus inflicted severe censure upon those states
for their corrupt morals and their vicious constitutions. A third opinion is maintained by Osann
(1. c. p. 8, &c.), who taking his stand on a passage
in Photius (Bibl. Cod. 37) where an elos AucaiapXLuc' of a state is mentioned as a combination of
the three forms of government, the democratical,
aristocratical, and monarchical, infers that Dicaearchus in his TptroAtrTIdos, explained the nature of
that mixed constitution, and illustrated it by the
example of Sparta. This opinion is greatly supported by the contents of the fragments. Osann
goes even so far as to think that the discussion on
politics in the sixth book of Polybius is based upon