A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Δεινοκράτης), a most distinguished Macedonian architect in the time of Alexander the Great. He was the architect of the new temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which was built after the destruction of the former temple by Herostratus. [CHERSIPHRON.] He was employed by Alexander, whom he accompanied into Egypt, in the building of Alexandria. Deinocrates laid out the ground and erected several of the principal buildings. Besides the works which he actually erected, he formed a design for cutting mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, to whom he presented his plan upon his accession to the throne; but the king forbad the execution of the project. The right hand of the figure was to have held a city, and in the left there would have been a basin, in which the water of all the mountain streams was to pour, and thence into the sea. Another curious work which he did not live to finish, is mentioned under ARSINOE [pp. 366, 367] : this fixes the time of the architect's death. The so-called monument of Hephaestion by Deinocrates was only a funeral pile (πυρά, Diod. 17.115), though a very magnificent one. It formed a pyramid, rising in successive terraces, all adorned with great magnificence. (Plin. Nat. 5.10, s. 11, 7.37, s. 38, 34.14, s. 42; Vitr. 1.1.4, ii. praef.; Strab. xiv. pp. 640, 641; V. Max. 1.4, ext. 1; Amm. Marc. 22.16; Solin. 35, 43; Plut. Alex. 72, de Alex. Virt. 2.2; Lucian, pro Imag/. 9, de conscrib. Hist. 12; Tzetz. Chil. 8.199, 11.367.) There is immense confusion among these writers about the architect's name. Pliny calls him Dinochares, or, according to some of the MSS., Tymochares or Timocrates; Strabo has Χειροκράτης; Plutarch, Στασικράτης; and, among other variations, Eustathius (ad Hom. Il. ξ. 229) calls him Diocles of Rhegium.

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