A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Διοπρείθης).

1. A half-fanatic, half-impostor, who made at Athens an apparently thriving trade of oracles. He was much satirized by the comic poets, and may perhaps be identified with the Locrian juggler mentioned in Athenaeus. (i. p. 20a.) If so, he must be distinguished from the Diopeithes of whom we read in Suidas as the author of a law which made it a capital offence for an inhabitant of the city to spend the night in the Peiraeus, and who was brought to trial for an involuntary breach of his own enactment. (Aristoph. Kn. 1081, Vesp. 380, Av. 988; Schol. ad ll. cc.; Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. i. p. 154, ii. pp. 364, 583, 704; Suid. s vv. Γορψών, Διοπείθης, Ἐπιτήδευμα, Ὠψίσθη.)