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. 3.6), 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 (Beiträge zur Griech. u. Röm. 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.
1.18, de Off. 2.5; Varro, de Re Rust. 1.2.)
Works
Dicaearchus' 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. H. N 2.65; Geminus, Elem. Astron. 14.)
Suidas (s. v.
Δικαίαρχος) mentions καταμετρήσεις τῶν ὲν Πελοποννήσῳ ὀρῶν, 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.
Γῆς περίοδος(Lydus, de Mens. 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. Att. 6.2; comp. D. L.
5.51.)
3.
Ἀναγραφὴ τῆς ἘλλάδοςἈναγραφὴ τῆς Ἐλλάδος. A work of this title,
dedicated to Theophrastus, and consisting of 150 iambic verses, is stll 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 Γῆς περίοδος 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 Βίος Ἐλλάδος et Ἀναγραφὴ τῆς
Ἑλλάδος," 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.
Βίος τῆς ἙλλάδοςΒίος τῆς Ἑλλάδος, 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 περὶ μουσικῆς, τερὶ μουσικῶν ἀγώνων, τερὶ Διονυσιακῶν
ἀγώνων, and the like, we have probably to consider them only as portions of the
great work, Βίος τῆς Ἑλλάδος. It is impossible to
make out the plan of the work in detail with any accuracy : the attempt, however, has been
made by Marx. (Crenzer's Meletem. 3.4, 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 Βίος τῆς Ἑλλάδος.
5.
Ἡ εἰς Τροφωνίου κατάβασιςTo this class of writings we may also refer Ἡ εἰς Τροφωνίου
κατάβασις, 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. Att.
6.2, 13.31; Athen.
13.594, 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.
6.
ΤριπολιτικόςOf a political nature was Τριπολιτικός (Athen. 4.141 ; Cic. Att. 13.32), 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 Anaxiimenes's Τρικάρανος or Τριπολιτικός, 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 Athens (comp. Cic. Att. 2.2), and
that Dicaearchus inflicted severe censure upon those states for their corrupt morals and
their vicious constitutions. A third opinion is maintained by Osann (l.c. p. 8, &c.), who taking his stand on a passage in Photius (Bibl. Cod. 37) where an εἶδος Δικαιαρχικόν of
a state is mentioned as a combination of the three forms of government, the democratical,
aristocratical, and monarchical, infers that Dicaearchus in his
Τριπολιτικός, 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 sixti
book of Polybius is based upon
the
Τριπολιτικός of Dicaearchus. Cicero intended to make use of this work, which
seems to have been written in the form of a dialogue, for his treatise
de
Gloria. (Ad Att. 13.30.)
7.
ΛεσβιακοίAmong his philosophical works may be mentioned Λεσβιακοί, in three books, which derived its name from the fact that the scene
of the philosophical dialogue was laid at Mytilene in Lesbos. In it Dicaearchus endeavored
to prove that the soul was mortal. (Cic. Tusc. 1.31.) Cicero (Cic. Att. 13.12) when speaking of a work πεπὶ ψυχῆς, probably means the Λεσβιακοί.
8.
ΚορινθιακοίAnother philosophical work, Κορινθιακοί, which
likewise consisted of three books, was a sort of supplement to the former. (Cic. Tusc. 1.10.) It is probably the same work as the one which Cicero. in
another passage (de Off. 2.5), calls "de Interitu Hominum."
Excerpts of the
Life of GreeceSome other works, such as Πολιτεία Σπαρτιατῶν
(Suid.), Ὀλυμπικὸς ἀγών or λόγος (Athen. 14.620), Παναθηναικός (Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp.
564), and several others, seem to have been merely chapters of the Βίος τῆς Ἑλλάδος.
περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰλίῳ ΘυσίαςA work περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰλίῳ Θυσίας (Athen. 13.603) seems to have referred to the sacrifice which
Alexander the Great performed at Ilium.
Φαίδρου περισσῶνThe work Φαίδρου περισσῶν has no foundation except
a false reading in Cicero (Cic. Att. 13.39), which has been
corrected by Petersen in his
Phaedri Epicurei Fragm. p. 11.
Other Works
There are lastly some other works which are of a grammatical nature, and are usually
believed to have been the productions of our philosopher, viz. Περὶ Ἀλκαίου (Athen. xi. pp. 460, 479, xv. pp. 666, 668), and ὑποθέσεις τῶν Εὐριπίδου καὶ Σοφοκλέονς μύθων (Sext.
Empir. ad v. Geometr. p. 310), but may have been the works of
Dicaearchus, a grammarian of Lacedaemon, who, according to Suidas, was a disciple of
Aristarchus, and seems to be alluded to in Apollonius. (De Pronom. p.
320.)