38. Surnamed PERIEGETES, from his being the author of a περιήγησις τῆς γῆς, in hexameter verse, which is still extant. Respecting the age and country of this Dionysius the most different opinions have been entertained, though all critics are agreed in placing him after the Christian era, or in the time of the Roman emperors, as must indeed be necessarily inferred from passages of the Periegesis itself, such as 5.355, where the author speaks of his ἄνακτες, that is, his sovereigns, which can only apply to the emperors. But the question as to which emperor or emperors Dionysius there alludes, has been answered in the most different ways: some writers have placed Dionysius in the reign of Augustus, others in that of Nero, and others again under M. Aurelius and L. Verus, or under Septimius Severus and his sons. Eustathius, his commentator, was himself in doubt about the age of his author. But these uncertainties have been removed by Bernhardy, the last editor of Dionysius, who has made it highly probable, partly from the names of countries and nations mentioned in the Periegesis, partly from the mention of the Huns in 5.730, and partly from the general character of the poem, that its author must have lived either in the latter part of the third, or in the beginning of the fourth, century of our era. With regard to his native country, Suidas infers from the enthusiastic manner in which Dionysius speaks of the river Rhebas (793, &c.), that he was born at Byzantium, or somewhere in its neighbourhood; but Eustathius (ad v. 7) and the Scholiast (ad v. 8) expressly call him an African, and these authorities certainly seem to deserve more credit than the mere inference of Suidas.