Geographi Graeci Minores,

Scymnus

(Σκύμνος), of Chios, wrote a Periegesis, or description of the earth, which is referred to in a few passages of Stephanus and other later writers (Steph. Byz. s. vv. ηάπος, Ἑρμώνασσα, Ἀυγάθη, Ἄρεως νῆσος; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.284; Apollon. Hist. Mirab. 15, where we should read Σκύμνος instead of Σκυτίνος).

Works

A brief Periegesis, written in Iambic metre, and consisting of nearly one thousand lines, has come down to us. This poem, as appears from the author's own statement, was written in imitation of a similar work in iambic verses, composed by the Athenian Apollodorus [see Vol. I. p. 234b.], and is dedicated to king Nicomedes, whom some modern writers suppose to be the same as Nicomedes III., king of Bithynia, who died B. C. 74; but this is quite uncertain.

Editions

A portion of this poem was first published by Hoeschel, under the name of Marcianus Heracleotes, along with other Greek geographers, Augsburg, 1600, 8vo.; and again by Morell, also under the name of Marcianus, Paris, 1606, 8vo. But Lucas Holstenius and Is. Vossius maintained that this poem was written by Scymnus Chius, and is the work referred to in the passages of the ancient writers quoted above. Their opinion was adopted by Dodwell, in his dissertation De Scymno Chio, § 7, and the poem was accordingly printed under the name of Scymnus, by Hudson and by Gail, in the Geographi Graeci Minores, as well as by B. Fabricius, in his recent edition of the work, Leipzig, 1846.

Authorship

Meineke, however, has shown, most satisfactorily, in his edition of the poem published shortly after that of Fabricius (Berlin, 1846), that the Periegesis of Scymnus Chius quoted by the ancient writers was written in prose, and was an entirely different work from the extant poem, the author of which is quite unknown.