Dionysius of Rhodes

[Macedon]

I came across an extremely interesting text written by a Dionysius of Rhodes in his work "Ιστορίαι" (Histories), regarding a battle of the Seleucids against Galatians. The text is supposed to be from his first book. Does anyone know more about this shady personna? Any edition of his work?

Check out this beautiful battle account.

http://www.envyofthegods.com/pdf/100628B/LobeLibrary002.pdf

[abou]

I know I've seen that passage mentioned somewhere else. For the life of me, I just can't remember where. It sounds like a battle of Antiochos III's during his campaigning in Asia Minor... but for some reason I thought he was already allied with the Galatians by then. I have to review my history. The explicit mention of cataphracts (kai trischilious kataphraktous) and chariots tells me it is at least after 200 BC.

If anyone else has information, I would love to hear it as well. George, are there any other sections you could post for context?

[Macedon]

The battle has to be after 200 BC, but my main concern is the identity and history of this Dionysus. His language and terminology are a bit peculiar and I cannot pinpoint when he has written the text. Can it be that he is a Byzantine? All day I have been trying to find something about him on the net and I have failed... First time I have regrets for being on vacation....

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Byzantine?! As a modern Greek with only basic knowlege of ancient greek language,i read the text very easily,and this means it could be a late source. However,Hellenistic language tends to be much easier for us modern greeks than classical one. i don't have enough experience in reading the ancient texts of the sources to recognise the period,unfortunately.
Khaire
Giannis

[Komanos]

Am I allowed to call bluff? The link cites it as a "Lobe" pdf, when it's actually Loeb. Further, I've never heard of Dionysius of Rhodes the historian. And while I'd love it if ancient battle accounts were written like that, I can't think of a single one that was. The funny thing is, if it is a fake, there are a number of translation errors, which would be surprising I suppose. I'm happy to eat crow--in this case I'd love it, but this looks like someone's fun project to me, rather than an unknown or little-known historian.

[Macedon]

I have seen some rather scarce refs to some Dionysius of Rhodes... the thing is that's all I know about him. The text is a bit peculiar in the language and terminology it uses. As for the details of the battle, they are more "ancient" in flavor than byzantine (I have yet to encounter really good details in battles apart from in Bryennius' work) but the language is not classical and looks post hellenistic too. I don't know if it is a hoax or something, but it deserves more looking into it...

[Rumo]

The author may be Dionysius Thrax who lived in Rhodos for a while, but I don't know of any such work by him.

[MeinPanzer]

This is simply an elaborate after action report written by a wargamer. Very creative, I must say.

http://envyofthegods.com/?p=132

Published by admin at 10:14 am under After Action Reports,Galatian,Seleucid,Unillustrated

[abou]

Dammit.

[Macedon]

I agree that most probably (99,99%) this text is a hoax. Although fairly well written, it has many obvious mistakes in grammar and spelling and as I mentioned in the beginning it does use strange terminology and a language that mostly resembles later Byzantine works. I really hoped that it would be some non Greek historian writing under a Greek name, it would be interesting. As Adam very eloquently put it : "dammit!". Hats off though to the gamer who wrote it.

As for other "Dionysus' of Rhodes", I have found a geographer from the 2nd century BC, the author of "Οικουμένης Περιήγησις", another mentioned as a writer on dreams and dreams interpretation and a third in Epigrammatum Anthologia Palatina, Vol.1 as the writer of a beautiful epigram. A fourth is mentioned as an engineer, the inventor of the polybolos. There is also Dionysius of the Cycles (ο Κυκλογράφος), who also might be from Rhodes and predates Herodotus. A sixth is a historian of whom only fragments have survived (K. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum (FHG))...

Lots of them... indeed...well, it seems the ancient Greeks really liked writing.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

It WAS too easy to be real!
Good work indeed!
Khairete
Giannis

[abou]

There were a lot of things that bothered me about the text, but I was so hoping it was real that I tried to ignore them. For example, there is the use of transliterations for some units rather than the more familiar conventions we see: thoracitae rather than cuirassers or argyraspides instead of silver-shields. Also, the use of Greek as the descriptor for the Seleukids instead of Makedonian.

Still... if only.