last days having been especially embittered by Mahommedan oppression.
We learn from Michael the Syrian that his _Annals_ consisted of two
parts each divided into eight chapters, and covered a period of 260
years, viz. from the accession of the emperor Maurice (582-583) to the
death of Theophilus (842-843).

In addition to the lost _Annals_, Dionysius was from the time of
Assemani until 1896 credited with the authorship of another important
historical work--a _Chronicle_, which in four parts narrates the history
of the world from the creation to the year A.D. 774-775 and is preserved
entire in _Cod. Vat._ 162. The first part (edited by Tullberg, Upsala,
1850) reaches to the epoch of Constantine the Great, and is in the main
an epitome of the Eusebian Chronicle.[2] The second part reaches to
Theodosius II. and follows closely the _Ecclesiastical History_ of
Socrates; while the third, extending to Justin II., reproduces the
second part of the _History_ of John of Asia or Ephesus, and also
contains the well-known chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite. The
fourth part[3] is not like the others a compilation, but the original
work of the author, and reaches to the year 774-775--apparently the date
when he was writing. On the publication of this fourth part by M.
Chabot, it was discovered and clearly proved by Noldeke (_Vienna
Oriental Journal_, x. 160-170), and Nau (_Bulletin critique_, xvii.
321-327), who independently reached the same conclusion, that Assemani's
opinion was a mistake, and that the chronicle in question was the work
not of Dionysius of Tell-Ma[h.]r[=e] but of an earlier writer, a monk of
the convent of Zu[k.]n[=i]n near [=A]mid (Diarbekr) on the upper Tigris.
Though the author was a man of limited intelligence and destitute of
historical skill, yet the last part of his work at least has
considerable value as a contemporary account of events during the middle
period of the 8th century. (N. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, i. 343-386; cf. Wright, _Syriac
Literature_, 196-200, and Chabot's introduction to his translation of
the fourth part of the _Chronicle_ of (pseudo) Dionysius.

[2] See the studies by Siegfried and Gelzer, _Eusebii canonum epitome
ex Dionysii Telmaharensis chronico petita_ (Leipzig, 1884), and von
Gutschmid, _Untersuchungen uber die syrische Epitome der Eusebischen
Canones_ (Stuttgart, 1886).

[3] Text and translation by J.-B. Chabot (Paris