, 1895).

DIONYSIUS THRAX (so called because his father was a Thracian), the
author of the first Greek grammar, flourished about 100 B.C. He was a
native of Alexandria, where he attended the lectures of Aristarchus, and
afterwards taught rhetoric in Rhodes and Rome. His [Greek: Techne
grammatike], which we possess (though probably not in its original
form), begins with the definition of grammar and its functions. Dealing
next with accent, punctuation marks, sounds and syllables, it goes on to
the different parts of speech (eight in number) and their inflections.
No rules of syntax are given, and nothing is said about style. The
authorship of Dionysius was doubted by many of the early middle-age
commentators and grammarians, and in modern times its origin has been
attributed to the oecumenical college founded by Constantine the Great,
which continued in existence till 730. But there seems no reason for
doubt; the great grammarians of imperial times (Apollonius Dyscolus and
Herodian) were acquainted with the work in its present form, although,
as was natural considering its popularity, additions and alterations may
have been made later. The [Greek: Techne] was first edited by J. A.
Fabricius from a Hamburg MS. and published in his _Bibliotheca Graeca_,
vi. (ed. Harles). An Armenian translation, belonging to the 4th or 5th
century, containing five additional chapters, was published with the
Greek text and a French version, by M. Cirbied (1830). Dionysius also
contributed much to the criticism and elucidation of Homer, and was the
author of various other works--amongst them an account of Rhodes, and a
collection of [Greek: Meletai] (literary studies), to which the
considerable fragment in the _Stromata_ (v. 8) of Clement of Alexandria
probably belongs.

Editions, with scholia, by I. Bekker in _Anecdota Graeca_, ii. and G.
Uhlig (1884), reviewed exhaustively by P. Egenolff in Bursian's
_Jahresbericht_, vol. xlvi. (1888); Scholia, ed. A. Hilgard (1901);
see also W. Horschelmann, _De Dionysii Thracis interpretibus
veteribus_ (1874); J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, i.
(1906).

DIONYSUS (probably = "son of Zeus," from [Greek: Dios] and [Greek:
nysos], a Thracian word for "son"), in Greek mythology, originally a
nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially of the vine;
hence, distinctively, the god of wine. The names Bacchus ([Greek:
Bakchos], in use among the Greeks from the 5t