following explanation in his _Dictionarius_, which is a classed
vocabulary:--"Dictionarius dicitur libellus iste a dictionibus magis
necessariis, quas tenetur quilibet scolaris, non tantum in scrinio de
lignis facto, sed in cordis armariolo firmiter retinere." This has
been supposed to be the first use of the word.

[2] An excellent dictionary of quotations, perhaps the first of the
kind; a large folio volume printed in Strassburg about 1475 is
entitled "Pharetra auctoritates et dicta doctorum, philosophorum, et
poetarum continens."

[3] This volume was issued with a new title-page as _Glossaire du
moyen age_, Paris, 1872.

DICTYOGENS (Gr. [Greek: diktyon], a net, and the termination [Greek:
-genes], produced), a botanical name proposed by John Lindley for a
class including certain families of Monocotyledons which have net-veined
leaves. The class was not generally recognized.

DICTYS CRETENSIS, of Cnossus in Crete, the supposed companion of
Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and author of a diary of its events.
The MS. of this work, written in Phoenician characters, was said to have
been found in his tomb (enclosed in a leaden box) at the time of an
earthquake during the reign of Nero, by whose order it was translated
into Greek. In the 4th century A.D. a certain Lucius Septimius brought
out _Dictys Cretensis Ephemeris belli Trojani_, which professed to be a
Latin translation of the Greek version. Scholars were not agreed whether
any Greek original really existed; but all doubt on the point was
removed by the discovery of a fragment in Greek amongst the papyri found
by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt in 1905-1906. Possibly the Latin
Ephemeris was the work of Septimius himself. Its chief interest lies in
the fact that (together with Dares Phrygius's _De excidio Trojae_) it
was the source from which the Homeric legends were introduced into the
romantic literature of the middle ages.

Best edition by F. Meister (1873), with short but useful introduction
and index of Latinity; see also G. Korting, _Diktys und Dares_
(1874), with concise bibliography; H. Dunger, _Die Sage vom
trojanischen Kriege in den Bearbeitungen des Mittelalters und ihren
antiken Quellen_ (1869, with a literary genealogical table); E.
Collilieux, _Etude sur Dictys de Crete et Dares de Phrygie_ (1887),
with bibliography; W. Greif, "Die mittelalterlichen Bearbeitungen der
Trojanersage,"