Dictys
- A mariner changed by Bacchus into a dolphin, Ov. M. 3, 615.—
- II A centaur, slain at the wedding of Pirithoüs, Ov. M. 12, 334 sq.—
- III A fisherman on the island of Seriphos, who saved Perseus from drowning, Stat. S. 2, 1, 95.—
- IV Dictys Cretensis, the traditional author of a mythical history of the Trojan war, in Greek; preserved to us in the Latin translation of L. Septimius, v. Teuffel, Röm. Lit. § 416, 1-4.
(Δίκτυς), called Cretensis. A Cretan, said to have accompanied Idomeneus to the Trojan War, and to have written a history of that contest. This work (Ephemeris Belli Troiani), according to the account that has come down to us, was discovered in the reign of Nero, in a tomb near Cnossus, which was laid open by an earthquake. It was asserted to have been written in Phoenician on bark, and translated into Greek by one Eupraxides or Eupraxis. We have a pretended Latin version by one C. Septimius, who probably lived in the time of the emperor Diocletian. The work of Septimius contains the first five books, with an abridgment of the remainder. This work is a part of the fictitious literature that sprang up in the first century of the Christian era, and, though worthless except as a literary curiosity, it was an important source of the romances of the Middle Ages. (See Dares). Good editions are those of Dederich (Bonn, 1832-37), and Meister (Leipzig, 1872). See Dunger, Dictys-Septimius: über die ursprüngliche Abfassung und die Quellen der Ephemeris (Dresden, 1878); and Gudeman in Classical Studies in Honour of Henry Drisler (N. Y. 1894).
- Apollod. 1.9.5
- rears Perseus: Apollod. 2.4.1
- made king of Seriphus by Perseus: Apollod. 2.4.4