Dositheus
(Δωσίθεος). A grammarian who flourished towards the end of the fourth century A.D. He wrote a Latin grammar for Greek boys, with a literal Greek translation, which was not fully completed. With this was bound up (whether by Dositheus himself is uncertain) a miscellany of very various contents by another author. This comprises (1) anecdotes of the emperor Hadrian;
(2) fables of Aesop;
(3) an important chapter on jurisprudence;
(4) mythological stories from Hyginus;
(5) an abridgment of the Iliad;
(6) an interesting collection of words and phrases from ordinary conversation, styled Ἑρμηνεύματα. The Latin grammar has the Greek translation inserted in the Latin text, thus: αρςτέχνη grammatica γραμματική est ἐστίν scientia γνῶσις. The Latin is the text of a grammar now lost, Dositheus making only the Greek translation. A separate edition of the grammar is that of Keil (Halle, 1869-71). Other parts of the work are edited by Böcking (Bonn, 1832), and Keil, Grammatici Latini, vii. 424. See Hagen, De Dosithei Magistri quae Feruntur Glossis (Berne, 1877); and Schönemann, De Lexicographis Antiquis (Bonn, 1886).