LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Academy · Biography & Mythology

Dioscorides

3. A disciple of Isocrates, who is said by Athenaeus (i. p. 11) to have interpolated the Homeric poems. Suidas (s. v. Ὅμηρος) attributes to him a work entitled οἱ παρʼ Ὁμήρῳ νόμοι. As he is thus known to have been engaged in the study of Homer, it is not improbable that he was also the author of the περὶ τοῦ τῶν ἡρώων καθʼ Ὅμηρον βίου, from which a fragment is quoted by Athenaeus (i. p. 8; comp. Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1270.) The ἀπομνγημονεύματα, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (1.63) and Athenaeus (xi. p. 507), may likewise have been his work, though everything is uncertain. We have further mention of a work on the constitution of Lacedaemon ascribed to Dioscorides (Athen. 4.140; Plut. Lyc. 11, Ages. 35), and of another περὶ νομίμων (Schol. ad Aristoph. Av. 1283; Suid. and Phot. s. v. σκυτάλη; Eudoc. p. 280); but whether they were the productions of the pupil of Isocrates, or of the Stoic Dioscorides is uncertain.

From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.