the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, was born about B.C. 430. He began life as a clerk in a public office, and first took part in political affairs during the dissensions that followed the destruction of the Athenian expedition. He was wounded in the attempt of Hermocrates to seize upon Syracuse; and during the disasters inflicted by the Carthaginians who had invaded the island, he succeeded, along Dionysius, with Philistus and Hipparius, in procuring the deposition of the Sicilian generals, and was himself included in the number appointed in their stead. By intriguing with the inhabitants of Gela, which he had been sent to relieve, and spreading insinuations of treachery in regard to his colleagues, he was ultimately invested with the supreme command; and by the help of a large body-guard he soon made himself independent of the popular opinion. Pestilence having thinned the Carthaginian army, Dionysius, in spite of his ill success, found no difficulty in procuring peace (B.C. 605). In the stronghold of Ortygia he defied the machinations of his enemies, until, partly from defeats and partly from dissensions, the opposition died away. After a successful expedition against Naxos, Catana, and Leontini, his next efforts were directed against Carthage. (See Carthage.) He also carried an expedition against Rhegium and its allied cities in Magna Graecia. In one campaign, in which he was joined by the Lucanians, he devastated the territories of Thurii, Croton, and Locri. After a protracted siege he took Rhegium B.C. 387, and sold the inhabitants as slaves. He joined the Illyrians in an unsuccessful attempt to plunder the temple of Delphi, and also pillaged the temple of Care on the Etruscan coast. In the Peloponnesian war he espoused the side of the Spartans. Not content with his military renown, Dionysius aspired also to poetical glory. His poems were biased at the Olympic games; but having gained a prize for tragic poetry at Athens, he was so elated that he engaged in a delirium which proved fatal, B.C. 367. His life was written by Philistus, but the work has unfortunately perished. See SYRACUSE.

Younger, ascended the throne of Syracuse at his father's death. He was driven from the kingdom by Dion, and fled to Locris; but during the commotions which followed the assassination of that leader, he managed to make himself master of Syracuse. On the arrival of Timoleon he was compelled to surrender and retire to Corinth, B.C. 343, where he spent the rest of his days in poverty.

Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, was born about the middle of the first century B.C. His father's name was Alexander. From the introduction to his great work we learn that he went to Italy after the termination of the civil wars, and spent twenty-two years in preparing materials for his history, which is entitled Archaeologia, and embraced the history of Rome from the mythical period to the beginning of the first Punic war. It was divided into twenty books; of which the first nine remain entire, the tenth and eleventh are nearly complete, and the remaining books only exist in fragments. In the first three books of Appian, and in the Camillus of Plutarch, much of Dionysius has undoubtedly been embodied. As a historian he is minute and painstaking; but his attempts to Hellenize the early history of Rome, that the Greeks might in some measure be reconciled to a foreign yoke, renders his accuracy more than suspicious. Dionysius was also the author of a treatise on rhetoric, which, with his criticisms on Thucydides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isocrates, Dinarchus, Plato, and Demosthenes, have been preserved. The best editions of his works are those of Hudson and Reiske. The rhetorical works have been edited separately, by Gros and by Westermann.

Dionysius, surnamed Periegetes, from his being the author of a Ἀρχαίον τῆς γῆς, containing a description of the whole earth in hexameter verse, and written in a terse and elegant style. This work enjoyed a high degree of popularity in ancient times, and two translations or paraphrases of it were made by the Romans, one by Rufus Festus Avienus, and the other by the grammarian Priscian. The best edition of the original is that by Bernhardy, Leip. 1828. Great differences of opinion have been entertained as to the age and country of this Dionysius. All however are agreed in placing him in the time of the Roman emperors, and it seems highly probable that he flourished in the latter part of the third, or the beginning of the fourth century. Eustathius says that he was by descent a Libyan.

Dionysius the Areopagite, according to Suidas, was an Athenian by birth, and eminent for his literary attainments. He studied first at Athens, and afterwards at Heliopolis in Egypt. While in the latter city, he beheld that remarkable eclipse of the sun, as he terms it, which took place at the death of Christ, and exclaimed to his friend Apollophanes, ὁ ἀδελφὸς μου, ὅτι ἡ γῆ ἐγκατέλειπεν συνεργόν, "Either the Divinity suffers, or sympathises with some sufferer." He further details, that after Dionysius returned to Athens, he was admitted into the Areopagus; and, having embraced Christianity about A.D. 50, was constituted Bishop of Athens by the apostle Paul (Acts xvi. 34). Aristides, an Athenian philosopher, asserts that he suffered martyrdom—a fact generally admitted by historians; but the precise period of his death, whether under Domitian, Trajan, or Adrian, is not certain. A writer in later times attempted to personate the Areopagite, and contrived to pass his productions on the Christian world as of the apostolic age, thereby greatly influencing the spirit both of the Eastern and Western Churches. These writings consist of a book called The Celestial Hierarchy; another Of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; A Treatise on the Divine Names; another Of Mystical Divinity; and Ten Epistles. Different opinions have been held as to the real author of these productions. They were ascribed, at an early period, to Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, in the fourth century—an opinion to which the learned Cave inclines, though he thinks that Apollinaris the son may have been the author. There have not been wanting instances in which supposititious works were fathered upon great names by disciples of the Apollinarian school. The resemblance between the Areopagitica and the writings of Proclus and Plotinus is so obvious as to afford great probability that the Pseudo-Dionysius did not write much earlier than the fifth century. The first uncontroverted occasion on which these supposititious writings are referred to, is in the conference between the Severians (a sect of Eutychians) and the Catholics, held in the Emperor Justinian's palace, A.D. 532, in which they are quoted by the heretical party. Maximus, and other writers in the following ages, refer to them frequently.