Dionysius in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

The author of a Greek poem in 1186 hexameters, entitled Τῆς Γῆς Οἰκουμένης Περιήγησις, "A Description of the Habitable World." It is not clearly ascertained where he was born. The probability is, however, that he was a native of Charax in Susiana. It is uncertain, also, when he flourished; he belonged, however, according to the general opinion, to the latter part of the third or the beginning of the fourth century A.D. He derived from his poem the surname of Periegetes. This production of his has little merit as a work of imagination and but feeble interest for the geographer. The commentary, however, of Eustathius upon it possesses some value from the miscellaneous information which is scattered throughout. There are two Latin translations of the poem-one by Rufus Festus Avienus (q.v.) and the other by Priscianus (q.v.). The last and best edition of the Periegesis is that of Bernhardy (Leipzig, 1828), in the first volume of his Geographi Graeci Minores.