Dictys
(
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 Phœnician 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).