Author: DYCTIS et DARES.
Title: Dictys Cretensis et Dares Phrygius De Belllo et Excidio Trojae, In usum Serenissimi Dephinim cum Interpretatione Annae Daceriae. Accedunt in hac Nova Ediitone Notae Variorum integrae; Nec non Josephus Iscanus, Cum Notis Sam. Dresemii. Nimismatibus & Gemmis, Historiam illustrantibus exonavit Lud. Smids, M. D. Disserationem de Dictye Cretnesi praefixit Jac Perizonius.
Description: Amstelaedami, Apud Georgium Gallet. 1702. 4to, 233 x 185 mms., pp. [lxxxii], 177 [178 - 244 indexes]. [6], 54 [55 - 76 notes and & Ad Lectorem], 169 [169 172 Index, 173 - 174 Erratum], title-page in red and black with "Ex Lib Bib Scholae Reginae Edinensis" on top margin of title-page, two engraved plates before title-page, 6 engraved plates preceding text of Del Bello Trojano, contemporary calf, rebacked in lighter calf, with brown morocco label; corners worn, but a good copy. In 1702 Jacob Perizonius established the paradigm that is still valid today claiming that the supposed eyewitness accounts of Dares and Dictys are purely fictitious. The Latin novel Ephemeris belli Troiani is conceived as an eyewitness account of the Cretan Dictys, who is said to have fought in the Trojan War among the Mycenaeans. His work, which – unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey – does entirely without gods, was at the center of the way Troy was regarded during the Middle Ages and early modern times, together with the work of Dares. According to Dictys, it was the Trojans, not the Mycenaeans, who triggered the war, and the Greeks responded by attacking coastal towns in the northwest of Asia Minor.nk CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE The Ephemeris belli Troiani of Dictys of Crete (Dictys Cretensis) is a Latin novel consisting of six volumes about the Trojan War. It is based on a Greek text from the 1st or 2nd century CE that had been lost, except for two papyrus fragments. The Latin version was composed by Lucius Septimius during the 3rd or 4th century CE. The Ephemeris belli Troiani claims to be based on the eyewitness account of the Cretan Dictys, who fought on the Greek side in the Trojan War. His recordings are said to have been discovered by accident in his grave in the year 66 BCE. But it is by no means proven that the account of finding the Dictys originals is authentic. The chronicler, the Cretan Dictys, is said to have accompanied his king, Idomeneus of Knossos, to Troy and to have taken the Greek side, while writing about the siege and conquest of Troy. Unlike Homer, Dictys makes no reference to divine intervention. This gives his report a more modern and authentic character. The work was rediscovered in the 12th century and it played a pivotal role in the reception of the story of Troy during the Middle Ages up until early modern times. For Byzantine scholars, Dictys was the leading authority on Troy, followed by Homer, Euripides and Virgil. In Western Europe, the ranking was: Dares, Dictys, Virgil and Ovid. From late antiquity onward, the story of Dictys's journal, in amusing prose addressed to a knowledgeable and sophisticated audience, came to be taken literally. During the Middle Ages, when Homer's Iliad was considered lost or was known only in an abridged version, Dictys's account, together with that of Dares, formed the basis of historical knowledge about the Trojan War. In 1702, however, not quite 20 years after the Ottomans had threatened to conquer Vienna for the second time and 170 years before Troy was rediscovered on Hisarlik, the Dutch classical scholar Jakob Perizonius established the paradigm still accepted today that Dictys's and Dares's works were entirely fictitious. (From the Luwian Studies web site.)

Keywords: classics scholarship prose


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