Dionysius Atticus of Pergamon was a rhetorician, sophist, historian, and speechwriter of ancient Greece, who lived around the 1st century BCE, and was probably born around 80 BCE. [1] [2] [3] [4]
He was a pupil of the celebrated Apollodorus of Pergamon, tutor of the Roman emperor Augustus. Dionysius was himself a teacher of rhetoric, and the author of several works, in which he explained the theory of Apollodorus. It would appear from his surname that he resided at Athens. [5] [6]
He has at times been identified as the author of the anonymous work On the Sublime , but there is no scholarly consensus around the true identity of that author. [7] He also may be the same person as the Vipsanius Atticus described by Seneca the Elder as a disciple of Apollodorus from Pergamon, but there is also no consensus around this. [2]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William (1870). "Atticus, Dionysius". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . Vol. 1. p. 413.