Dionysius Scytobrachion

Dionysius Scytobrachion (Ancient Greek: Διονύσιος ὁ Σκυτοβραχίων) (Scytobrachion meaning 'leather arm'), also known as Dionysius of Mytilene (the capital of Lesbos), was the author of a series of stories set in the region now known as Libya. His works depicted the Olympian gods as mortals from a distant past, and subjects included the Amazons, Alexander the Great, and the Argonauts. The latter stories are included a six-book work known as the Argonautica, in which the captain of the Argo is Hercules (Heracles), rather than Jason, as in most modern stories. These stories were used as sources by Diodorus Siculus.^[1][2]

Commentators disagree on when Dionysius lived. The Oxford Classical Dictionary entry^[1] mentions stories relating to Alexander the Great, which place the author after 323BCE, and to fragments of his works which place him no later than 250BCE. William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology mentions two alternative dates: 1st century BCE, based on Suetonius, or as early as 480BCE if the author known as Dionysius Scytobrachion is the same person as Xanthus of Lydia.^[2] The Encyclopaedia Italiana entry^[3] supports the 1st century date but, like Smith, also refers to the possibility that the confusion arises from the 1st century Dionysius being Dionysius of Miletus.

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