Dinarchus, Dionysiaca

The poet Dinarchus is often assumed, on the basis of Byzantine chronographers, to have written of Dionysus’ Indian War, the episodes with Lycurgus, Actaeon and Pentheus, and the war between Perseus and Dionysus. The Indian War is problematic, since the only poetic Dinarchus of whom we hear in ancient sources is said to have lived prior to the eastern campaigns of Alexander (which are thought to have inspired the stories of Dionysus’ own eastern conquests). This note demonstrates that there is evidence only for Dinarchus’ having covered the war with Perseus, in which he (Dionysus) died. There is thus no problem with a date in the classical period.