Dictys Cretensis is the fictional name used by an author who was active at the end of the first century AD or at the beginning of the second century AD. Scholars suggest that he probably belonged to the literary movement known as the 'second sophistic' (see Huhn-Bethe 1917, Eisenhut 1968; they date the author to that period on the basis of similarities in content and cultural affinities between his work and Philostratus' Heroikòs, as well as on the study of the physical evidence of papyri preserving the Greek version of Dictys). Only short sections of the original Greek prose work are extant, transmitted by papyrus fragments found in Egypt. The Latin translation is extant in full. It is called Ephemeris belli Troiani and dates to the fourth century AD. It was the work of an otherwise unknown Lucius Septimius. This text offers an alternative version of the events narrated by Homer. It assumes the point of view of a Greek hero taking part in the Trojan war. The character of Dictys, unlike Dares the Phrygian, author of a pro-Trojan account the of the Trojan War, is otherwise unknown; it is not to be found in the Homeric poems nor in the epic tradition. The fictional character and his features are created ex novoin the Praefatio and in the Prologus. These two texts are transmitted in two different branches of the manuscript tradition; modern editors place both of them before the text of the Ephemeris proper. Pieces of information about Dictys come, beside the text of the Ephemeris, from Byzantine authors, who describe him as the author of a journal narrating the Trojan war. They call the journal Ἐφημερίς, or, more rarely, Ἐφημερίδεςor ῥαψωιδίαι. Jacoby collects all the ancient sources discussing this author under FGrHist 49. The sources offer a coherent portrait of Dictys: he came from the city of Cnossus in Crete, lived at the same time as the Atreidae (isdem temporibus, quibus et Atridae fuit: Prol. p. 2 Eisenhut = FGrHist 49 T 4), fought the Trojan war unde the command of Idomeneus, king of Crete, and of Meriones son of Molus, They ordered him to write a account of the Trojan war (a quibus ordinatus est, ut annales belli Troiani conscriberet: ibidem). He was very well versed in the Phoenician tongue and alphabet, which he used for composing his journal, written on linden tablets. Dictys himself, in a sort of sphragìs at the end of the fifth book (chapter 17) of the Latin version, states that he wrote the events known to him using the Phoenician alphabet;  he also claims to have faced bravely all the circumstances of the war as they occurred.  In reporting the nòstoi of the Greek heroes on their way back, each to his own city of origin, he narrates the vicissitudes of Neoptolemus, stating that he learned them from Neoptolemus himself, and that he is now transmitting them to posterity (haec ego cuncta ab Neoptolemo cognita mihi memoriae mandavi: VI, 10). From his own words we learn that, the year after he returned to his homeland Crete, he helped his fellow-countrymen to face and resolve the problem posed by a terrible and blighting invasion of grasshoppers (VI, 11). The sources tell us that, before dying, he recommended that the tablets containing his diary, which were kept in a wooden box, should be buried with him. However, an earthquake which took place during the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero (Malala V, p. 250 = FGrHist 49 T 2 c mentions the emperor Claudius, but that is probably an oversight) brought to light his tomb and his tablets, which were then given to the Emperor. He had them transcribed into Greek characters, and ordered a copy to be deposited in the Greek library. [G. Bessi; translation L. Battezzato]