Editing Dicaearchus (section)

==Life==
He was the son of one Pheidias, and born at [[Messina, Italy|Messana]] in Sicily,<ref>''Suda'', δ 1062.</ref> [[Magna Graecia]], though he passed part of his life in [[Greece]], and especially in [[Athens]] and the [[Peloponnesus]].<ref>Cicero, ''Ad Atticum'', vi. 2. 3.</ref> He also travelled to make his measurements of mountains. He was a disciple of [[Aristotle]]<ref>''FGrHist'' 1400 T 7a–f.</ref> and a friend of [[Aristoxenus]] (a letter written to him is attested in Cicero<ref>Cicero, ''ad Atticum'', xiii. 32. 2.</ref>). Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scholarship often considered him a friend of [[Theophrastus]] as well, but this is based on the reference to a man named Theophrastus in the spurious ''Description of Greece'', which is transmitted under Dicaearchus's name but actually consists of excerpts from a geographic poem written by Dionysius, son of Calliphon, and from a prose periegesis of Greece, written by Heraclides Criticus.  It is uncertain when Dicaearchus died. The only certain terminus post quem is the death of [[Alexander the Great]] (323 BC). According to Pliny,<ref>Pliny, ''Naturalis historia'', ii. 162.</ref> Dicaearchus measured mountains "with the support of the kings" ({{Lang|la|cura regum}}). Most scholars identify these kings as [[Cassander]] and [[Ptolemy I Soter]]. If this identification is correct, this would put Dicaearchus's activity between 306 and 287 BC. However, the kings might also refer to [[Philip III of Macedon|Philip III Arrhidaeus]] and [[Alexander IV of Macedon|Alexander IV]], who were the nominatim kings after the death of [[Alexander the Great]]. If that identification is correct, this moves his activity to 323–317 BC.<ref>Verhasselt 2018, pp. 5, 196–198.</ref>