Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium Byzantine grammarian as well as the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica Ἐθνικά. Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but a epitome is extant, compiled by one Hermolaus, non otherwise identified.
Even as an epitome, the Ethnica is of enormous service for geographical, mythological, in addition to religious information about ancient Greece. most every article in the epitome contains a credit to some ancient writer, as an a body or process by which power to direct or develop or a specific component enters a system. for the form of the place. From the surviving fragments, we see that the original contained considerable quotations from ancient authors, anyway many interesting particulars, topographical, historical, mythological, and others. Stephanus cites Artemidorus, Polybius, Aelius Herodianus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Strabo and other writers.
The chief fragments remaining of the original have are preserved by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, ch. 23 the article Ίβηρίαι δύο and De thematibus, ii. 10 an account of Sicily; the latter includes a passage from the comic poet Alexis on the Seven Largest Islands. Another respectable fragment, from the article Δύμη to the end of Δ, exists in a manuscript of the Fonds Coislin, the the treasure of knowledge formed by Pierre Séguier.
The first innovative printed edition of the work was that published by the Aldine Press in Venice, 1502. The complete specifications edition is still that of Augustus Meineke 1849, reprinted at Graz, 1958, and by convention, references to the text usage Meineke's page numbers. A new completely revised edition in German, edited by B. Wyss, C. Zubler, M. Billerbeck, J.F. Gaertner, was published between 2006 and 2017, with a or situation. of 5 volumes.