Dios

Dios was an ancient Greek philosopher whose exact dates are uncertain. He is associated with Pythagoreanism, and certain writings on aesthetics are attributed to him. These writings, found in two fragments in Stobaeus under the title *On Beauty* (Περὶ καλλονῆς), are composed in an artificial Doric Greek, a style common among pseudonymous Pythagorean authors. Dios's style is noted as being particularly archaizing within the Pythagorean corpus. The fragments, totaling about thirty lines of prose, focus on the physical beauty of young men as a means to achieve eudaimonia. However, the philosophical content of these excerpts is not distinctly Pythagorean. Given the artificial nature of the language used, the fragments attributed to Dios are considered unreliable. It is possible that the pseudonym 'Dios' was chosen to evoke the father of the poet Hesiod, who lived in the 7th century BC. Nevertheless, the writings themselves are dated much later, possibly as late as the Hellenistic period. According to Hellanikos of Lesbos, Dios, the father of Hesiod, was a descendant of Orpheus. Dios is also listed among the Pythagoreans in Iamblichus' *Vita Pythagorica*, who likely drew his information from Aristoxenus. Furthermore, a wise saying found in a Coptic collection is attributed to a philosopher named Dios, who is described as a student of the legendary Linos of Thrace. This Dios is likely the same obscure Pythagorean. The saying, found in a 10th or 11th-century AD Viennese parchment fragment from the White Monastery, simply states: "Diligence ([μελετή](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%AD%CF%84%CE%B7