Dares Phrygius

Who is Dares Phrygius?

Dares Phrygius, according to Homer, was a Trojan priest of Hephaestus. He was supposed to have been the author of an account of the destruction of Troy, and to have lived before Homer. A work in Latin, purporting to be a translation of this, and entitled Daretis Phrygii de excidio Trojae historia, was much read in the Middle Ages, and was then ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, who is made to dedicate it to Sallust; but the language is extremely advanced, and the work belongs to a period much later than the time of Nepos.

It is doubtful whether the existing work is an abridgment of a larger Latin work or an adaptation of a Greek original. Together with the similar work of Dictys Cretensis, the De excidio forms the chief source for the numerous medieval accounts of the Trojan legend, the so-called Matter of Troy.

The work was a significant source for Joseph of Exeter's De bello Troiano.