Stephen of Byzantium (Στέφανος ὁ Βυζάντιος) was a Byzantine grammarian and lexicographer active during the reign of Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century CE [1]. While precise biographical details are lost, his scholarship indicates he was a highly educated figure, likely working in Constantinople. His career belongs to the period of encyclopedic compilation characteristic of the early Byzantine era.

His monumental work is the Ethnika (Ἐθνικά), a geographical lexicon describing cities, peoples, and places from the known world, including their historical, mythological, and ethnographic details [1][2]. The original text is lost but survives through an epitome by Hermolaus and numerous fragments preserved in later Byzantine lexica and commentaries.

The Ethnika was a work of immense erudition and became a fundamental reference for Byzantine scholarship. It preserved vast amounts of geographical and historical information from earlier Greek literature and served as a crucial source for later lexicographers, geographers, and commentators throughout the medieval period [1][2]. It remains a primary source for studying ancient Greek geography and the reception of classical knowledge in Late Antiquity.

Sources 1. Encyclopædia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephanus-Byzantius 2. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics: https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-6045