He was a pupil of the celebrated Apollodorus of Pergamon, tutor of the Roman emperorAugustus. Dionysius was himself a teacher of rhetoric, and the author of several works, in which he explained the theory of Apollodorus. It would appear from his surname that he resided at Athens.[5][6]
He has at times been identified as the author of the anonymous work On the Sublime, but there is no scholarly consensus around the true identity of that author.[7] He also may be the same person as the Vipsanius Atticus described by Seneca the Elder as a disciple of Apollodorus from Pergamon, but there is also no consensus around this.[2]