519 



DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. 



DEMETRIUS. 



660 



of Latona. Pytheas (' in Athen.,' p. 44 F) describes him as a profligate 

 drunken fellow. He was a great wit, and many of his sallies are 

 recorded. 



DEMETRIUS PHALE'REUS, an Athenian, the son of Phano- 

 strat us, and a scholar of Theophra^tus. His earlier years were devoted 

 to the study of philosophy : he first began to take a part in public 

 affairs about B.C. 320. (Diog. Laert., v. 5-75.) He was condemned 

 to death at the same time with Phocion (B.C. 317) for espousing the 

 Macedonian party, but had the good fortune to escape by flight (Plut., 

 'Phoc.,' cxxxv.), and was shortly after made governor of Athens by 

 Cassanrler. He maintained his authority for ten years, and, according 

 to Strabo (p. 398), Athens was never more happy than under his govern- 

 ment. In his administration of affairs he was so popular that 360 

 statues were erected in his honour; but when Demetrius Poliorcetea 

 came to Athens (B.C. 807) and proclaimed the old democracy, he was 

 obliged to fly a second time, and would hardly have escaped had not 

 his enemy ensured him a safe retreat to Thebes. (Diodor. Sic. xx., 45, 

 48.) " After the death of Cassander (B.C. 296) Demetrius retired to the 

 court of Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, where he was received with 

 great distinction, and where lie probably wrote most of the numerous 

 works attributed to him by Diogenes, (v. 5-80.) Unfortunately how- 

 ever h made an unsuccessful attempt to dissuade liis patron from 

 altering the succession to his crown in favour of his children by 

 Berenice. When Ptolemy Philadelphus came to the tin-one in B.c. 283 

 he had not forgotten the counsel which would, had it been listened to, 

 have deprived hin of his father's preference, and banished the author 

 of it to Busiris, where he soon after died from the bite of an asp. A 

 treatise on rhetoric, ascribed to him, has come down to us, and has 

 been edited separately by Schneider, Altenburg, 1779. 



DEMETRIUS POLIORCETES (the city-taker) was the son of 

 Antigonus (one of the successors of Alexander the Great) and Stra- 

 tonice. He appears to have been born about the year B.C. 334, for 

 Plutarch tells us ('Dem.,' v.) he was twenty-two when he was defeated 

 by Ptolemy and Seleucus at Qaza (B.C. 312). Demetrius soon obli- 

 terated the disgrace which had attended his first feat of arms by a 

 brilliant victory which he gained over Cilles, ono of the generals of 

 Ptolemy. (Plut., 'Dem.,' vi.) In the division of Alexander's empire, 

 which shortly followed, it was determined that Greece should be freed 

 from the dominion of Cassander, and this duty Demetrius willingly 

 took upon himself. Demetrius Phalereus then governed Athens as 



Coin of Demetrius Poliorcctes. 

 r.ritish Museum. Actual size. Silver. Weight 200 , s s grains. 



Cassander's deputy, and had obtained great popularity ; but when 

 Demetrius Poliorcetes took Munychia and offered a democratical form 

 of government to the Athenians (B.C. 307), the disciple of Theo- 

 phrastus was glad to owe a safe retreat to Thebes to the generosity 

 of his namesake. In the following year Demetrius gained a great 

 naval victory over Ptolemy, and conquered the isle of Cyprus, in con- 

 sequence of which his father Antigonus assumed the title of king. 

 (Plut, 'Dem.,' xvii., xviii.) In B.C. 301 Demetrius laid siegeto Rhodes, 

 but, although he showed all the resources of his genius in inventing 

 new and extraordinary machines for taking the city, he was unable to 

 make himself master of it, and, after a year's siege, he formed an 

 alliance with the Rhodians againxt all persons, with the exception of 

 Ptolemy. (Plut., ' Dem.,' xxi.) Demetrius then returned to Greece, 

 forced Caaaander to raise the siege of Athens, and pursued him to 

 Thermopyla; : after this he took Sicyon by surprise, and then Corinth 

 and Argos, where he married Deidamia, sister of Pyrrhus, king of 

 Epirus. Cassander was willing to make peace, but Antigonus showed 

 BO little moderation that the other successors of Alexander were 

 induced, through fear of the consequences of his ambition, to form 

 a coalition against him. Antigonus met his enemies at Ipsus, in 

 Phrygia, and fell in the battle. (Diod. xxi.; Plut., ' Dem.,' xxviii. 

 six.) Demetrius escaped from the defeat with 9000 men to Ephesus, , 

 whence he passed over to the Cyclades, and, being excluded from | 

 Athens, sailed for the Chersonese. While he was there engaged in 

 laying vraste the lands of Lysimachus, Seleucus sent to him to demand 

 his daughter Htratonice in marriage, a proposal to which he readily 

 greed. Having made himself master of the surrounding country, he 

 laid siege to Athens, which was nnder the dominion of the tyrant 

 Lachare*. The city soon surrendered (B.C. 29"i), and was treated with 

 great kindness by the conqueror. (Pint., ' Dem.,' xxxiv.) Thequarrel 

 of Alexander and Antipater, the two sons of Cassander, gave him an 

 opportunity of getting possession of Macedon, which he easily acoom- 

 r.H li>"l after having put to death Alexander, who had called him in to 



assist him against his brother. (B.C. 294.) Although master of the 

 greater part of Greece, he was eager to get possession of the whole, and 

 attacked and took Thebes. Bat his popularity was now on the wane, 

 and he was easily driven from the throne of Macedon by Pyrrhus the 

 Epirote, in i!.c. 287, whose good qualities had become known to the 

 subjects of Demetrius. (Plut., ' Dem.,' xliv.) Shortly afterwards he 

 fell into the hands of Seleucus, whose kingdom he had invaded, and 

 was detained by him in honourable confinement till his death in 

 B.C. 283. This celebrated man was so eminently handsome in his 

 person that sculptors and painters always fell short of his beauty. 

 He was much given to debauchery, and is said to have shortened his 

 life by his excesses. 



DEMETRIUS SOTER, king of Syria, the son of Seleucus Philo- 

 pater, passed his youth at Rome as a hostage. He effected his escape, 

 partly through the assistance afforded him by the historian Polybius, 

 and mounted the throne of his ancestors about B.C. 161. He con- 

 tended in vain with the Maccabees, who then ruled over Judjea, and 

 died valiantly fighting against Alexander Balas about B.C. 150. 



Coin of Demetrius Soter. 

 British Museum. Actual size. Silver. Weight 250^,. grains. 



DEMETRIUS NICATOR was the son of Soter. Having been 

 sent to Cnidos, towards the end of his father's reign, he did not fall 

 into the hands of the successful usurper Bala, and with the assistance 

 of the king of Egypt, whose daughter Cleopatra he had married, soon 

 possessed himself of his father's throne. As however he gave himself 

 up, after awhile, to profligacy, luxury, and indolence, and did not 

 attend to the duties of his station, his numerous enemies contrived 

 to expel him from his kingdom, and he remained for some time in the 

 hands of the Parthians, upon whom he had ventured to make war. 

 While still in captivity ho married a daughter of Mithridates, the 

 Parthian king; and hU former wife Cleopatra formed a union witli 

 his brother Antiochua, who became king of Syria in his absence, and 

 fell in battle with the Parthians. 1'hraates, before this event hap- 

 pened, had released Demetrius, in order that he might divide his 

 brother's party, and he consequently regained his kingdom after the 

 death of Antiochus. But Demetrius governed Syria no better than 

 before his captivity. He was again expelled by another usurper, and 

 was assassinated by the orders of hig wife Cleopatra in a temple at 

 Tyre, where he had taken refuge, B.C. 126. 



Coin of Demetrius Nioator. 

 British Museum. Actual size. Silver. Weight 2i!0,' u grains. 



DEMETRIUS, Tsar (Czar) of Russia, the title assumed by a suc- 

 cession of claimants at the commencement of the 17th century, the 

 first of whom is generally spoken of in history as the ' False Deme- 

 trius.' Ivan the Fourth of Russia, known as ' the Terrible,' in the 

 year 1584 killed, in one of his customary fits of fury, his eldest son, 

 and died in the same year, partly, it is said, from remorse. Thotii'h 

 he had had seven wives he left but two sons, Theodore, or Feodor, 

 who succeeded him, and a child named Demetrius, only three years 

 old; and these were the sole descendants of the race of Rurik, which 

 had occupied the Russian throne for centuries. Feodor, who was a 

 weak sovereign, was entirely governed by his brother-in-law, Boris 

 Qodunov, who sent the young prince Demetrius, with his mother, 

 away from the court of Moscow to the town of Uglich. In the year 

 1591, when Demetrius was ten years old, he was seized with an epileptic 

 fit (to which he was subject), when playing in the courtyard with his 

 knife, fell so that the knifa entered his throat, and died immediately; 

 his mother, who ran to the spot, alarmed by the cries of the specta- 

 tors, called out, in the first anguish of her despair, that he was 

 murdered, and the populace of Uglich, incited by her brothers, the 

 uncles of Demetrius, seized on some of the household and put them 



