744 DEMAND AND SUPPLY 



DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS 



Demand and Supply. In Political Economy 

 demand has reference to the quantity of goods 

 asked for in the market, and supply has reference 

 to the quantity of goods offered. The laws of 

 demand and supply may be thus stated : when 

 the demand exceeds the supply, competition grows 

 stronger among the buyers, and prices rise, and 

 when the demand falls short of the supply, com- 

 petition grows stronger among the sellers, and 

 prices fall ; or thus, falling prices tend to lessen 

 the supply and increase the demand, while rising 

 prices tend to increase the supply and lessen the 

 demand. A rise in prices tends to encourage pro- 

 duction, while a fall in prices tends to discourage it. 

 Conversely, consumption is promoted by falling 

 and lessened by rising prices. The result is that 

 demand and supply continually tend to equilibrium. 

 Under such a system it is assumed that buyers and 

 sellers or producers and consumers are free to fix 

 their own prices. In other words, the laws of 

 supply and demand prevail under a system of free 

 competition. 



Demavend, MOUNT, an extinct volcano of 

 Persia, forming the loftiest peak of the Elburz 

 Chain, which separates the low shores of the 

 Caspian Sea from the high tableland of Persia. 

 The height hitherto has been usually marked as 

 14,700 feet, but has been fixed by the Russian 

 Caspian Survey at 18,600 feet. 



Dembea, LAKE. See TZANA. 



Dembinski, HENRY, a Polish general, was 

 born near Cracow, 16th January 1791, entered the 

 Polish army in 1809, and fought under Napoleon 

 against Russia and at Leipzig. In the Polish 

 revolution of 1830 he so distinguished himself that 

 for a short time he was commander-in-chief of 

 the national army ; in 1833 he entered the service of 

 Mehemet Ali. On the outbreak of the Hungarian 

 insurrection, Kossuth appointed him commander- 

 in-chief of the Hungarian army. He drew up 

 a plan of the campaign, but was hampered by 

 the jealousy of Gorgei ; and after the defeat of 

 Kapolna (February 26-28, 1849) he was forced to 

 resign his command. At Kossuth's resignation 

 Dembinski fled to Turkey, but in 1850 he returned 

 to France, and died at Paris, 13th June 1864. He 

 was author of Memoires (1833) and four other 

 works. 



Deme (Gr. demos], a subdivision of ancient 

 Attica and of modern Greece. The demai were 

 townships or hundreds, subdivisions of the phulai, 

 and were equivalent to the Dorian /comai, Lat. pagi ; 

 in the time of Herodotus they were 100 in number 

 ( 10 in eachphule), afterwards 170 ; their origin was 

 commonly referred to Theseus. The word demos 

 early came to be applied to the commons, and sur- 

 vives significantly in OUT democracy and demagogue. 

 Deinembre", or DISMEMBERED, a heraldic term 

 to signify that the members of an 

 animal are cut from its body. 

 Dementia. See INSANITY. 

 Demerara, one of the three 

 counties of British Guiana (q.v. ), 

 between the Abari and the Esse- 

 quibo, takes its name from the 

 Demerara River, which rises in 

 the Maccari Mountains, in about 

 4 40' N. lat. , and after a northerly 

 course of about 200 miles, enters 

 the Atlantic at Georgetown. The mouth is 1J 

 mile wide, but is obstructed by a bar at low tides ; 

 the stream is navigable for 90 miles, and has many 

 flourishing settlements on its banks. 



Demesne was that portion of the lands of a 

 Manor (q.v.) which the lord of the manor reserved 

 for his immediate use and occupation. 



Dismembered. 



Demeter, the Ceres of the Romans, was one of 

 the chief divinities of the Greeks. She was the 

 earth-goddess, the patroness of agriculture and of 

 fruits, and her name itself most probably meant 

 Mother-Earth (ge meter). She was the daughter of 

 Cronus and Rhea, and was by Zeus the mother of 

 Persephone ( Proserpine ), who was carried off while 

 gathering flowers in the Nysian plain, in Asia, by 

 Aidoneus (Pluto), the god of the nether world. 

 Demeter wandered for some time in search of her 

 daughter, and when she learned whither she had 

 been carried, quitted Olympus in anger, and dwelt 

 on earth among men, as at Eleusis, bringing bless- 

 ings in her train. At length Zeus sent Hermes 

 to bring back Persephone, and both mother and 

 daughter then returned to Olympus, whereupon the 

 earth again brought forth her fruits. As Perse- 

 phone had eaten a part of a pomegranate in the 

 under world, she was obliged to spend one-third of 

 the year in the gloomy kingdom of her husband, 

 returning to her mother the remainder of the year. 

 Many later additions were made to this beautiful 

 story, in which it is not difficult to see an allegorisa- 

 tion of the burial and revival of the seed-corn within 

 the ground. The Latin poets made Enna, in Sicily, 

 the scene of Proserpine's rape. The Eleusinia were 

 held every year at Athens, in honour of Demeter 

 and her daughter, as well as the Thesmophoria, 

 both there and in other parts of Greece. The 

 Athenians revered her especially as the originator 

 of civilised life and its arts, which all rest on the 

 basis of agriculture. In art Demeter is represented 

 fully clothed, a garland of corn-ears round her 

 head, in her hand a sceptre, corn-ears, or a poppy, 

 and sometimes with a torch and mystic basket. 

 The worship of Demeter, known as Ceres, reached 

 Rome from Sicily, and ultimately acquired great 

 political importance. Her chief festival there was 

 the Cerealia. See CERES. 



Demetrius, or DMITRI. See RUSSIA. 



Demetrius Phalereus, so named from the 

 Attic demos of Phalerus, a seaport of Athens, 

 where he was born about 345 B.C., was distin- 

 guished as an orator and politician. Though 

 descended from a family of neither rank nor 

 property, by his abilities and energy he rose to 

 the highest honours at Athens. He was educated 

 along with Menander in the school of Theo- 

 phrastus, entered upon public life about 325, and 

 soon made himself famous by his oratory. In 317 

 he was intrusted by Cassander with the govern- 

 ment of Athens, and discharged its duties for ten 

 years with such general satisfaction that the 

 grateful Athenians heaped all kinds of honours 

 upon him, and erected no fewer than 360 statues to 

 his honour. During the later period of his ad- 

 ministration he seems to have given himself up 

 to dissipation ; and when Demetrius Poliorcetes, 

 king of Macedonia, approached Athens with a 

 besieging army in 307, Demetrius, having lost the 

 sympathies and co-operation of the Athenians, 

 was obliged to flee. All his statues were de- 

 molished except one. He retired first to Thebes, 

 but afterwards found refuge in the court of 

 Ptolemy Lagi, at Alexandria, where he lived for 

 many years, devoting himself to literary pursuits. 

 On the death of his protector, Demetrius Avae 

 expelled from the court of Egypt, retreated to 

 Busiris in Upper Egypt, and died there from the 

 bite of an asp in 283. Demetrius was the last of 

 the Attic orators worthy of the name. His style 

 was graceful, insinuating, and elegant ; bearing, 

 however, in its luxuriousness and tendency to 

 effeminacy, the marks of a declining oratory. The 

 list of his works (fifty in number) given by Dio- 

 genes Laertius shows him to have been a man of 

 most extensive acquirements. 



