A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

DEMETRIUS.
with many disasters, both father and son were
compelled to retreat. (Diod. xx. 73-76; Plut.
Demetr. 19.) In the following year (B. c. 305)
Demetrius determined to punish the Rhodians for
having refused to support his father and himself
against Ptolemy, and proceeded to besiege their
city both by sea and land. The siege which followed is rendered one of the most memorable in
ancient history, both by the vigorous and able resistance of the besieged, and by the extraordinary
efforts made by Demetrius, who displayed on this
occasion in their full extent that fertility of resource and ingenuity in devising new methods of
attack, which earned for him the surname of Poliorcetes. The gigantic machines with which he
assailed the walls, the largest of which was called
the Helepolis or city-taker, were objects of admiration in succeeding ages. But all his exertions
were unavailing, and after the siege had lasted
above a year, he was at length induced to conclude
a treaty, by which the Rhodians engaged to support Antigonus and Demetrius in all cases, except
against Ptolemy, B. c. 304. (Diod. xx. 81-88,
91-100; Plut. Demetr. 21, 22.)
This treaty was brought about by the intervention of envoys from Athens; and thither Demetrius immediately hastened, to relieve the Athenians, who were at this time hard pressed by Cassander. Landing at Aulis, he quickly made himself master of Chalcis, and compelled Cassander
not only to raise the siege of Athens, but to evacuate all Greece south of Thermopylae. He now
again took up his winter-quarters at Athens, where
he was received as before with the most extravagant flatteries, and again gave himself up to the
most unbounded licentiousness. With the spring
of 303 he hastened to resume the work of the
liberation of Greece. Sicyon, Corinth, Argos, and
all the smaller towns of Arcadia and Achaia, which
were held by garrisons for Ptolemy or Cassander,
successively fell into his hands; and it seems prooable that he even extended his expeditions as far
as Leucadia and Corcyra. (See Droysen, Geschi, d.
Nachfolg. p. 511; Thirlwall's Greece, vii. p. 353.)
The liberty of all the separate states was proclaimed; but, at a general assembly held at Corinth,
Demetrius received the title of commander-in-chief
of all Greece (j'yscwv 7Tjs 'ExAxdh o), the same
which had been formerly bestowed upon Philip
and Alexander. At Argos, where he made a considerable stay, he married a third wife-Deidameia, sister of Pyrrhus, king of Epeirus-though
both Phila and Eurydice were still living. The
debaucheries in which he indulged during his stay
at Athens, where he again spent the following
winter, and even within the sacred precincts of
the Parthenon, where he was lodged, were such as
to excite general indignation; but nothing could
exceed the meanness and servility of the Athenians
towards him, which was such as to provoke at once
his wonder and contempt. A curious monument
of their abject flattery remains to us in the Ithyphallic hymn preserved by Athenaeus (vi. p. 253).
All the laws were, at the same time, violated in
order to allow him to be initiated in the Eleusinian
mysteries. (Plut. Demetr. 23-27; Diod. xx. 100,
102, 103; Polyaen. iv. 7. ~~ 3, 8; Athen. vi. p,
253, xv. p. 697.)
The next year (B. c. 302) he was opposed to
Cassander in Thessaly, but, though greatly superior in force, effected little beyond the reduction of

DEMETRIUS.

963

Pherae. This inactivity came at.a critical time:
Cassander had already concluded a league with
Lysimachus, who invaded Asia, While Seleucus
advanced from the East to co-operate with him.
Antigonus was obliged to, summon Demetrius to
his support, who concluded a hasty treaty with
Cassander, and crossed over into Asia. The following year their combined forces were totally
defeated by those of Lysimachus and Seleucus in
the great battle of Ipsus, and Antigonus himself
slain, B. c. 301. (Diod. xx. 106-113; Plut. Demetr. 28, 29.) Demetrius, to whose impetuosity
the loss of the battle would seem to be in great
measure owing, fled to Ephesus, and from thence
set sail for Athens: but the Athenians, on whose
devotion he had confidently reckoned, declined to receive him into their city, though they gave him up
his fleet, with which he withdrew to the Isthmus.
His fortunes were still by no means hopeless: he
was at the head of a powerful fleet, and still master of Cyprus, as well as of Tyre and Sidon; but
the jealousies of his enemies soon changed the face
of his affairs; and Ptolemy having entered into a
closer union with Lysimachus, Seleucus was induced to ask the hand of Stratonice, daughter of
Demetrius by his first wife, Phila, By this alliance Demetrius obtained the possession of Cilicia,
which he was allowed to wrest from the hands of
Pleistarchus, brother of Cassander; but his refusal
to cede the important towns of Tyre and Sidon,
disturbed the harmony between him and Seleucus,
though it did not at the time lead to an open
breach. (Plut. Demetr. 30-33.)
We know nothing of the negotiations which
led to the conclusion of a treaty between Demetrius
and Ptolemy almost immediately after the alliance
between the former and Seleucus, but the effect of
these several treaties was the maintenance of
peace for a space of near four years. During this
interval Cassander was continually gaining ground
in Greece, where Demetrius had lost all his possessions; but in B. c. 297 he determined to reassert his. supremacy there, and appeared with a
fleet on the coast of Attica. His efforts were at
first unsuccessful; his fleet was wrecked, and he
himself badly wounded in an attempt upon Messene. But the death of Cassander gave a new
turn to affairs. Demetrius made himself master of
Aegina, Salamis, and other points around Athens,
and finally of that city itself, after a long blockade
which had reduced the inhabitants to the last
extremities of famine. (B. c. 295. Concerning
the chronology of these events compare Clinton,
F. I. ii. p. 178, with Droysen, Gescl. d. Nackfolger, pp. 563-569, and Thirlwall's Greece, viii.
p. 5, not.) Lachares, who from a demagogue had
made himself tyrant of Athens, escaped to Thebes,
and Demetrius had the generosity to spate all the
other inhabitants. He, however, retained possession of Munychia and the Peiraeeus, and subsequently fortified and garrisoned the hill of the
Museum. (Plut. Demetr. 33, 34; Paus. i. 25.
~ 7, 8.) His arms were next directed against
the Spartans, whom he defeated, and laid siege to
their city, which seemed on the point of falling
into his hands, when he was suddenly called away
by the state of affairs in Macedonia. Here the
dissensions between Antipater and Alexander, the
two sons of Cassander, had led the latter to call in
foreign aid to his support; and he sent embassies
at once to Demetrius and to Pyrrhus, who had
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