DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS (c. 345—283 B.C.)  , Attic orator, statesman and philosopher, born at Phalerum, was a pupil of Theophrastus and an adherent of the Peripatetic school . He governed the city of Athens as representative of Cassander (q.v.) for ten years from 317 . It is said that he so won the hearts of the people that 36o statues were erected in his honour; but opinions are divided as to the character of his rule . On the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he was condemned to death by the fickle Athenians and obliged to leave the city . He escaped to Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus, to whom he is said to have suggested the foundation of the Alexandrian library . Having incurred the displeasure of Lagus's successor Philadelphus, Demetrius was banished to Upper Egypt, where he died (according to some, voluntarily) from the bite of an asp . Demetrius composed a large number of works on poetry, history, politics, rhetoric and accounts of embassies, all of which are lost . The treatise IIepi `Ep nnveias (on rhetorical expression), which is often ascribed to him, is probably the work of a later Alexandrian (1st century A.D.) of the same name; it has been edited by L . Radermacher (1901) and W . Rhys Roberts (1902), the last-named providing English translation, introduction, notes, glossary and complete bibliography . Fragments in C . Muller, Frag .

Hist . Graec. ii. p . 362 . See A . Holm, History of

Greece (Eng. trans.), iv . 6o .