DEMOCHARES (c. 355–275 B.C.)  , nephew of Demosthenes, Athenian orator and stateman, was one of the few distinguished Athenians in the period of decline . He is first heard of in 322, when he spoke in vain against the surrender of Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian orators demanded by Antipater . During the next fifteen years he probably lived in exile . On the restoration of the democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 he occupied a prominent position, but was banished in 303 for having ridiculed the decree of Stratocles, which contained a fulsome eulogy of Demetrius . He was recalled in 298, and during the next four years 1 fortified and equipped the city with provisions and ammunition . In 296 (or 295) he was again banished for having concluded an alliance with the Boeotians, and did not return until 287 (or 286) . In 28o he induced the Athenians to erect a public monument in honour of his uncle with a suitable inscription . After his death (some five years later) the son of Demochares proposed and obtained a decree (Plutarch, Vitae decem oratorum, p . 851) that a statue should be erected in his honour, containing a record of his public services, which seem to have consisted in a reduction of public expenses, a more prudent management of the state finances (after his return in 287) and successful begging missions to the rulers of Egypt and Macedonia . Although a friend of the Stoic Zeno, Demochares regarded all other philosophers as the enemies of freedom, and in 306 supported the proposal of one Sophocles, advocating their expulsion from Attica . According to Cicero (Brutus, 83) Demochares was the author of a history of his own times, written in an oratorical rather than a historical style . As a speaker he was noted for his freedom of language (Parrhesiastes, Seneca, De ira, iii .

23) . He was violently attacked by

Timaeus, but found a strenuous defender in Polybius (xii . 13) . See also Plutarch, Demosthenes, 30, Demetrius, 24, Vitae decem oratorum, p . 847; J . G . Droysen's essay on Demochares in Zeitschrift fur die Altertumswissenschaft (1836), Nos . 2o, 21 .