Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/984

Rh 966 DEMETRIUS. submission of Teiita, with a great part of her do- minions, though the Romans seem never to have thoroughly trusted him. (Polyb. I. c. ; Appian, lUyr. c. 8.) He afterwards entered into alliance ■with Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and assisted him in the war against Cleomenes. (Polyb. ii. 65, iii. 1 6.) Thinking that he had thus secured the powerful support of Macedonia, and that the Romans were too much occupied with the Gallic wars, and the danger impending from Hannibal, to punish his breach of faith, he ventured on many acts of piratical hostility. The Romans, however, immediately sent the consul L. Aemilius Paullus over to lUyria (b. c. 219), who quickly reduced all his strongholds, took Pharos itself, and obliged Demetrius to fly for refuge to Philip, king of Macedonia. (Polyb. iii. 16, 18, 19; Appian, Illyr. 8 ; Zonar. viii. 20.) At the court of this prince he spent the remainder of his life, and be- came his chief adviser. The Romans in vain sent an embassy to the Macedonian king to demand his surrender (Liv. xxii. 33) ; and it was at his insti- gation that Philip determined, after the battle of Thrasymene, to conclude an alliance with Han- nibal and make war upon the Romans. (Polyb. v. 101, 105, 108; Justin, xxix. 2.) Demetrius was a man of a daring character, but presumptuous and deficient in judgment ; and while supporting the cause of Philip in Greece, he was led to engage in a rash attempt to take the fortress of Ithome by a sudden assault, in which he himself perished. (Polyb. iii. 19.) Polybius ascribes most of the violent and unjust proceedings of Philip in Greece to the advice and iiilluence of Demetrius, who ap- pears to have been a man of much ability, but wholly regardless of faith and justice. (Polvb. vii. 11, 13, 14.) [E. H. B.] DEME'TRIUS (Aij/iTfrptos), younger son of Philip V., king of Macedonia, but his only son by his legitimate wife, the elder brother Perseus being the son of a concubine. (Liv. xxxix. 53.) After the battle of CjTioscephalae, Philip was obliged to give up Demetrius, then very young, to Flamininus as a hostage, and he was subsequently sent to Rome in the same capacity, B. c. 198. (Liv. xxxiii. 13, 30, xxxiv. 52; Polyb. xviii. 22.) Five years afterwards he was honourably restored to his father, Philip having at this time obtained the favour of Rome by his services in the war against Antiochus. (Liv. xxxvi. 35; Polyb. xx. 13; Zonar. ix. 19.) But this did not last long, and Philip finding himself assailed on all sides by the machinations of Rome, and her intrigues among his neighbours, determined to try and avert, or at least delay, the impending stonn, by sending De- metrius, who during his residence at Rome had obtained the highest favour, as his ambassador to the senate. The young prince was most favourably received, and returned with the answer, that the Romans were willing to excuse all the past, out of good-will to Demetrius, and from their confidence in his friendly dispositions towards them. (Liv. xxxix. 34, 47; Polyb. xxiii. 14, xxiv. 1 — 3; Justin, xxxii. 2.) But the favour thus shewn to Demetrius had the effect (as was doubtless the de- sign of the senate) of exciting against him the jealousy of Philip, and in a still higher degree that of Perseus, who suspected his brother, perhaps not 'without cause, of intending to supplant him on the throne after his father's death, by the assistance of the Romans. Perseus therefore endeavoured to DEMETRIUS. effect his ruin by his intrigues ; and having failed in accomplishing this by accusing him falsely of an attempt upon his life, he suborned Didas, one of Philip's generals, to accuse Demetrius of holding treasonable correspondence with the Romans, and of intending to escape to them. A forged letter, pretending to be from Flamininus, appeai-ed to con- firm the charge ; and Philip was induced to consign him to the custody of Didas, by whom he was secretly put to death, as it was supposed, by his father's order. (Liv. xxxix. 53, xl. 4 — 15, 20 — 24; Polyb. xxiv. 7, 8; Justin, xxxii. 2; Zonar. ix. 22.) Demetrius was in his 26th year at the time of his death ; he is represented by Livy as a very amiable and accomplished young man ; but it may well be doubted whether he was altogether so innocent as he appears in that author's eloquent narrative. (See Niebulir's Lect. on Roman His- tory, vol. i. p. 272, ed. by Dr. Schmitz. [E. H. B.] DEME'TRIUS POLIORCE'TES. [Demb- TRIUS I., KING OF MACEDONIA.] DEME'TRIUS (ATjAirirptos) I., king of Syria, surnamed Soter (SwttJp), was the son of Seleucus IV. (Philopator) and grandson of Antiochus the Great. While yet a child, he had been sent to Rome by his father as a hostage, and remained there during the whole of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He there formed an intimacy with the historian Polybius. After the death of Antiochus, being now 23 years old, he demanded of the senate to be set at liberty and allowed to occupy the throne of Syria in preference to his cousin, Antiochus Eupator. His request however having been repeatedly refused by the senate, he fled secretly from Rome, by the advice and with the connivance of Polybius, and landed with a few followers at Tripolis in Phoenicia. The Sy- rians immediately declared in his favour ; and the boy Antiochus with his tutor Lysias were seized by their own guards and put to death. (Polyb. xxxi. 12, 19 — 23; Appian, Syr. 46, 47; Justin, xxxiv. 3; Liv. Epil. xlvi. ; Euseb. Arm. p. 166, fol. edit.; 1 Mace. vii. ; Zonar. ix. 25.) As soon as he had established himself in the kingdom, De- metrius immediately sought to conciliate the favour of the Romans by sending them an embassy with valuable presents, and surrendering to them Lep- tines, who in the preceding reign had assassinated the Roman envoy, Cn. Octavius. Having thus succeeded in procuring his recognition as king, he appears to have thought that he might regulate at his pleasure the aflxiirs of the East, and expelled Heracleides from Babylon, where as satrap he had made himself highly unpopular; for which service Demetrius first obtained from the Babylonians the title of Soter (Polyb. xxxii. 4, 6 ; Diod. Exc. Leg. xxxi. ; Appian, Syr. 47.) His measures against the Jews quickly drove them to take up arms again under Judas Maccabaeus, who defeated Ni- canor, the general of Demetrius, and concluded an alliance with the Romans, by which they declared the independence of Judaea, and forbade Deme- trius to oppress them. (Joseph. Ant. xii. 10; 1 Mace. vii. viii.) He further incurred the enmity of the Romans by expelling Ariarathes from Cap- padocia, in order to substitute a creature of his own : the Roman senate espoused the cause of Ariarathes, and immediately restored him. (Polyb. xxxii. 20; Appian, Syr. 47; Liv. EpU. xlvii. ; Justin, XXXV. 1.) While Demetrius was thus surrounded on all