person
Demetrius of Phalerum
Demetrius
also: Demetrium, Phalereus
Athenian statesman and Peripatetic scholar who governed Athens c. 317-307 BC, then took refuge in Ptolemaic Egypt, where (Cicero says) he died by an asp set against his body. Cited as an exemplum of the dangers of royal service.
Reading notes
- On Divination §2.96 as the Phalerean writes
Demetrius of Phalerum, the Peripatetic statesman and writer, who recorded how Demosthenes overcame a speech defect by practice -- proof that nature, not the stars, is corrected by effort.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.54 Demetrius of Phalerum
Athenian statesman and pupil of Theophrastus who governed Athens 317-307 BC, then fled to Ptolemy I at Alexandria. Cicero cites his learned exile as proof that philosophy consoles misfortune.
- On Duties §1.3 Demetrius of Phalerum
Athenian statesman and pupil of Theophrastus who governed Athens 317-307 BC and later advised the kings of Egypt. Cicero cites him as the rare example of a man who joined philosophy to public oratory.
- On Duties §2.60 Demetrius of Phalerum
Peripatetic philosopher and statesman who governed Athens 317-307 BC (not the Macedonian king Demetrius of 2.26). Cicero cites his criticism of Pericles's spending on the Propylaea.
- For Gaius Rabirius Postumus §23 Demetrius, who was called the Phalerean
Cicero's chain of exempla --- Plato under Dionysius, Callisthenes under Alexander, Demetrius of Phalerum in Egypt --- argues that even the wisest Greeks came to grief by trusting themselves to royal courts, so Postumus's folly is pardonable.