Demetrius Phalereus,

Demetrius Phalereus, so named from the Attic demos of Phalerus, a seaport of Athens, where he was born about 345 B.C., was distinguished as an orator and politician. Though descended from a family of neither rank nor property, by his abilities and energy he rose to the highest honours at Athens. He was educated along with Menander in the school of Theophrastus, entered upon public life about 325, and soon made himself famous by his oratory. In 317 he was intrusted by Cassander with the government of Athens, and discharged its duties for ten years with such general satisfaction that the grateful Athenians heaped all kinds of honours upon him, and erected no fewer than 360 statues to his honour. During the later period of his administration he seems to have given himself up to dissipation; and when Demetrius Poliorcetes, king of Macedonia, approached Athens with a besieging army in 307, Demetrius, having lost the sympathies and co-operation of the Athenians, was obliged to flee. All his statues were demolished except one. He retired first to Thebes, but afterwards found refuge in the court of Ptolemy Lagi, at Alexandria, where he lived for many years, devoting himself to literary pursuits. On the death of his protector, Demetrius was expelled from the court of Egypt, retreated to Busiris in Upper Egypt, and died there from the bite of an asp in 283. Demetrius was the last of the Attic orators worthy of the name. His style was graceful, insinuating, and elegant; bearing, however, in its luxuriousness and tendency to effeminacy, the marks of a declining oratory. The list of his works (fifty in number) given by Diogenes Laërtius shows him to have been a man of most extensive acquirements.