CONSTANTINE CANTEMIR became a prince of Moldavia, 1685 1693. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Antioch, who ruled twice, 1696-1700 and 1705-1707.
His youngest brother, DEMETRIUS or DEMETER CANTEMIR (b. October 26, 1673), was made prince of Moldavia in 1710; he ruled only one year, 1710-1711, when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Turks and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty. Beaten by the Turks, Cantemir emigrated to Russia, where he and his family finally settled. He died at Kharkov in 1723. He was one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages. The best known of his works is his History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire. He also wrote a history of oriental music (no longer extant) the first critical history of Moldo-Wallachia; the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of Mol davia, Descriptio Moldaviae, under the name of Historia Hiero glyphica, to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by animals ; also the history of the two ruling houses of Brancovan and Cantacuzino ; and a philosophical treatise on the old theme of the disputation between soul and body, written in Greek and Rumanian under the title Divanul Lumii.
His Son, ANTIOCH CANTEMIR (17o0-1774), became in 1731 Russian minister in Great Britain, and in 1736 minister pleni potentiary in Paris. He brought to London the Latin MS. whence the English translation of his father's history of the Turkish em pire was made by N. Tindal (London, 1756), to which he added an exhaustive biography and bibliography of the author (pp. 460). He was a Russian poet and almost the first author of satires in modern Russian literature.