DEMOSTHENES, de-MOZ-tka-es. 1. A cele brated Athenian orator and statesman, born 385 B.C., son of a rich blacksmiths, Demos thenes, and Grabble ; he was but seven when his father died, and his fortune was embezzled or mismanaged by his guardians. He became a pupil of Ismus and Plato, and studied the orations of Isocrates, and at seventeen he im peached his guardians and recovered the greater part of his fortune. He had several physical disadvantages to contend with : cure his stammering, he used to speak with pebbles in his mouth, and to get rid of the distortion of his face, he'used to watch the motions of his face in a looking-glass ; he strengthened his lungs by running up-hill, and, to accustom himself to the noise of an assembly, used to decl4ip on the sea-shore. He became the most distiMuished of the orators of Athens, and the acknowledged political leader ; he aroused his countrymen against King Philip of Macedonia, but at the battle of Chmronea (338) he betrayed his pusillanimity, and saved his life by flight ; after Philip's death he as strongly opposd his son Alexander, and when the Macedonians demanded the surrender of the orators, he re minded them of the fable of the sheep giving up their dogs to the wolves ; but though his popularity was not so great, he succeeded in procuring a verdict against JEschines (q.v.),
330, when the latter impeached Ctesiphon for proposing a golden crown to Demosthenes. He was suspected of being bribed by Harpalus, 325, and was condemned and imprisoned ; he escaped and resided at Trcezine and lEgina till the Greek states rose on the death of Alex ander, 303, when he was recalled ; but on the defeat (322) of the confederates he fled to Calaurla, and, being pursued by Antipater's messengers, poisoned himself in Neptune's temple. 2. An Athenian general, son of Alcis therms, assisted Cleon against Sphacteria, B.C., and in 453 was sent with a fleet to assist the expedition under Niclas in Sicily : the united forces were destroyed, and both com manders had to surrender, and were put to death.
DEO, de'-5, Ceres, whence Delis and Derline, Proserpina.
DErtsE, der'-be, a town of Lycaonia.
also .4 targalis, a Syrian goddess, identified by some with Astarte : she was represented as a beautiful woman above the waist, and the lower part terminated in a fish's tail : she had been changed into a fish when she flung her self into a lake, ashamed pf herself for having born a daughter, Semiramis (whom she in effectually exposed) to a youth whom she killed.