DEHE'TRIUS POLIORCE'TES (the city-taker) was the son of Antigonus (one of the successors of Alexander the Great) and Stra tonice. He appears to have been born about the year B.C. 334, for Plutarch tells us ('Dem.,' v.) he was twenty-two when he was defeated by Ptolemy and Seleucns at Gaza (B.C. 312). Demetrius soon obli terated the disgrace which had attended his first feat of arms by a brilliant victory which he gained over Mlles, ono of the generals of Ptolemy. (Pint., 'Dem.,' vi.) In the division of Alexander's empire, which shortly followed, it was determined that Greece should be freed from the dominion of Cassander, and this duty Demetrius willingly took upon himself. Demetrius Phalereus then governed Athens as Canander's deputy, and had obtained great popularity ; but when Demetrius Poliorcetea took Munychia and offered a demoeratical form of government to the Athenians (s.C. 307), the disciple of Theo phrastus was glad to owe a safe retreat to Thebes to the generosity of his namesake. In the following year Demetrius gained a great naval victory over Ptolemy, and conquered the isle of Cyprus, in con sequence of which his father Antigonus assumed the title of king. (Plut., 'Dem.,' xvii., xviil.) In B.C. 301 Demetrius laid siege to Rhodes, but, although ho showed all the resources of his genius in inventing new and extraordinary machines for taking the city, he was unable to make himself master of it, and, after a year's siege, he formed an alliance with the Rhodians against all persons, with the exception of Ptolemy. (Plut., 'Dem.,' xxi.) Demetrius then returned to Greece, forced Cassander to raise the siege of Athens, and pursued him to Thermopylas ; after this he took Sicyon by surprise, and then Corinth and Argos, where he married Deidamia, slater of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Cassander was willing to mako peace, but Antigonus showed so little moderation that the other successors of Alexander were induced, through fear of the consequences of his ambition, to form a coalition against him. Antigonus met his enemies at Ipsus, in
Phrygia, and fell in the battle. (Diod. xxi.; Plat, Dem.,' xxviii.— xxx.) Demetrius escaped from the defeat with 9000 men to Ephesus, whence he passed over to the Cyclades, and, being excluded from Athens, sailed for the Chersonese. While he was there engaged in laying waste the lands of Lysimachus, Seloucus sent to him to demand his daughter Stratonice In marriage, a proposal to which he readily agreed. Having made himself master of the surrounding country, he laid siege to Athens, which was under the dominion of the tyrant Lachares. The city soon surrendered (s.c. 295), and was treated with great kindness by the conqueror. (PM., 'Dem.,' xxxiv.) The quarrel of Alexander and Antipater, the two SOUR of Cassander, gave him an opportunity of getting possession of Macedon, which he easily accom plished after having put to death Alexander, who had called him in to assist him against his brother. (me. 294.) Although master of the greater part of Greece, he was eager to get possession of the whole, and attacked and took Thebes. But his popularity was now on the wane, and he was easily driven from the throne of Macedon by Pyrrhus the Epirote, in ne. 237, whose good qualities had become known to the subjects of Demetrius. (Plut., 'Dem.,' xliv.) Shortly afterwards he fell into the hands of Selencus, whose kingdom he had invaded, and WAS detained by him in honourable confinement till his death in B.C. 233. This celebrated man was so eminently handsome iu his person that sculptors and painters always fell short of his beauty. He was much given to debauchery, and is said to have shortened his life by his excesses.