LIFE OF DEMETRIUS.
I. Demetrius was a native of Phalerus, and the son of Phanostratus. He was a pupil of Theophrastus.
II. And as a leader of the people at Athens he governed the city for ten years, and was honoured with three hundred and sixty brazen statues, the greater part of which were equestrian; and some were placed in carriages or in pair-horse chariots, and the entire number were finished within three hundred days, so great was the zeal with which they were worked at. And Demetrius, the Magnesian, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he began to be the leader of the commonwealth, when Harpalus arrived in Athens, having fled from Alexander. And he governed his country for a long time in a most admirable manner. For he aggrandised the city by increased revenues and by new buildings, although he was a person of no distinction by birth.
III. Though Phavorinus, in the first book of his Commentaries, asserts that he was of the family of Conon.
IV. He lived with a citizen of noble birth, named Lamia, as his mistress, as the same author tells us in his first book.
V. Again, in his second book he tells us that Demetrius was the slave of the debaucheries of Cleon.
VI. Didymus, in his Banquets, says that he was called χαριτοβλέφαρος, or Beautiful Eyed, and Lampeto, by some courtesan.
VII. It is said that he lost his eye-sight in Alexandria, and recovered it again by the favour of Serapis; on which account he composed the pæans which are sung and spoken of as his composition to this day.