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Updated: June 18, 2025
"When these orators were in the decline of life, they were succeeded by Phalereus; who was then in the prime of youth.
Demetrius Phalereus, the Admirable Crichton of his time, the last of Attic orators, statesman, philosopher, poet, warrior, and each of them in the most graceful, insinuating, courtly way, migrates to Alexandria, after having had the three hundred and sixty statues, which the Athenians had too hastily erected to his honour, as hastily pulled down again. Here was a prize for Ptolemy!
So Minos had done in Crete, and Lycurgus in Sparta; and in Athens, which experienced so many revolutions, first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes, afterward many others; and, lastly, when it was almost lifeless and quite prostrate, that great and wise man, Demetrius Phalereus, supported it.
For without a change of opinions, alas! what is all that ostentation, but mere wretchedness of slavish minds, that groan privately, and yet would make a show of obedience to reason, and truth? Go too now and tell me of Alexander and Philippus, and Demetrius Phalereus. Whether they understood what the common nature requireth, and could rule themselves or no, they know best themselves.
Many of the Greeks have pursued it with success: but, in my opinion, they must all yield the palm to Demetrius Phalereus, whose Eloquence is ever mild and placid, and bespangled with a most elegant variety of metaphors and other tropes, like so many stars.
Particularly the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, the De Republica, and the Laelius. See 4, below. Works on Old Age are said to have been written by Theophrastus and Demetrius Phalereus, either or both of which Cicero might have used.
In oratory Alexandria made no attempts whatever; it is a branch of literature not likely to flourish under a despotic monarchy. In Athens it fell with the loss of liberty, and Demetrius Phalereus was the last of the real Athenian orators.
Beauty even gave a right to fame; and we find in Greek histories the most beautiful people distinguished. Some were famous for the beauty of one single part of their form; as Demetrius Phalereus, for his beautiful eyebrows, was called Charito-blepharos.
These, however, are frequently used by Phalereus, and have a soft and pleasing effect: but though he abounds in the metaphor, he also makes use of the other tropes with as much freedom as any writer whatever. By this, moreover, the most extensive and refined topics of science are handsomely unfolded, and all the weapons of argument are employed without violence. But what need have I to say more?
I fear I am committing the rhetorical error of comparing small things with great; but, if Virgil could bring in the Cyclops and their thunderbolts to illustrate his bees, and Demetrius Phalereus justify it, you will hardly count it a capital offence in me, and I don't much care if you do, if I can only convince you that I am not going to be silent because I don't know the Alpha and Omega of things.
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