DEMETRIOS OF PHALERON (CA. 350 – CA. 280 BC)
Demetrios (ca. 350-ca. 280 BC), known as “of Phaleron”, was an Athenian statesman and philosopher who ruled over Athens as its Macedonian-appointed governor from 317 to 307 BC. Presented here are what three ancient writers, all of them early in the third century AD, said about his involvement in Greek love, both as a boy and as a man.
The Latinisation of names in the translations of Athenaios and Aelian have been undone in favour of closer transliterations of the Greek.
Diogenes Laertios, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, V 5
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων), is the only known book by Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, thought to have lived in the first half of the 3rd century AD. The translation is this website’s.
On what Favorinus wrote about Demetrios in the first books of his Reminiscences [written in the 2nd century and since lost]:
| Moreover, he records in his second book that he [Demetrios] was had by Kleon.[1] | [76] ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπὸ Κλέωνος πεπονθέναι ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ ἱστορεῖ. |
Athenaios of Naukratis, The Learned Banqueters 542b-543a
The Greek rhetorician Athenaios Ἀθήναιος of Naukratis in Egypt wrote his Deipnosophistai Δειπνοσοφισταί (The Learned Banqueters) around the late 2nd century AD. Presented as an account of conversations at a series of banquets, it is an immense repository of varied information about antiquity that would otherwise be lost. The translation is by Douglas Olson in the Loeb Classical Library volume 327 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2010).
Given as an example of luxury:
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According to Douris[2] in Book XVI of his History, Demetrios of Phaleron had an income of 1200 talents per year; he spent only a small portion of this money on his troops and running the city, and wasted all the rest on his depraved personal life, by giving fantastic feasts every day and having large numbers of guests. He outdid the Macedonians in the amount of money he spent on dinner parties, and the Cyprians and the Phoenicians in his elegance: showers of perfume were spilled on the floor, and his craftsmen constructed large numbers of elaborate, brightly coloured mosaic floors in his dining rooms. There were also discreet liaisons with women, and night-time affairs with young boys, and Demetrios—who established laws for other people and tried to govern their lives—made his own life as lawless as possible. He was also concerned about his appearance: he dyed the hair on his head blond, smeared his face with rouge, and covered his body with ointments of other types, because he wanted to appear cheerful and pleasant to the people he came in contact with. […] Karystios of Pergamon[3] says in Book III of the Commentaries: “After Antipatros had his brother Himeraios killed,[4] Demetrios of Phaleron himself began to spend time with Nikanor,[5] offering as his excuse that he was making expiatory sacrifices in response to an appearance by his brother’s ghost. He acquired considerable power by being Kassandros’s friend.[6] In the beginning, his lunch consisted of a small cup that contained various types of olives and cheese from the islands. But after he got rich, he purchased Moschion, who was the best cook and culinary artist of his time, and he had so much food prepared every day that, because he gave Moschion the leftovers, within two years Moschion had bought three apartment buildings and was outraging[7] free-born boys and women from the most distinguished families. All the boys were jealous of Demetrios’ boyfriend Diognis, and meeting Demetrios was so important to them that if he took a walk around the Tripods[8] after lunch, the best-looking boys congregated there on subsequent days, in the hope that he would see them.” |
[542b] Δημήτριος δ᾿ ὁ Φαληρεύς, ὥς φησι Δοῦρις ἐν τῇ ἑκκαιδεκάτῃ τῶν Ἱστοριῶν, [c] χιλίων καὶ διακοσίων ταλάντων κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν κύριος γενόμενος καὶ ἀπὸ τούτων βραχέα δαπανῶν εἰς τοὺς στρατιώτας καὶ τὴν τῆς πόλεως διοίκησιν τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα διὰ τὴν ἔμφυτον ἀκρασίαν ἠφάνιζεν, θοίνας καθ᾿ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν λαμπρὰς ἐπιτελῶν καὶ πλῆθός τι συνδείπνων ἔχων. καὶ ταῖς μὲν δαπάναις ταῖς εἰς τὰ δεῖπνα τοὺς Μακεδόνας ὑπερέβαλλε, τῇ δὲ καθαρειότητι Κυπρίους καὶ Φοίνικας· ῥάσματά τε μύρων ἔπιπτεν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, [d] ἀνθινά τε πολλὰ τῶν ἐδαφῶν ἐν τοῖς ἀνδρῶσιν κατεσκευάζετο διαπεποικιλμένα ὑπὸ δημιουργῶν. ἦσαν δὲ καὶ πρὸς γυναῖκας ὁμιλίαι σιωπώμεναι καὶ νεανίσκων ἔρωτες νυκτερινοί, καὶ ὁ τοῖς ἄλλοις τιθέμενος θεσμοὺς Δημήτριος καὶ τοὺς βίους τάττων ἀνομοθέτητον ἑαυτῷ τὸν βίον κατεσκεύαζεν. ἐπεμελεῖτο δὲ καὶ τῆς ὄψεως, τήν τε τρίχα τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς ξανθιζόμενος καὶ παιδέρωτι τὸ πρόσωπον ὑπαλειφόμενος καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀλείμμασιν ἐγχρίων ἑαυτόν· ἠβούλετο γὰρ τὴν ὄψιν ἱλαρὸς καὶ τοῖς ἀπαντῶσιν ἡδὺς | φαίνεσθαι. […] Καρύστιος δὲ ὁ Περγαμηνὸς ἐν τρίτῳ Ὑπομνημάτων, Δημήτριος, φησίν, ὁ Φαληρεὺς Ἱμεραίου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ ἀναιρεθέντος ὑπ᾿ Ἀντιπάτρου αὐτὸς μετὰ Νικάνορος διέτριβεν, αἰτίαν ἔχων ὡς τὰ ἐπιφάνεια τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ θύων. [f] Κασάνδρῳ δὲ γενόμενος φίλος μέγα ἴσχυσεν. fκαὶ κατ᾿ ἀρχὰς μὲν ἦν αὐτοῦ τὸ ἄριστον ὀξύβαφα παντοδαπὰς ἐλάας ἔχοντα καὶ τυρὸν νησιωτικόν. ὡς δ᾿ ἐπλούτησε, Μοσχίωνα τὸν ἄριστον τῶν τότε μαγείρων καὶ δειπνοποιῶν ἐωνήσατο, καὶ τοσαῦτα ἦν τὰ παρασκευαζόμενα καθ᾿ ἡμέραν ὥστε χαρισαμένου τῷ Μοσχίωνι τὰ λείψανα Μοσχίων ἐν ἔτεσι δύο τρεῖς συνοικίας ἐωνήσατο παῖδάς τε ἐλευθέρους ὕβριζεν καὶ γυναῖκας τὰς τῶν ἐπιφανεστάτων. ἐζηλοτύπουν δὲ πάντες οἱ παῖδες τὸν ἐρώμενον αὐτοῦ Δίογνιν· καὶ τοσοῦτον ἦν τῷ Δημητρίῳ προσελθεῖν ὥστε μετ᾿ ἄριστον αὐτοῦ περιπατήσαντος παρὰ τοὺς Τρίποδας [543a] συνῆλθον εἰς τὸν τόπον παῖδες οἱ κάλλιστοι ταῖς ἑξῆς ἡμέραις, ἵν᾿ ὀφθεῖεν αὐτῷ. |
Claudius Aelianus, Historical Miscellany IX 9
Aelian’s Historical Miscellany, was a long series of anecdotes from older writers. His source here would seem to be the preceding part of the foregoing account by Athenaios. The translation is by Nigel G. Wilson for the Loeb Classical Library volume 486 published by the Harvard University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997.
| Demetrios of Phaleron was given to very luxurious habits, and acquired an income of 1,200 talents a year. Of this he spent a little on his army, and the rest on his own extravagance. He had the floor sprinkled with perfume, and at each period of the year the flowers that were in season were scattered before him so that he could walk on them. He was uncontrollable in his behaviour to women and indulged in affairs with youths[9]. He took care of his appearance, arranging his hair and dying it blond. He applied rouge to his face and used other cosmetics, taking a great deal of pride in his effeminacy. | Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς ᾕρει τὰς πόλεις καὶ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ τρυφῇ καταχρώμενος χίλια μὲν καὶ διακόσια τάλαντα πρόσοδον ἑαυτῷ περιεποιήσατο καθ᾿ ἕκαστον ἔτος καὶ ἐκ τούτων ὀλίγα μὲν εἰς τὸ στρατόπεδον ἐδαπάνα, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ εἰς τὴν ἀκολασίαν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ. μύροις τε ἐρραίνετο [καὶ] αὐτῷ τὸ δάπεδον καὶ καθ᾿ ἑκάστην ἔτους ὥραν τὰ ἐνακμάζοντα τῶν ἀνθέων [ταῦτα] ὑπεσπείρετο αὐτῷ, ἵνα κατ᾿ αὐτῶν βαδίζῃ. ἦν δὲ καὶ πρὸς γυναῖκας ἀκόλαστος καὶ νεανικοῖς ἔρωσιν ἐπεχείρει. ἔμελε δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ καλῷ εἶναι εὐθετίζοντι τὴν τρίχα καὶ ξανθιζομένῳ καὶ ὑπαλειφομένῳ τὸ πρόσωπον παιδέρωτι. καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις δὲ ἐχρίετο ἀλείμμασι, προσφιλοτιμούμενος τῇ ῥᾳθυμίᾳ. |
[1] The inference behind ὑπὸ … πεπονθέναι is that he was enjoyed sexually. The only known Athenian Kleon who fits chronologically was one known only as syntrierarch in 356 BC. Interestingly, this man was the grandfather of the boy Kleainetos whom Plutarch (Demetrios 4) describes as giving himself for disgracefully mercenary reasons to the new ruler of Athens, Demetrios Poliorketes, in 304/3 BC (J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 BC, Oxford: Clarendon, 1971, p.319).
[2] Douris of Samos was a historian of Greece for the period 371 to 281 BC, during the last seventy years of which he was alive and thus recording contemporary events.
[3] Karystios was a 2nd century BC grammarian whose works are lost.
[4] Antipatros was the Regent of Macedon, which had recently crushed Athens’s revolt against it. He had Himeraios killed in 321 BC.
[5] Nikanor was in charge of the Macedonian garrison at Mounychia, installed there by Antipatros to control Athens.
[6] Kassandros, son of the Antipatros mentioned earlier, became Regent of Macedon in 317 BC and promptly put Athens under Demetrios’s control, presumably on the recommendation of Nikanor.
[7] The absurd “raping” has been replaced by “outraging” as a much more accurate translation of ὕβριζεν. Plutarch, in his life of the Athenian lawgiver Solon I iii mentioned that “He also wrote a law forbidding a slave to practise gymnastics or have a boy lover, thus putting the matter in the category of honourable and dignified practices, and in a way inciting the worthy to that which he forbade the unworthy.” This is why Moschion’s liaisons with boys were an outrage; there is no suggestion in the Greek of violence.
[8] The Street of the Tripods (so called from the choregic victory monuments that lined it) ran from the Prytaneion in the Agora around the Acropolis, and ended at the shrine of Dionysus Eleuthereus near the Theatre. [Translator’s note]
[9] “Young men” has had to be replaced by “youths” as a translation of νεανικοῖς, which simply means young males (of unspecified age). In the case of Demetrios, it was certainly boys and not men who were his interest, as the 2nd century BC Karystios of Pergamon, cited in the foregoing passage by Athenaios, in both his references to them, called them παῖδες (boys).
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