Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​On the Iliad, two books; On the Odyssey, four books; Ptolemy, one book; On Love, one book; Phaedondas, one book; Maidon, one book; Cleon, one book; Socrates, one book; Artaxerxes, one book; Homeric Questions, one book; Aristeides, one book; Aristomachus, one book; Exhortation, one book; In Defense of the Constitution, one book; On the Ten Years, one book; On the Ionians, one book; Embassy, one book; On Trust, one book; On Favor, one book; On Fortune, one book; On Greatness of Soul, one book; On Marriage, one book; On the Beam, one book; On Peace, one book; On Laws, one book; On Customs, one book; On the Right Moment, one book; Dionysius, one book; Chalcidian, one book; Incursion of the Athenians, one book; On Antiphanes, one book; Historical Introduction, one book; Letters, one book; Sworn Assembly, one book; On Old Age, one book; Rights, one book; Aesop's Fables, one book; Maxims, one book.

​His literary character was philosophical, blended with rhetorical vigor and force. When he heard that the Athenians had pulled down his statues, he said: 'Yet not the virtue for which they erected them.' He used to say that the eyebrow is a small part of the body, but capable of casting a shadow over the whole of life. He said that not only is wealth blind, but also fortune who guides it. That speech has as much power in a state as iron does in war. Seeing once an extravagant young man, he said: 'Behold, a square Hermes with a trailing robe, belly, private parts, and beard.' He said that from conceited men one ought to strip away their haughtiness, but leave behind their high spirit. He said that young men ought to show respect to their parents at home, to those they meet in the streets, and to themselves in solitude.

​That one ought to visit friends in prosperity when summoned, but in adversity of one's own accord. So many are the sayings that seem to be attributed to him. There have been twenty noteworthy men named Demetrius: the first was from Chalcedon, a rhetorician and older than Thrasymachus; the second was this man himself; the third was of Byzantium, a Peripatetic; the fourth was called the Graphic and clear in exposition—he was also a painter; the fifth of Aspendus, a pupil of Apollonius of Soli; the sixth of Callatis, who wrote twenty books on Asia and Europe; the seventh of Byzantium, who wrote in thirteen books the crossing of the Galatians from Europe into Asia, and in another eight the affairs concerning Antiochus and Ptolemy and their administration of Libya;

​the eighth a sophist who lived in Alexandria and wrote handbooks of rhetoric; the ninth a grammarian of Adramyttium, surnamed Ixion because he was thought to have committed an offense against Hera; the tenth of Cyrene, a grammarian surnamed Stamnos, a man of note; the eleventh of Scepsis, a wealthy man of noble birth and exceedingly devoted to literature, who also advanced his fellow citizen Metrodorus; the twelfth a grammarian of Erythrae, enrolled as a citizen in Mnoa; the thirteenth of Bithynia, son of Diphilus the Stoic and pupil of Panaetius of Rhodes;

​the fourteenth a rhetorician of Smyrna. These, then, are the prose authors. As for poets: the first composed Old Comedy; the second was an epic poet, of whom only these lines addressed against the envious are preserved: 'Disdaining him while alive, they yearn for him when dead; and once over a tomb and a breathless image strife came upon cities, and the people stirred up conflict.' The third was a writer of satyr plays from Tarsus; the fourth wrote iambics, a bitter man; the fifth a statuary, mentioned by Polemon; the sixth of Erythrae, a versatile writer, who composed historical and rhetorical books.