took place, probably some time in September, at Eleusis. In later times the ephebi also took part in the Proërosia.
4. Thalysia, a thanksgiving festival, held in autumn after the harvest in the island of Cos (see Theocritus vii.).
5. The name of Demeter is also associated with the Scirophoria (see Athena). It is considered probable that the festival was originally held in honour of Athena, but that the growing importance of the Eleusinia caused it to be attached to Demeter and Kore.
The attributes of Demeter are chiefly connected with her character as goddess of agriculture and vegetation—ears of corn, the poppy, the mystic basket (calathus) filled with flowers, corn and fruit of all kinds, the pomegranate being especially common. Of animals, the cow and the pig are her favourites, the latter owing to its productivity and the cathartic properties of its blood. The crane is associated with her as an indicator of the weather. As a chthonian divinity she is accompanied by a snake; the myrtle, asphodel and narcissus (which Persephone was gathering when carried off by Hades) also are sacred to her.
In Greek art, Demeter is made to resemble Hera, only more matronly and of milder expression; her form is broader and fuller. She is sometimes riding in a chariot drawn by horses or dragons, sometimes walking, sometimes seated upon a throne, alone or with her daughter. The Demeter of Cnidus in the British Museum, of the school of Praxiteles, apparently shows her mourning for the loss of her daughter. The article Greek Art, fig. 67 (pl. iv.), gives a probable representation of Demeter (or her priestess) from the stone of a vault in a Crimean grave.
The Romans identified Demeter with their own Ceres (q.v.).
See L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone (1837); P. R. Förster, Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone (1874), in which considerable space is devoted to the representations of the myth in art; W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (1884); J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); L. Dyer, The Gods in Greece (1891); J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (2nd ed.), ii. 168-222; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie (4th ed., by C. Robert); O. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iv. pt. 2 (1901); L. Bloch in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, ii. (1907); L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. (1907); article “Ceres” by F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités. (J. H. F.)
DEMETRIA, a Greek festival in honour of Demeter, held at
seed-time, and lasting ten days. Nothing is known of it beyond
the fact that the men who took part in it lashed one another with
whips of bark (μόροττον), while the women made obscene jests.
It is even doubtful whether it was a particular festival at all or
only another name for the Eleusinia or Thesmophoria. The
Dionysia also were called Demetria in honour of Demetrius
Poliorcetes, upon whom divine honours were conferred by the
Athenians.
Hesychius, s.v. μόροττον; Pollux i. 37; Diod. Sic. v. 4; Plutarch, Demetrius, 12; Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités.
DEMETRIUS, king of Bactria, was the son of the Graeco-Bactrian
king Euthydemus, for whom he negotiated a peace with
Antiochus the Great in 206 (Polyb. xi. 34). Soon afterwards he
crossed the Hindu Kush and began the invasion of India (Strabo
xi. 516); he conquered the Punjab and the valley of the Indus
down to the sea and to Gujerat. The town Sangala, a town of the
Kathaeans in the Punjab (Arrian v. 22, 2 ff.), he named after his
father Euthydemia (Ptol. vii. 1, 46). That his power extended
into Arachosia (Afghanistan) is proved by the name of a town
Demetrias near Kandahar (Isidor. Charac. 19, cf. Strabo xi. 516).
On his coins he wears an elephant’s skin with trunk and teeth on
his head; on bronze coins, which have also an Indian legend in
Kharoshti letters (see Bactria), he calls himself the unvanquished
king (Βασιλέως ἀνικήτου Δημητρίου). One of his coins has
already the square form used in India instead of the circular.
Eventually he was defeated by the usurper Eucratides (q.v.), who
meanwhile had risen to great power in Bactria. About his death
we know nothing; his young son Euthydemus II. (known only
from coins) can have ruled only a short time. (Ed. M.)
DEMETRIUS, the name of two kings of Macedonia.
1. Demetrius I. (337–283 B.C.), surnamed Poliorcetes (“Besieger”), son of Antigonus Cyclops and Stratonice. At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend Syria against Ptolemy the son of Lagus; he was totally defeated near Gaza (312), but soon partially repaired his loss by a victory in the neighbourhood of Myus. After an unsuccessful expedition against Babylon, and several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of Cilicia and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to Athens. He freed the city from the power of Cassander and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison which had been stationed there under Demetrius of Phalerum, and besieged and took Munychia (307). After these victories he was worshipped by the Athenians as a tutelary deity under the title of Soter (“Preserver”). In the campaign of 306 against Ptolemy he defeated Menelaus (the brother of Ptolemy) in Cyprus, and completely destroyed the naval power of Egypt. In 305 he endeavoured to punish the Rhodians for having deserted his cause; and his ingenuity in devising new instruments of siege, in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the capital, gained him the appellation of Poliorcetes. He returned a second time to Greece as liberator. But his licentiousness and extravagance made the Athenians regret the government of Cassander. He soon, however, roused the jealousy of the successors of Alexander; and Seleucus, Cassander and Lysimachus united to destroy Antigonus and his son. The hostile armies met at Ipsus in Phrygia (301). Antigonus was killed in the battle, and Demetrius, after sustaining a severe loss, retired to Ephesus. This reverse of fortune raised up many enemies against him; and the Athenians refused even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory of Lysimachus, and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his daughter Stratonice in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of Lachares; but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city (294) and pardoned the inhabitants their former misconduct. In the same year he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by the murder of Alexander, the son of Cassander. But here he was continually threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage the defenceless part of his kingdom (Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 7 ff.); and at length the combined forces of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy and Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among his own subjects, obliged him to leave Macedonia after he had sat on the throne for six years (294–288). He passed into Asia, and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with varying success; but famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army, and he solicited Seleucus for support and assistance. But before he reached Syria hostilities broke out; and after he had gained some advantages over his son-in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops on the field of battle, and surrendered his person to Seleucus. His son Antigonus offered all his possessions, and even his person, in order to procure his father’s liberty; but all proved unavailing, and Demetrius died in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after a confinement of three years (283). His remains were given to Antigonus, honoured with a splendid funeral at Corinth, and thence conveyed to Demetrias. His posterity remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time of Perseus, who was conquered by the Romans.
See Life by Plutarch; Diod. Sic. xix. xx.; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos von Karystos; De Sanctis, Contributi alla storia Ateniese in Beloch’s Studi di storia antica (1893); Fergusson in Lehmann’s Beiträge z. alt. Gesch. (Klio) vol. v. (1905); also authorities under Macedonian Empire.
2. Demetrius II., son of Antigonus Gonatas, reigned from 239 to 229 B.C. He had already during his father’s lifetime distinguished himself by defeating Alexander of Epirus at Derdia and so saving Macedonia (about 260?). On his accession he had to face a coalition which the two great leagues, usually rivals, the Aetolian and Achaean, formed against the Macedonian power. He succeeded in dealing this coalition severe blows, wresting Boeotia from their alliance. The revolution in Epirus, which substituted a republican league for the monarchy, gravely weakened his position. Demetrius had also to defend Macedonia against the wild peoples of the north. A battle with the Dardanians turned out disastrously, and he died shortly afterwards,
