The Inscriptions and Demetrios of Phaleron
One of the most notable facts about the period 317-307, the decade of Demetrios' rule,[1] is that almost no decrees of the assembly can be assigned to these years. Indeed there are now only two certain ones, IG II2450 and 453.[2] It has generally been deduced from this fact that the assembly met less often and that, whatever his rhetoric may have been,[3] Deme-
[1] The bibliography on Demetrios is extensive. In addition to PW IV 2817-2841 (Martini), PA 3455 (Kirchner), PWK Suppl. XI 514-522 (Wehrli), and APF 3455 (Davies), see E. Bayer, Demetrios Phalereus der Athener , Tüb. Beiträge 36 (Stuttgart 1942); and J. M. Williams, "Athens without Democracy: The Oligarchy of Phocion and the Tyranny of Demetrius of Phalerum, 322-307" (diss., Yale University 1982). W. S. Ferguson devoted a chapter to him in Hellenistic Athens 37-94; there are also articles by Ferguson ("The Laws of Demetrius of Phalerum and Their Guardians," Klio 11 [1911] 265-276), by S. Dow and A. H. Travis ("Demetrios of Phaleron and His Lawgiving," Hesperia 12 [1943] 144-165), by H.-J. Gehrke ("Das Verhältnis yon Politik und Philosophie im Wirken des Demetrios von Phaleron," Chiron 8 [1978] 149-193), and by J. M. Williams ("The Peripatetic School and Demetrius of Phalerum's Reforms in Athens," Ancient World 15 [1987] 87-98). For the collected ancient testimonia, see E Jacoby, FGrH no. 228; and E Wehrli, DieSchule des Aristoteles IV (Basel 1949).
[2] IG II727 probably belongs to the years of Demetrios (below 139), and IG II592 could date from the period of his control (below 155-156). Ch. Habicht will suggest in his forthcoming Athen von Alexander bis Antonios (Munich 1995) that IG II 418 , the end of a decree honoring ambassadors from Carthage, may be connected with the events of 310/09, the war between Agathokles, tyrant of Syracuse, and Carthage (Diodoros 20.40.1-42.5). Furthermore, J. Morgan in a forthcoming study of the Athenian calendar win argue the likelihood that IG II 585 belongs to the year 314/3. On the other hand, the following decrees that have been dated to the decade of Demetrios' rule should be removed. IG II449 probably does not date after 320 (below 99); II 451 belongs to the year 340/39 (below 73-74); II 452 is now dated to the year 328/7 (Schwenk no. 53; for evidence that this decree and IG II 399 were passed at the same meeting, see above 8n. 4); and II 454 belongs to 324/3 (S. Dow, Hesperia 32 [1963] 350; Schwenk no. 75). Finally, Koehler in IG , followed by Robert (Rev . Num ., 1977, 23-24), has associated IG II549 with events known to have occurred in 315/4. However, this text was inscribed by the Cutter of IG II 244 and probably dates before 320 B.C. (below 99).
trios' regime was strongly antidemocratic.[4] This may well have been so, but the mere absence of inscribed measures does not necessarily lead to this conclusion. It is very possible, for example, that the assembly was quite active and that the only activity much curtailed was the inscribing of decrees.
In this regard, it may be significant that the only preserved dose of a decree datable to the years of his control, namely lines 1-12 of IG II2 450b , contains no provision for payment.[5] Perhaps as a means of reducing expenditures for show Demetrios either disbanded or sharply reduced the public funds used for this purpose. In any case, the machinery of government clearly remained intact; archons were chosen each year. The preambles of the two extant decrees of the assembly follow the usual conventions and suggest that the meetings which they record were ordinary. In particular, the proedros appears in the expected place of the prescripts as chairman of the meeting, which in turn reveals that the council and its major subcommittee continued.[6] Furthermore, Demetrios gave his laws as an elected official,[7] and in 309/8 he held the annual office of archon epony-
[4] Ferguson, HA 61-62; H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen I (Munich 1967) 326-327.
[5] It must, however, be admitted that fragment b may preserve an amendment added after the (now-lost) payment formula.
[6] It is worth noting that mention of the secretary is omitted in both inscriptions. This may be chance; it could, however, suggest a de-emphasis of the position or that there were monthly secretaries, as in the period 321/0 to 319/8. There is obviously insufficient evidence to draw wide-ranging conclusions. However, consideration of the tribal affiliations of the known secretaries before and after Demetrios does suggest that there were annual secretaries preserving the tribal order for six of his years. The reasoning is as follows. The secretary of 318/7 came from tribe II (Aigeis). In the troubled year 307/6 the secretary came from Diomeia, a deme assigned during that year to the newly created tribe II, Demetrias. This cannot be an accident and was surely meant to flatter Demetrios, the son of Antigonos. After this anomaly, the secretary cycle then dearly starts up again in regular fashion the next year as the following tabulation reveals:
306/5 | Aiantis XI (old IX) |
305/4 | Antiochis XII (old X) |
304/3 | Antigonis I |
303/2 | Erechtheis III |
302/1 | Aigeis IV |
etc. |
Clearly the jump from tribe I to tribe III in the years 304/3-303/2 was done because tribe II had held office in 307/6, out of order and early. Why then restart with the tribe Aiantis, the ninth tribe in the old order? It could have been arbitrary or decided by drawing lots, etc., etc. If that is not the case, the most natural assumption is that secretaries from tribes III-VIII had already served during Demetrios' regime.
[7] IG II 1201 line 11.
mous.[8] All of this not only points to the retention of the democratic machinery of government, but even suggests some scruple with regard to the appearance, if not the reality, of democracy.
However much the democratic modes remained in place, there is also no question that Demetrios exercised his power under the aegis of Kassandros.[9] The Athenians, including Demetrios, were not free to ignore his wishes, especially in the sphere of foreign policy. Moreover, certain measures were put in place in the city at the outset that either curtailed the democracy or promoted aristocratic interests. The citizenship was limited to those who possessed 1,000 drachmas.[10] The authority to determine the legality of laws seems to have been transferred from the courts to the nomophylakes .[11] Parallel to this, there was, perhaps, no scrutiny of citizenship grants before the law courts.[12] This may suggest a vesting of critically important policy-making matters in the hands of the few and, indeed,
[8] Mar. Parium B line 24, Diodoros 20.27. It has been inferred from this that Demetrios changed the procedure for choosing archons and other officials from selection by lot to election (J. Sundwall, De Institutis Reipublicae Atheniensium post Aristotelis Aetatem Commutatis , Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicae 34 [1907] 11-12. Sundwall is followed by Bayer [above n. 1, p. 90], Gehrke [above n. 1, p. 153], and Williams [above n. 1, p. 95]). Such a change would have been momentous indeed, for sortition lay at the heart of the Athenian democratic system. There exists, however, no real evidence for it, and I think it very unlikely. Sundwall based his discussion on epigraphical evidence that he thought showed that the secretaries under Deme-trios were not chosen by lot. However, not one of the inscriptions he adduced, we now know, belongs to the years 317-307. Moreover, Demetrios' service as archon does not, contrary to what has been assumed, provide any compelling evidence, for we know of at least one case in the late Hellenistic period, when sortition was demonstrably in use, of a well-known person's arranging to hold the eponymous archonship (S. Tracy, "TO MH D IS APXEIN." CP 86 [1991] 203). It could be accomplished by the expedient of having other possible candidates for the office either withdraw or not submit themselves for the allotment in the first place. Sundwall's attempt (p. 12) to identify the archons Demokleides (316/5) and Polemon (312/ 1) with well-known persons founders for lack of evidence. Neither name is so uncommon as to render his identification probable.
[9] Diodoros 18.74.2-3.
[10] Ibid . This, be it noted, actually expanded the citizen base in comparison with the oligarchic regime of 322-319 which had set a limit of 2,000 drachmas.
[11] Philoch. ft. 64 in FGrH 328; cf. Ferguson, "The Laws of Demetrius," (above n. 1) esp. 274-276; Bayer (above n. 1) 132-136; R. W. Wallace, TheAreopagos Council, to 307 (Baltimore 1989) 202-203; and M. H. Hansen, TheAthenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1991) 210-211.
Aristotle specifically characterizes the nomophylakia as 
.[13] However, it is important to emphasize, these measures also reveal unmistakably that the courts of law, which along with the assembly constituted the major avenue of citizen control of the government,[14] were active and in the hands of the citizenry.[15]
Inscribing, moreover, did not come to a complete halt under Deme-trios. Several deme decrees,[16] quite a few accounts of the treasurers of Athena and the other gods,[17] and a number of horoi[18] are all attested.[19] Most significantly, three of the cutters of this study are attested at work in early 317 or before and again after 307, namely the Cutters of IG II2 1262 (ca . 320-ca . 296), of IG II2 498 (321-302), and of IG II2 650 (317-283/2).[20] In addition, a fourth man, the EM 12807 Cutter, was active from the year 334/3 until at least 314/3. There had to have been more inscribing during the ten years of Demetrios' control than appears to us at this far remove in time, for, had there been a nearly complete hiatus, these men—who were specialists —would surely have been forced to turn to another line of work or to relocate. It is thus quite probable that more decrees belonging to these
[13] Politics 1.1323a7.
[14] On this point, see Hansen, Athenian Democracy 178-180.
[15] Indeed, Demetrios increased the size of courts judging cases of eisangelia from 1,000 to 1,500 persons (Pollux 8.53).
[16] IG II 1200, 1201, and MDAIA 66 (1941) 218-219; IG II1202 probably belongs to 340/39 (below 99-100).
[17] IG II 1476, 1478, 1479, 1480, 1483, 1492. For what little is known of their activity in the late fourth century, see T. Linders, TheTreasurers of the Other Gods in Athens and Their Functions (Meisenheim 1975) 60-61, 65.
[18] IG II 2680, 2725, 2726, 2727, 2744, 2745, 2762; Hesperia Suppl. 9 (1951) 33 no. 17; Agora XIX nos. H78, H84. M. I. Finley (Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens , 500-200 B.C. , 2d ed. [New Brunswick, N.J. 19851, 177-181) has rightly challenged Ferguson's theory that these horoi can be used to date Demetrios' law code and determine the nature of his legislation concerning real property.
[19] In addition, IG II 1129 (a decree of the Milesians) seems to belong to the time of Deme-trios, while IG II 1259 (a decree of orgeones ), 2394 (a deme list), 3104 (dedication of a komarch) all date to the archonship of Theophrastos, i.e., either to 340/39 or to 313/2. The base of a statue set up by the Sphettians for Demetrios, son of Phanostratos (BCH 93 [1969] 56-71 = SEG 25 no. 206), may refer to the famous Demetrios, but it could equally well honor his grandson, Demetrios the Younger (below 44). The lettering on this base, so far as it can be discerned on the published photograph, provides no decisive due to the date.
[20] This last cutter, in contrast to the other two, did not apparently take part in the frenzy of inscribing that took place in the years 307/6 and after, following Demetrios' fall from power. The majority of his datable work belongs to the 290's and 280's. He may, therefore have left Athens or given up his trade as a letter-cutter for quite a while and only resumed it late (below 158-159).
years will eventually turn up and that some of the undatable ones now known belong to the period of Demetrios' control.
Still there is no question that there was less inscribing under Deme-trios.[21] There are, for example, no ephebic inscriptions known[22] and no inscriptions listing councillors. Yet the ephebeia either continued or, if (as seems likely) it was curtailed under the oligarchy of the years 321-319,[23] was renewed under Demetrios, for a single ephebe is attested for the year 312/1.[24] The existence of the council too is guaranteed by the appearance of the proedroi in the preambles of IG II2 450 and 453. The cutters who remained active found work where they could, namely inscribing deme decrees, inventories, boundary stones, and undoubtedly simple grave markers. They probably also did some free-lance work on buildings to make ends meet. Whatever the case, there surely was work for them to do.
Of the two fragmentary decrees which can be assigned certainly to the years of Demetrios' control one, IG II2 453, preserves only the opening lines, so that we do not know in any precise way what it dealt with. The first line merely reveals that it honored someone whose name began with the letters ANT. The date, however, is certain, January or February of 309, and the speaker
[21] One of the ways that the new "democratic" regime of 307/6 and following presented itself was by ostentatiously publishing many decrees on stone. Clearly they intended the contrast between their practice and that under Demetrios to be notable. There are fifteen decrees known to me that are either definitely or very probably datable to the year of Anaxikrates (307/6): IG II358 , 455 , 456, 457, 458, 459, 460 , 461, 462, 463, 464 , 465, Agora I 5884 (Pritchett and Meritt, Chronology 8), EM 12706 (Hesperia 2 [1933] 398), and SEG 3 no. 86 (= J.J. Hondius, Novae Inscriptiones Atticae [Lyon 1925] 39-46).
[22] The ephebic inscription IG II 2970 (= Reinmuth no. 4) has been redated by F. W. Mitchel (Hesperia 33 [1964] 349-350) to the year 334/3.
[23] Above 19 and n. 79.
[24] IG II 2323a lines 46-47. John Morgan informs me that his work on the calendar suggests the possibility that IG II 585, a decree praising a paidotribes , may well belong to the year 314/ 3. Three ephebic texts are known that apparently date to the years 306 to 300: IG II 478, 556, and 1159 = Reinmuth nos. 17-19. They provide no evidence of a revival following ten years of suppression, but rather suggest a continuity of the institution. They reveal that the ephebeia by 306 B.C. consisted of a year's training instead of two, as in the period after Chaironeia under Lykourgos. See Ath. Pol . 42.2-5 for a description of the two-year training program. It appears very likely that Demetrios reinstated the ephebeia, but limited it to a year's training in order to allay Macedonian qualms about the youth of Athens having military training.
[25] Ch. Habicht, Studien 198. The inscription of the year 318 is Agora I 3878 (=Hesperia 7 [1938] 476-479; Moretti, ISE no. 4), and the bouleutic text is Agora XV no. 62 line 309.
450 fortunately is much better preserved. Enacted in the first month or so of the year 313,[26] it honors the Macedonian Asandros, son of Agathon, for long-standing acts of friendship and particularly for making available when he was visiting Athens his own ships and soldiers to the Athenians in a time of need. Although the actual grant is not preserved, it seems beyond doubt that this is a citizenship decree and that Asandros was awarded citizenship, as well as sitesis, proedria , and a bronze equestrian statue.[27] These honors are unusually high. Furthermore the measure was proposed by a known oligarch, Thrasykles of Thria, the anagrapheus of 321/0.[28]
This inscription has generally been connected with a known event, namely the expedition that the Athenians sent against the island of Lemnos at the behest of Kassandros.[29] Errington, however, may well be correct to argue for a chronology that places the battle over Lemnos in late 313.[30] If he is, it would dissociate this inscription from that particular event. Billows, in adopting the same chronology, points out that Asandros was himself pressed at the time of the Lemnos campaign and would scarcely have had men and ships to spare.[31] Whatever the case, it can scarcely be misleading for our political assessment of Demetrios' regime that the single (partially preserved) body of a decree of the assembly from the ten years of his control was proposed by a leading oligarch and honors an important Macedonian military figure, then satrap of Karia, and ally of Kassandros against Antigonos.[32]
Born about 355 B.C. Demetrios was a student of Theophrastos and
[26] Is it merely chance that both IG II 453 and 450 were enacted in the sixth prytany of their respective years?
[27] Osborne, Naturalization has re-edited and discussed this text as D42.
[29] Diodoros 19.68.3; for a recent presentation of this position, see Osborne, Naturalization II p. 114.
[30] R. M. Errington, "Diodorus Siculus and the Chronology of the Early Diadochoi, 320-311 B.C. ," Hermes 105 (1977) 496-500.
[31] Billows, Antigonos 116 n. 43.
[32] On Asandros and Kassandros and their alliance against Antigonos, see Billows, ibid . 116-121.
quite early earned a reputation for wisdom.[33] We know little enough of his career before he came to power in 317. We are told merely that he entered the political arena during the events surrounding Harpalos' flight to Athens in 324 B.C.[34] This remains for us a confused affair.[35] We have no way of knowing what Demetrios' precise involvement was, but almost certainly he favored a policy of accommodating Alexander. We next hear of him as one of those who was sent to negotiate with Antipatros and Krateros in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat at the battle of Krannon in 322.[36] The final terms agreed upon in those negotiations resulted in an oligarchic regime and the imposition of a Macedonian garrison in Piraeus. In addition, the leaders of the anti-Macedonian faction, Demosthenes, Hypereides, and Himeraios, Demetrios' brother, were condemned; they either committed suicide or were seized and killed. Not many years later, when the short-lived democracy backed by Polyperchon came to power in 318, a number of the pro-Macedonian leaders, including Phokion, were also executed.[37] Demetrios, though himself condemned at this time, escaped by wisely taking refuge with Nikanor, Kassandros' general in Piraeus.[38] He
[34] Diog. Laert. 5.75.
[35] E. Badian, "Harpalus," JHS 81 (1961) 16-43, is basic; see also Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 215-220; and I. Worthington, A Historical Commentary on Dinarchus (Ann Arbor 1992) 41-77.
[36] Demetrios On Style 289.
[37] Demades and his son had already been caught in double dealing by Kassandros and executed while on a mission to Macedonia in 319 (above 20). On the date, below 147 n. 12; and, on this embassy, J. M. Williams, "Demades' Last Years, 323/2-319/8 B.C. " Ancient World 19 (1989) 28-29.
[38] Nikanor and Demetrios will have had a natural affinity since they had both been students in the school of Aristotle. Nikanor, a fellow townsman of Aristotle from Stagira, was born about 360 and thus was a few years Demetrios' senior. He eventually married the daughter of his mentor Aristotle and thus figures prominently in his will (Diog. Laert. 5.11-12). Nikanor served under Alexander in the East and was entrusted to bring the important decree concerning the exiles to Greece for announcement at the Olympic games in the summer of 324 (Diodoros 17.109.1, 18.8.2-5). In 319 Kassandros appointed him garrison commander at Mounychia, a post he filled with great skill. He not only managed to hold Mounychia in the face of Polyperchon, but he succeeded in gaining control of the harbor and Piraeus itself (Diodoros 18.64-65, Plutarch Phokion 31-33). When Kassandros arrived in Piraeus, Nikanor was then dispatched to the Hellespont to confront Polyperchon's admiral Kleitos, whom he defeated near Byzantion (Diodoros 18.72.3-9). He returned to Piraeus victorious and soon thereafter (sometime during 317) fell afoul of the suspicions of Kassandros, who had him executed (Diodoros 18.75.1).
was thus in a position, when Kassandros sailed into Piraeus and Polyperchon withdrew, to negotiate a peace between the warring factions in the city and Piraeus[39] and to become Kassandros' agent in Athens.[40]
Diodoros reports the agreement of the Athenians with Kassandros in accordance with which Demetrios became epimeletes of the city.[41] And epimeletes does seem to have been his official title.[42] However, line 11 of IG II2 1201, a deme decree from early in his rule, reveals that the title of his office when he gave laws and to which he was elected by the people contained nine letters. Since epimeletes has ten letters, it has generally been supposed that his elected office differed and was either 
or 
. Each office indeed has its strong proponents. Not only, moreover, did Demetrios gain a lasting reputation for his lawgiving; it was one of the first tasks that he undertook.[43] This undoubted fact led Dow and Travis to argue the case for nomothetes persuasively.[44] Most, however, have used the evidence of IG II2 2971 to support the notion that the office Demetrios occupied during his rule was that of general.[45]
IG II2 2971 is a complete and rather elaborate statue base from Eleusis for the general Demetrios, son of Phanostratos, of Phaleron. The Athenian soldiers stationed in Eleusis, Panakton, and Phyle dedicated it to Demeter and Kore. The twelve inscribed crowns preserved on it commemorate Demetrios' military offices and equestrian victories. Since its discovery in the eighteenth century, it has naturally been taken to refer to the famous De-
[39] IG II 1201 lines 5-10. Another decree from just after Kassandros' assumption of control (Agora I 559 , published in Hesperia 4 [1935] 35-37) praises a military detachment of the tribe Kekropis for killing some public enemy or enemies.
[40] The curse tablet published in MDAIA 85 (1970) 197-198 shows how close they were, for it associates Demetrios with Kassandros and his most trusted lieutenants, namely his brother Pleistarchos and his Macedonian general Eupolemos. Habicht seems correct in associating this tablet with the repulse of Kassandros' attack on Athens in the year 304 (Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece [Berkeley 1985] 77-82).
[41] 18.74.3.
[42] Strabo (9.1.20) calls him epistates , and Polybios (12.13.9) prostates tes patridos ; neither of these appears to be an official designation.
[44] "Demetrios of Phaleron and His Lawgiving," Hesperia 12 (1943) 144-165, esp. 150-156.
[45] Ferguson, HA 47-48; A. Heuss, Stadt und Herrscher des Hellenismus , Klio Beiheft 39 (Leipzig 1937) 53-55; H.-J. Gehrke, "Politik und Philosophie bei Demetrios von Phaleron," Chiron 8 (1978) 173-175.
metrios of Phaleron and dated ca . 314. Indeed, it has been the linchpin in the argument that Demetrios came to prominence early as a general and held that office for much of the time he was in power. However, this inscription cannot be dated to the late fourth century B.C. , on two grounds.
First, the lettering of this base is the work of the Cutter of IG II2 788.[46] This man's career extended from about 270 to about 235 B.C. Second, the general on the base, in being honored by the garrisons at Eleusis, Panakton, and Phyle, can be no other than the general over the Eleusinian territory;[47] this generalship did not exist ca . 314. At the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia and down to at least 290 B.C. there was just one general over the entire Attic countryside; this official had the title strategos
.[48] Sometime after that and not later than 265, this single office was divided into two positions, a general for the coastal region (
)[49] and another for the Eleusinian district, which included Panakton and Phyle (
).[50] This inscription then can be dated at the earliest no earlier than 270 B.C. It does not refer to the famous Demetrios of Phaleron, but to his homonymous grandson, who was the agent of Antigonos Gonatas in Athens about 260 in the aftermath of the Chremonidean War.[51] With this added information, we may date IG II2 2971 ca. 250.
Once IG II2 2971 has been removed from the dossier of evidence applicable to the famous Demetrios, we possess no reliable evidence that he
[46] See Appendix One.
[47] The earliest occurrence of mention of the garrison at Eleusis as a separate entity is IG II 1272 of 267/6. It is also mentioned apparently by itself in IG II 1280, a decree of 245-243 honoring Antigonos Gonatas (Habicht, Studien 59-62, for the date). The three garrisons together occur in IG II 1299 (236/5), 1303 (218/7), 1304 (211/0), and 1305, 1306, and 1307, all of the late third century B.C. In addition, IG II 1285 of ca. 250 (see Hesperia 57 [1988] 321 for the date) probably also mentioned the three garrisons, for it was enacted by the demos of the Eleusinians, and it names Panakton in line 22.
[48] Ath. Pol . 61, Reinmuth no. 15 lines 2-3 (1. side) of probably 329/8 (above 25-26), IG II 2847 of fin. s. IV a ., and 682 line 24 of ca. 290.
[49] See SEG 24 no. 154, of the year of Peithidemos (268/7?—for the year Hesperia 57 [1988] 309), IG II 2854 of ca. 258, and IG II 2856 and J. Pouilloux, La forteresse de Rhamnonte (Paris 1954) 118-120 no. 7, both of ca . 250.
[50] IG II 3460 of the year of Antimachos, who is known from a recently discovered inscription (as yet unpublished) to have been archon soon after the Chremonidean War (below 171 n. 3); and IG II 1287 of ca . 250.
[51] Obscurely known, his patronymic came to light only in 1978 (Hesperia 47 [1978] 281). Ferguson (HA 183) surmised that he was the man appointed by Antigonos Gonatas as thesmothetes (Athenaios 4.167f), and Habicht (Studien 18-20, 54) argued that this was a special multi-year appointment.
ever held a generalship or had an active military career.[52] Indeed, it is significant in this connection to note that when the son of Antigonos attacked Athens in the spring of 307, Demetrios of Phaleron withdrew without apparently offering anything more than token resistance. Rather, he negotiated on behalf of the city and received a safe-conduct to Thebes.[53] Demetrios' title in line 11 of IG II2 1201 was, therefore, almost certainly not strategos. The title nomothetes does suit the space, but it too has little to recommend it, for there were ordinarily many nomothetai , who usually served as members of large boards.[54] They were probably chosen by lot in the fourth century. An individual elected to act by himself as nomothetes was, if not on constitutional grounds impossible, at least highly unusual.[55] It too, therefore, seems unlikely.
This leaves us with the title epimeletes and the account of Diodoros. In what appears to be an accurate summary of the actual conditions laid down between Kassandros and the Athenians, Diodoros records that they agreed "to install as epimeletes of the city a single Athenian agreeable to Kassandros. And Demetrios of Phaleron was elected."[56] Wilhelm long ago realized that this strongly suggested that the title epimeletes once stood in IG II2 1201. He therefore restored lines 11-12: [
. This indeed now appears all along to have been the best choice. As to the objection that the title epimeletes is one letter too long, Wilhelm noted that it could be accommodated by assuming that the inscriber did
[54] For the nomothetai in the epigraphical evidence of the fourth century, see IG II 140 line 8, 222 lines 41 and 50, 244 line 6, 330 line 20, 334 + line 7 (= Hesperia 28 [1959] 239-247), 487 line 7, Agora I 6254 line 6 (=Hesperia 21 [1952] 355-359), 1 7180 line 1 (= Hesperia 43 [1974] 158-188), and IG VII 4254 line 40. There is no indubitable attestation in the epigraphical evidence of the title nomothetes in the singular.
not give the iota a stoichos of its own, but crowded it in as he did the iota of 
in line 6.[57] It is not in the end at all improbable that the Athenians "elected" the epimeletes whom Kassandros designated.[58]
The existence of IG II2 2971 and the supposed active military career of Demetrios of Phaleron have obscured the real nature of the terms imposed on the Athenians by Kassandros in 317. It seems quite clear that he established two poles of power, one in Athens, one in Piraeus, each with different missions. He allowed the Athenians a certain measure of autonomy in their internal affairs by letting them "elect" a distinguished fellow citizen as overseer of the city. At the same time, he retained ultimate control by vesting all military power in his phrourarch stationed in Piraeus. This practice of creating a civil authority separate and distinct from the military was one that Alexander the Great had used to good effect during his campaigns in the East, particularly in Asia Minor.[59] The text of Diodoros points to this division: 
.[60] As epimeletes Demetrios had primary responsibility for governing the city and dealing with its internal affairs; Dionysios, Kassandros' commander at the fortress of Mounychia in Piraeus, and his Macedonian garrison had control over military matters.[61] Kassandros wielded his authority through this garrison. He clearly
[57] GöttGelAnz 165 (1903) 784.
[59] W.W. Tarn in CAH VI 370; and Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 229-238.
dictated foreign policy to his Athenian subjects.[62] Whatever power or influence Demetrios and the Athenians had over their own military affairs was probably in practice slight and dependent on the concurrence of the garrison commander in Piraeus.[63]
Nevertheless, within this circumscribed arena of action, Demetrios seems to have protected the interests of his fellow citizens.[64] The ten years of his control were a time of domestic peace and stability for the Athenians. He revised the law code and perhaps systematized it.[65] Most significantly to his credit he appears to have reinstated, no doubt in the face of strong Macedonian intransigence, a year-long course of military training for the youth of Athens.[66] He also curbed certain excesses in the areas of entertaining, dress, and burial customs.[67] Although these intrusions into
[62] This is not to imply that the Athenians were totally docile. There was clearly always powerful resentment against a foreign garrison stationed in Piraeus, a resentment which flourished despite the relative peace and prosperity that Demetrios brought to the city. In 313 some Athenians in collusion with Antigonos' general Polemaios forced Demetrios to seek a truce and alliance with Antigonos against Kassandros (Diodoros 19.78.4). Poliorketes' failures in Syria soon forced Antigonos to abandon his planned attack against Greece and relieved Demetrios from this awkward situation. Whether the Athenians involved did this secretly, as Diodoros says, or with Demetrios' knowledge, we cannot know. Perhaps he tacitly accepted it. Surely he was not above playing the major contenders off against one another or switching allegiance to someone who seemed about to gain the upper hand. Officially of course he maintained steadfastly his loyalty to his patron, Kassandros. To do otherwise would have invited swift punishment, for Kassandros clearly had no hesitation to execute those whom he regarded as disloyal to him, as the cases of Demades (above n. 37) and Nikanor (above n. 38) had shown.
[65] IG II 1201 lines 12-13, Mar. Parium B line 16. For recent discussions of the nature of his lawgiving, see Gehrke (above n. 1) and Williams (above n. 1).
[66] Note 24 above.
[67] Philochoros FGrH 38 F65, and, on the activities of the gynaikonomoi under Demetrios, Bayer (above n. 1) 51-69. Concerning grave monuments and burials, Cicero De Legibus 2.64-66.
the conduct of private affairs opened Demetrios to attacks on his own private life,[68] nevertheless the measures may well have been needed in a comparatively small city where everyone who was anyone knew everyone else. The consequent peer pressure had apparently resulted in an unhealthy amount of expenditure of resources for reasons of show. If one considers only domestic affairs, Demetrios appears to have been an enlightened leader, and in some quarters at least his claims of strengthening the democracy were accepted.[69] Cicero found him wholly admirable: "qui vero utraque re excelleret, ut et doctrinae studiis et regenda civitate princeps esset, quis facile praeter hunc inveniri potest?"[70]
What we know of Demetrios' political activities suggests that he was primarily a diplomat and a lawgiver. He was also a prominent student of philosophy and a prolific writer.[71] He appears in short to have taken himself seriously as a philosopher and man of letters. During his ten-year regency the Athenians may in fact have had in him a leader whose primary aspiration was to be their philosopher-king. Demetrios was, after all, among Theophrastos' most successful students. Moreover, Theophrastos remained in Athens under Demetrios' regime[72] and doubtless acted as an adviser to his protégé, particularly in his role as lawgiver.[73] The comic poet
[68] Athenaios 12.542b-c, e-f, 13.593e-f; Diog. Laert. 5.76.
[70] De Legibus 3.6.14; see also De Re Publ . 2.1.2, Pro Rab. Post . 9.23.
[71] Diog. Laert. 5.80-81 gives the tides of his works and describes him as nearly the most prolific of the Peripatetics.
[73] At what stage Theophrastos' own massive work on the laws, his Nomoi , was at this time is unfortunately unclear. It appears that he either composed it soon after taking over as head of the Peripatos or in the first years of Demetrios' rule. In any case, he was able to give ample advice on the subject. See A. Szegedy-Maszak, The "Nomoi" of Theophrastus (New York 1981), for a new edition. Szegedy-Maszak discusses the date on pages 79-81 and explicitly characterizes Theophrastos' work on page 86 as "an encyclopedia for legislators, which could be consulted to insure that a prospective law was the best one available."
Menander, who was another of Theophrastos' students and about a dozen years younger than Demetrios, was also active in Athens at this time. Indeed, it appears likely that he produced the Dyskolos during 317/6, Demetrios' first year at the helm.[74] Later, because of his friendship with Demetrios, he was threatened with a lawsuit at the time of Demetrios' expulsion in 307/6.[75]
Whatever our judgment may be of Demetrios of Phaleron's willingness to allow a foreign power to control Athens' external affairs,[76] his abilities and aspirations as lawgiver and man of letters were clearly well regarded by his contemporaries.[77] Whether he went to the court of Ptolemy I Soter at Alexandria soon after 307[78] or only after Kassandros' death in 297,[79] he played an important role in the intellectual life of that city. Indeed, it appears that Soter took him as an adviser when he could not secure the services of Theophrastos, the head of the Peripatos.[80] Our sources suggest that he continued doing in Alexandria what he had done in Athens, for, among other activities, Demetrios advised the king on the law
[74] E. W. Handley, The Dyskolos of Menander (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) 7; A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach, Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973) 128-129.
[75] Diog. Laert. 5.79.
[76] He has been heavily criticized (nn. 67 and 68 above). Indeed this strong negative sentiment is surely responsible for the exaggerated stories of the number of his own bronze statues that he is supposed to have erected and that were pulled down when his "tyranny" was ended in 307; see [Dio Chrysost.] Oration 37.41, who numbers them at 1,500; Diog. Laert. 5.75 gives a figure of 360; Strabo 9.1.20, more than 300; Plutarch Mor . 820e, 300. Surely these numbers as well as the story deserve no credence. Demetrios was no maddened megalomaniac who had to see his statue in every shop and on every street comer. Probably there were statues of Demetrios in Athens during his rule, but not a single base of one has yet been identified with certainty. IG II 2971 does not, as shown above, apply to him, and the base of a statue set up by the Sphettians in honor of Demetrios, son of Phanostratos (EM 13379, published in BCH 93 [1969] 56-70), may refer to him or to his homonymous grandson (above n. 19).
[77] Although Demetrios was never head of the school, it does seem to be a further indication of his standing that Diogenes Laertios in his fifth book adds Demetrios' life to his account of the lives of the first four scholarchs of the Peripatos. On this point, see M. G. Sollenberger, "The Lives of the Peripatetics: An Analysis of the Contents and Structure of Diogenes Laertius' 'Vitae philosophorum' Book 5," ANRW 36.6 (Berlin 1992) 3798-3800.
[78] Cicero De Finibus 5.19.53.
[79] Diog. Laert. 5.78.
[80] Ibid . 37.
code for Alexandria[81] and on his plans for what was to become the great library.[82]
Epilog
The account in the letter of Aristeas that made Demetrios head of the library charged with collecting all the books in the world,[83] even with translating books from the Hebrew,[84] is certainly late and fundamentally wrong on some important points. To take but the most obvious—however much the first Ptolemy may have laid the groundwork for it, the library as an actual institution did not apparently come into being until the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphos. By then Demetrios was out of favor at court; he could not, therefore, have been head of the library. Surely, however, Demetrios was active in some way in the efforts of the first Ptolemy to create a collection. The letter could well, therefore, preserve in exaggerated form a real memory of Demetrios' activities. He clearly was not only a serious writer and man of letters, but was taken as such by his contemporaries. Furthermore, he no doubt put together at least part of the collection that later became the great library.[85] Is it not prima facie probable, then, that Demetrios, as part of his literary activities for the first Ptolemy, acquired ca . 295 B.C. copies of many of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastos? One need scarcely point out that, as a distinguished member of the Peripatos, he would have been unusually well positioned to do exactly this.
If this hypothesis is correct (and hypothesis it must remain), the early history of Aristotle's works must be seen in a different light than heretofore. Previous discussion has tended to focus on the activities of one Neleus of Skepsis, to whom Theophrastos left all his books at his death ca . 287 B.C.[86] It is reported, I assume correctly, that the books of Aristotle were among Theophrastos' books.[87] The ancient sources preserve two conflicting accounts about Neleus' handling of his legacy. One was that he took them to Skepsis, where after his death they lay moldering in a cellar until
[81] Aelian VH 3.17; see also P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria I (Oxford 1972) 114-115.
[82] Plutarch Mor . 189d; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1314-315, 690.
[83] I owe the general idea behind this epilog in part to my colleague Alan Code.
[84] The letter of Aristeas to Philokrates (Jacoby, FGrH 228 T6e).
[85] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 314-315.
[86] Diog. Laert. 5.52. Theophrastos died either in the year 288/7 or in 287/6.
[87] The report occurs in Athenaios 1.3a-b and in Strabo 13.1.54. The will of Aristotle preserved in Diogenes Laertios (5.11-17) makes no provision for his books. There are two possible reasons: either the will is incomplete or the books had already been entrusted to Theophrastos.
Apellikon of Teos brought them back to Athens early in the first century B.C.[88] The other was that he sold them to Ptolemy H Philadelphos for the library at Alexandria.[89] Whatever Neleus' exact role was,[90] it is significantly diminished in importance if we believe that, thanks to the activities of Demetrios of Phaleron, copies of many of the major Aristotelian treatises were already in Alexandria before the death of Theophrastos. On account of this they were known in the Hellenistic period. Moreover, their presence will have acted as a catalyst to spur the agents of Ptolemy II to assemble in the library at Alexandria as complete a collection as possible of the works of Aristotle.[91] Thus it is quite possible that the very efforts of Demetrios to preserve the writings of his great master and his followers brought it about that they were concentrated at the library in Alexandria at the time of the great fire, and thus many were lost to posterity.
[88] Strabo 13.1.54, Plutarch Sulla 26.1-2.
[89] Athenaios 1.3a-b.
[90] On Neleus' activities, see H. B. Gottschalk, "Notes on the Wills of the Peripatetic Scholarchs," Hermes 100 (1972) 335-342; and C. Lord, "On the Early History of the Aristotelian Corpus," AJPh 107 (1986) 137-161, esp. 138-145.
[91] Neleus may indeed have been approached by them and sold to them much of what he had.