Mi'ddias
2. An Athenian, of considerable wealth and influence, was a violent and bitter enemy of Demosthenes, the orator. His hostility he first displayed when he broke violently into the house of Demosthenes, with his brother Thrasylochus, to take possession of it,--Thrasylochus having offered, in the case of a trierarchy, to make an exchange of property with Demosthenes (
ἀντίδοσις; see
Dict. of Ant. s. v.), under a private understanding with the guardians of the latter that, if the exchange were effected, the suit then pending against them should be dropped. (Dem.
c. Meid. p. 540,
c. Aphob. p. 841; Böckh,
Publ. Econ. of Athens, bk. iv. ch. 16.)
The opposition offered by Demosthenes, though to no purpose, to the proposal for sending aid against Callias and Taurosthenes of Chalcis to Plutarchus, the tyrant of Eretria, and the friend of Meidias, no doubt further exasperated the hatred of the latter, and lie not only assailed Demosthenes with a charge of neglect of military duty (
λειποταξίου δίκη), but endeavoured also, with the grossest malice, to implicate him in the accusation of murdering one Nicodemus. (Aesch.
c. Ctes. pp. 65, 66; Dem.
De Pac. p. 58,
c. Meid. pp. 547-554.) For the remainder of the transactions between Demosthenes and Meidias, see above, Vol. I. pp. 982, 983, and comp. Clint.
F. H. vol. ii. sub annis 350, 348, App. ch. 20.
