Deme'trius
2. A statuary of some distinction. Pliny mentions his statue of Lysimache, who was a priestess of Athena for sixty-four years; his statue of Athena, which was called
Musica (
μουσίκη), because the serpents on the Gorgon's head sounded like the strings of a lyre when struck; and his equestrian statue of Simon, who was the earliest writer on horsemanship. (
Plin. Nat. 34.8. s. 19.15.) Now Xenophon mentions a Simon who wrote
περὶ ἱππικῆς, and who dedicated in the Eleusinium at Athens a bronze horse, on the base of which his own feats of horsemanship (
τά ῾εαυτοῦ ἔργα) were represented in relief (
περί ῾ιππικῆς, 1,
init.). The Eleusinium was built by Pericles.
It would seem therefore that Simon, and consequently Demetrius, lived between the time of Pericles and the latter part of Xenophon's life, that is, in the latter half of the fifth or the former half of the fourth century B. C.
It is not likely, therefore, that he could have been a contemporary of Lysippus, as Meyer supposes. Hirt mentions a basrelief in the Museo Nani, at Venice, which he thinks may have been copied from the equestrian statue of Simon. (
Gesch. d. Bild. Kunst. p. 191.)
According to Quintilian (12.10), Demetrius was blamed for adhering in his statues so closely to the likeness as to impair their beauty.
He is mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (
5.85).
There can be little doubt that he is the same person as Demetrius of Alopece, whose bronze statue of Pellichus is described by Lucian (
Philops. 18, 20), who, on account of the defect just mentioned, calls Demetrius
οὐ Δεοποιός τις,
ἀλλ̓ ἀνθρωποποιός. A
Δημήτριος Δημητριου γλυφεύς is mentioned in an extant inscription. (Böckh, 1.1330, No. 1409.)
