Dii'trephes
Διιτρέφης, (
Thuc. 7.29), probably distinct from the Diotrephes of
Thuc. 8.64, was entrusted, B. C. 413, with the charge of carrying home the Thracian mercenaries who arrived at Athens too late to sail for Syracuse with Demosthenes, and were, to save expense, at once dismissed.
He made on the way descents upon Boeotia at Tanagra, and at Mycalessus, the latter of which places he surprised, and gave up to the savage butchery of his barbarians. Boeotian forces came up with them, however, in their retreat to the ships, and cut down a considerable number. Diitrephes himself not improbably fell. Pausanias (
1.23. §§ 2, 3) saw a statue of him at Athens, representing him as pierced with arrows; and an inscription containing his name, which was doubtless cut on the basement of this statue, has been recently discovered at Athens, and is given on p. 890a. This Diitrephes is probably the same as the Diitrephes mentioned by Aristophanes (
Aristoph. Birds 798,
1440), satirized in one place as a leader of the fashion of chariot-driving; in another as a forward upstart, who had advanced himself, if the Scholiast understood the joke, to military office by the trade of basket-making.
The date of " the Birds," B. C. 414, would be rather a confirmation of the identity of the two.
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A.H.C]
