Deme'trius
35. Of SUNIUM, a Cynic philosopher, was educated in the school of the sophist Rhodius, and was an intimate friend of the physician Antiphilus.
He is said to have travelled up the Nile for the purpose of seeing the pyramids and the statue of Memnon. (Lucian,
Toxar. 27,
ad v. Indoct. 19.)
He appears, however, to have spent some part of his life at Corinth, where he acquired great celebrity as a teacher of the Cynic philosophy, and was a strong opponent of Apollonius of Tyana. (Philostr.
Vit. Apoll. 4.25.) His life falls in the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian.
He was a frank and open-hearted man, who did not scruple to censure even the most powerful when he thought that they deserved it.
In consequence of this, he was sent into exile, but he preserved the same noble freedom and independence, notwithstanding his poverty and sufferings; and on one occasion, when the emperor Vespasian during a journey met him, Demetrius did not shew the slightest symptom of respect. Vespasian was indulgent enough to take no other vengeance except by calling him a dog. (Senec.
de Benef. 7.1, 8; Suet.
Vespas. 13;
D. C. 66.13;
Tac. Ann. 16.34,
Hist. 4.40; Lucian,
de Saltat. 63.)
