Deme'trius
（
*Dhmh/trios), an Athenian COMIC POET of the old comedy. (
D. L. 5.85.)
The fragments which are ascribed to him contain allusions to events which took place about the 92nd and 94th Olympiads (B. C. 412, 404); but there is another in which mention is made of Seleucus and Agathocles.
This would bring the life of the author below the 118th Olympiad, that is, upwards of 100 years later than the periods suggested by the other fragments.
The only explanation is that of Clinton and Meineke, who suppose two Demetrii, the one a poet of the old comedy, the other of the new.
That the later fragment belongs to the new comedy is evident from its subject as well as from its date. To the elder Demetrius must be assigned the
Σικελία or
Σικελοί, which is quoted by Athenaeus (iii. p. 108f.), Aelian (
Ael. NA 12.10), Hesychius (
s. v. Ἐμπήρονς), and the Etymologicon Magnum (
s. v. Ἔμμηροι). Other quotations, without the mention of the play from which they are taken, are made by Athenaeus (ii. p. 56a.) and Stobaeus (
Florileg. 2.1).
The only fragment of the younger Demetrius is that mentioned above, from the
Ἀρεοπαγίτης) (Ath. ix. p. 405e.), which fixes his date, in Clinton's opinion, after 299 B. C. (Clinton,
F. H. sub ann.; Meineke,
Frag. Com. Graec. i. pp. 264-266, ii. pp. 876-878, iv. pp. 539, 540.)
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