DEMETRIUS of PHALERUM. – Aristotelian, born c. 350 B.C., dictator of Athens for ten years, from which city he fled (307) to Egypt under Ptolemy Lagides. He assisted in the Egyptian legislation. Ptolemy II Philadelphus (286-247), who had previously been his enemy, had him confined as soon as he came to the throne. Fantastic, therefore, is the report of Pseudo-Aristeas, which traces the origin of the Greek version of the Septuagint to an intervention by D. with Philadelphus.
BIBL.: E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, III, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1898, pp. 308 sq., 446; J.-M. Lagrange, Le judaïsme avant Jésus-Christ, 2nd ed., Paris 1931, pp. 501-30.