Demophius

(Δημόφιλος).

1. The son of Ephorus, was an historian in the time of Alexander the Great. He continued his father's history by adding to it the history of the Sacred War from the taking of Delphi and the plunder of its temple by Philomelus the Phocian, B. C. 357. (Diod. 16.14; Suid. s. v. Ἔφιππος, where Ἔφορος should be read for Ἔφιππος; Athen. 6.232d.; Schol. Hom. Il. 13.301; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 98, ed. Westermann.)

2. An Athenian comic poet of the new comedy. The only mention of him is in the Prologue to the Asinaria of Plautus, who says, that his play is taken from the Ὀναγός of Demophilus, vv. 10-13,

"Huic nomen Graece est Onagos Fabulae. Demophilus scripsit, Marcus vortit barbare. Asinariam volt esse, si per vos licet. Inest lepos ludusque in hac Comoedia."

Meineke observes that, judging from the "lepos ludusque" of the Asinaria, we have no need to regret the loss of the Ὀναγός. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. i. p. 491.)

3. A Pythagorean philosopher, of whose personal history nothing is known. Works βίον Δεράπεια

He wrote a work entitled βίον Δεράπεια, treating of practical ethics, parts of which are still extant, in the form of a selection, entitled γνωμικὰ ὁμοιώματα, from which we may infer that the whole work must have been of the highest order of excellence. Editions

The extant portion of it was first printed by Lucas Holstenius in his collection of the ancient writers on practical morals, Rome, 1638, 8vo., Lugd. Bat. 1639, 12mo.; then by Gale, in his Opusc. Mythol. Cant. 1670, 8vo., Amst. 1688, 8vo., also with the Oxford edition of Maximus Tyrius, 1677, 12mo., and with Wetstein's Epictetus, Amst. 1750, 12mo.; in a separate form by J. Swedberg, Stockholm, 1682, 8vo., and more correctly by I. A. Schier, Lips. 1754, 8vo., and lastly by J. C. Orelli, in his Opusc. Graec. Vet. Sentent. Lips. 1819, 8vo. [P.S]