Demos (Plato)

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Demos ( Greek  Δῆμος Dḗmos , also Demos of Athens ; * around 440 BC in Athens; † after 391 BC) was the stepbrother of the philosopher Plato .

Origin and family

Demos was the - apparently only - son of the Athenian politician Pyrilampes from his first marriage to an unknown woman. In his second marriage, Pyrilampes married his niece, the widowed Periktione , around 423 , whose first husband Ariston had died around 424. From the marriage with Ariston Periktione had four children: the three sons Adeimantos , Glaucon and Plato and the daughter Potone . Demos was older than his four step-siblings. He had a half-brother named Antiphon from his father's second marriage.

The name Demos , which means "people", was programmatic; Demos was - as far as is known - the first bearer of this very rare name in Athens. With this name, Pyrilampes expressed his democratic sentiments.

Life

In his youth, Demos was famous in the homoerotic milieu for its beauty. In the comedy Die Wespen des Aristophanes , performed in 422, it is mentioned that one could read inscriptions of his admirers on house doors, who praised him as the beautiful son of Pyrilampes. Demos is also mentioned in the only fragmentary comedy Poleis by the poet Eupolis , but the meaning of the surviving text fragment is unclear. According to a common interpretation in the research literature, Demos is ridiculed there as a fool, but it is possibly a misunderstanding. Plato mentions his half-brother Demos in his literary dialogue Gorgias . There he has the dialogue participant Socrates in conversation with the sophist Kallikles point out twice that Kallikles is in love with Demos. Therefore Callicles speak to his darling by the mouth and do not shrink from absurdities. Likewise, as a speaker in the popular assembly, he behaved towards the people ( demos ) of Athens.

When Pyrilampes died (before 413), Demos inherited the famous peacocks, which were descended from a couple his father had brought back from the Persian Empire as a gift from the Persian great king . Pyrilampes had stayed as an envoy at the court of the Persian ruler. The birds, fascinating by their beauty, were extremely valuable; Foreign visitors came to Athens especially to see them. The court speech “Against Erasistratos about the peacocks”, which the logographer (court speech writer ) Antiphon wrote, dealt with the peacocks of the demo . Only short fragments of the speech have survived. In the trial, Demos appears to be the plaintiff. Presumably he accused the defendant Erasistratos of trying to steal the peacocks or their eggs.

Demos also appears in a court speech written by the famous logographer Lysias . The trial concerned the property of the executed politician Aristophanes , which was confiscated. The indictment was directed against Aristophanes' brother-in-law, who was suspected of hiding part of his property. Lysias, who wrote the defense speech for his brother-in-law, tried to make plausible that Aristophanes did not leave as much as was believed, because he did not spare his fortune and even had to take out credit. Demos - if he was still alive - was probably one of the exonerations.

As stated in the speech, Demos was in possession of a precious golden bowl that was a gift from the great Persian king. Allegedly he had received it from the great king himself. This suggests that Demos, like his father, was a diplomat in Asia. However, it is also possible that he actually inherited the bowl from his father. When the Athenians decided to send a fleet to Cyprus to assist the local king Euagoras I of Salamis against the Persians, Demos wanted to participate in the enterprise. As a trierarch, he intended to take part in the naval expedition with a warship equipped at his own expense. To finance this project, he asked Aristophanes, who played a key role in the preparation of the expedition, for a loan of sixteen mines and offered the bowl as a deposit. The interest should be four mines. However, as his brother-in-law put forward in the speech, Aristophanes had to refuse the request because he no longer had the requested amount at that time.

The expedition in 390 BC BC failed and resulted in the loss of the ten-ship fleet. Aristophanes, blamed for the defeat, was executed on his return. It is unknown whether Demos actually took part in the company and whether it survived it.

literature

  • Debra Nails: The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics . Hackett, Indianapolis 2002, ISBN 0-87220-564-9 , pp. 124f. (and family tree p. 244)
  • John S. Traill: Persons of Ancient Athens , Volume 5: D- to Dionysios. Athenians, Toronto 1996, ISBN 0-9692686-7-X , p. 228 (No. 317910; compilation of the documents)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Aristophanes, Die Wespen 97f .; see. Willem Johann Wolff Koster (Ed.): Scholia in Vespas; Pacem; Aves et Lysistratam , Fasc. 1: Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas , Groningen 1978, p. 24.
  2. ↑ Eupolis, Poleis Fragment 227; see Ian C. Storey: Eupolis, Poet of Old Comedy , Oxford 2003, p. 226.
  3. ↑ Plato, Gorgias 481d – 482a and 513b.
  4. ↑ Lysias, Speech 19: 24-26.
  5. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 125.
personal data
SURNAME Demos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Plato's stepbrother
DATE OF BIRTH around 440 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Athens
DATE OF DEATH after 391 BC Chr.