Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "FAROS Ancient city CROATIA".
Demetrius (Demetrios), a Greek of the island of Pharos in the Adriatic. He was in the service
of the Illyrians at the time that war first broke out between them and Rome, and
held Corcyra for the Illyrian queen Teuta; but treacherously surrendered it to
the Roman fleet, and became a guide and active ally to the consuls in all their
subsequent operations (Polyb. ii. 11). His services were rewarded, after the defeat
and [p. 966] submission of Teuta, with a great part of her dominions, though the
Romans seem never to have thoroughly trusted him (Polyb. l. c.; Appian, Illyr.
c. 8). He afterwards entered into alliance with Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia,
and assisted him in the war against Cleomenes (Polyb. ii. 65, iii. 16). Thinking
that he had thus secured the powerful support of Macedonia, and that the Romans
were too much occupied with the Gallic wars, and the danger impending from Hannibal,
to punish his breach of faith, he ventured on many acts of piratical hostility.
The Romans, however, immediately sent the consul L. Aemilius Paullus over to Illyria
(B. C. 219), who quickly reduced all his strongholds, took Pharos itself, and
obliged Demetrius to fly for refuge to Philip, king of Macedonia (Polyb. iii.
16, 18, 19; Appian, Illyr. 8; Zonar. viii. 20). At the court of this prince he
spent the remainder of his life, and became his chief adviser. The Romans in vain
sent an embassy to the Macedonian king to demand his surrender (Liv. xxii. 33);
and it was at his instigation that Philip determined, after the battle of Thrasymene,
to conclude an alliance with Hannibal and make war upon the Romans (Polyb. v.
101, 105, 108; Justin. xxix. 2). Demetrius was a man of a daring character, but
presumptuous and deficient in judgment; and while supporting the cause of Philip
in Greece, he was led to engage in a rash attempt to take the fortress of Ithome
by a sudden assault, in which he himself perished (Polyb. iii. 19). Polybius ascribes
most of the violent and unjust proceedings of Philip in Greece to the advice and
influence of Demetrius, who appears to have been a man of much ability, but wholly
regardless of faith and justice (Polyb. vii. 11, 13, 14).
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