Demetrius of Scepsis

Demetrius of Scepsis was a Greek grammarian of the time of Aristarchus and Crates (Strab. xiii. p. 609). He was a man of good family and an acute philologer (Diog. Laërt. v. 84). He was the author of a very extensive work which is very often referred to, and bore the title Τρωικὸς διάκοσμος. It consisted of at least twenty-six books (Strab. xiii. p. 603 and passim; Athen. iii. pp. 80, 91; Steph. Byz. s.v. Σιλίνδιον). This work was an historical and geographical commentary on that part of the second book of the Iliad in which the forces of the Trojans are enumerated (compare Harpocrat. s. vv. Ἀδράστειον, Θυργωνίδαι; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1123, 1165). He is sometimes simply called the Scepsian (Strab. ix. pp. 438, 439, x. pp. 456, 472, 473, 489), and sometimes simply Demetrius (Strab. xii. pp. 551, 552, xiii. pp. 596, 600, 602). The numerous other passages in which Demetrius of Scepsis is mentioned or quoted, are collected by Westermann on Vossius, De Hist. Graec., p. 179, &c.

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).