Demetrius I Poliorcetes

Demetrius I Poliorcetes, a Macedonian Greek nobleman and commander, ruled as king of Asia from 306 to 301 BC and later as king of Macedon from 294 to 288 BC. He belonged to the Antigonid dynasty, being the son of its founder, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, and his wife Stratonice. He was the first Antigonid to sit on the Macedonian throne in Hellenistic Greece.

In 307 BC, Demetrius removed Cassander’s governor from Athens. After beating Ptolemy I at the Battle of Salamis in 306 BC, he awarded his father the title of basileus (“king”) over a domain stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Middle East. His failed siege of Rhodes in 305 BC earned him the nickname Poliorcetes (“the besieger”). Antigonus I and Demetrius planned to revive the Hellenic League with themselves as joint leaders, but a coalition of the diadochi—Cassander, Seleucus I, Ptolemy I, and Lysimachus—defeated them at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. Antigonus died there, and the Asian part of their empire was lost. In 294 BC, Demetrius seized Athens and made himself king of Macedon. He held power until 288 BC, when Pyrrhus and Lysimachus drove him out. He later surrendered to Seleucus I in Cilicia and died there in 283 BC. After a period of instability, his son Antigonus II Gonatas secured the dynasty’s rule over Macedon and established its dominance across much of Hellenistic Greece.

Demetrius was deeply involved in advancing siegecraft. Though not all his sieges succeeded—Rhodes being a key example—he influenced global siege warfare. He made heavy use of siege engines, set up effective supply systems for larger-scale operations, employed amphibious tactics, and executed sieges at a very fast pace. He also used his architectural skills to fortify cities, notably Athens, Sicyon, and Corinth, with defensive innovations. He is considered a major Epigoni, an heir to the Diadochi.

**Biography**

**Early career** Demetrius fought alongside his father, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, in the Second War of the Diadochi. At the Battle of Paraitakene, he led the cavalry on the right flank. Although the Antigonid left under Peithon was routed and the center under Antigonus took heavy losses from the Silver Shields, Demetrius won on the right, preventing a total defeat. He also fought at the Battle of Gabiene. After the battle, while Antigonus held the betrayed Eumenes, Demetrius was among the few who begged his father to spare the Greek successor’s life.

At age twenty-one, his father left him to defend Syria against Ptolemy, son of Lagus. He lost the Battle of Gaza but soon partially recovered by defeating Ptolemy’s general Cilles at the Battle of Myus. In spring 310 BC, he was badly beaten trying to expel Seleucus I Nicator from Babylon; his father was defeated that autumn. The Babylonian War cost Antigonus nearly two-thirds of his empire, as all eastern satrapies fell to Seleucus.

After campaigns against Ptolemy along the coasts of Cilicia and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed to Athens with 250 ships. He freed the city from Cassander and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison under Demetrius of Phalerum, and besieged and captured Munychia in 307 BC. The Athenians worshipped him as a tutelary deity under the title Soter (“Saviour”). Around this time, he married Eurydike, an Athenian noblewoman said to descend from Miltiades and the widow of Ophellas, Ptolemy’s governor of Cyrene. Antigonus then ordered him to sail to Cyprus and attack Ptolemy’s positions there.

In spring 306 BC, Demetrius left Athens. Following his father’s orders, he first went to Caria, where he tried and failed to get the Rhodians to support his naval campaign. That same year, he defeated Ptolemy and his brother Menelaus at the naval Battle of Salamis, crushing Ptolemaic Egypt’s naval power. He took Cyprus in 306 BC, capturing one of Ptolemy’s sons. After this victory, Antigonus assumed the title “king” and gave the same title to Demetrius. In 305 BC, Demetrius tried to punish the Rhodians for abandoning his cause. His inventive siege engines—including a battering ram 180 feet long needing 1,000 men to operate, and a wheeled siege tower called “Helepolis” (“Taker of Cities”) standing 130 feet tall and 65 feet wide, weighing 360,000 pounds—failed to take the capital but earned him the name Poliorcetes. After the failed siege, the Rhodians used the abandoned weapons’ bronze to build the Colossus of Rhodes.

In 304 BC, he returned to Greece as a liberator and reinstated the Corinthian League. But his licentiousness and extravagance made the Athenians long for Cassander’s rule. One notorious incident involved his pursuit of a young man named Democles the Handsome. The youth repeatedly refused Demetrius’s advances but was cornered at the baths. With no escape and unable to fight off his suitor, he lifted the lid off a hot water cauldron and jumped in, dying.