[Demetrius], the name of two kings of Macedonia who ruled over the country, the first from 290 to 289 B.C., and the second from 240 to 229 B.C.
[Demetrius], or Dimitri, the name of several sovereigns of Russia, and of four adventurers called the four false Dimitri.
[Demetrius I.], Soter (i. e. saviour), king of Syria from 162 to 150 B.C.; was grandson of Antiochus the Great. D. II., Nicator (i. e. conqueror), king of Syria from 143 to 125 B.C. D. III., Eucæros (i. e. the happy), king of Syria in 95, died in 84 B.C.
[Demetrius Phalereus], an eminent Athenian orator, statesman, and historian, born at Phalerus, a seaport of Athens; was held in high honour in Athens for a time as its political head, but fell into dishonour, after which he lived retired and gave himself up to literary pursuits; died from the bite of an asp; left a number of works (345-283 B.C.).
[Demidoff], a Russian family distinguished for their wealth, descended from a serf of Peter the Great, and who amassed a large fortune by manufacturing firearms for him, and were raised by him to the rank of nobility; they were distinguished in the arts, in arms, and even literature; Anatol in particular, who travelled over the SE. of Europe, and wrote an account of his travels, a work magnificently illustrated.
[Demigod], a hero elevated in the imagination to the rank of a divinity in consequence of the display of virtues and the achievement of feats superior to those of ordinary men.
[Demi-monde], a class in Parisian society dressing in a fashionable style, but of questionable morals.
[Demiurgus], a name employed by Plato to denote the world-soul, the medium by which the idea is made real, the spiritual made material, the many made one, and it was adopted by the Gnostics to denote the world-maker as a being derived from God, but estranged from God, being environed in matter, which they regarded as evil, and so incapable as such of redeeming the soul from matter, from evil, such as the God of the Jews, and the Son of that God, conceived of as manifest in flesh.
[Democracy] has been defined to be government of the people by the people and for the people, or as a State in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens, but this under the protest of some that it is not an end but a means "to the attainment of a truer and truer aristocracy, or government again by the Best."
[Democrats], a political party in the United States that contends for the rights of the several States to self-government as against undue centralisation.