Demetrius of Scepsis

Who is Demetrius of Scepsis?

Demetrius of Scepsis was a Greek grammarian of the time of Aristarchus and Crates. He was a man of good family and an acute philologer. 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. 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, known as the Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue. He is sometimes simply called the Scepsian, and sometimes simply Demetrius. 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.