ABSTRACT
Relatively little is known of Demetrius of Phalerum's writings on literature, reflecting his interest in literary works and the personalities of poets and writers, even less than is known concerning his production in other fields of learning, such as philosophy, historical-political studies, oratory or rhetoric. Aristotle's codification must have given a decisive impulse in this direction, which in some sense was part of an embryonic need for history of literature that would later be developed along various lines through the research of the erudites in the Hellenistic age. The Demetrius fragments concerning prose works are normally set in the framework of rhetorical or rhetorical-philosophical production. Demetrius of Phalerum is adduced by Dionysius of Halicarnassus as a precedent for criticism of Plato and it is highly plausible to suggest that Dionysius of Halicarnassus may also have used Demetrius of Phalerum as a source for some of his own arguments.
