Democles (in Greek Δημοκλής; lived 4th century BC) was an Athenian orator, and a contemporary of Demochares, among whose opponents he is mentioned.1 He was a disciple of Theophrastus, and is chiefly known as the defender of the children of Lycurgus against the calumnies of Moerocles and Menesaechmus.2 It seems that in the time of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, some orations of Democles were still extant, since that critic3 attributes to him an oration, which went by the name of Dinarchus. It must be observed that Dionysius and the Suda call this orator by the patronymic form of his name, Democleides, so he may be the same person called Democleides who was archon in 316 BC.4

References

Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, "Democles (2)", Boston, (1867)

Notes

• 1 Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, s.v. "ho to hieron pyr"
  
• 2 Pseudo-Plutarch, Moralia, "Lives of the Ten Orators", p. 842
  
• 3 Dionysius, Dinarchus, 10
  
• 4 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca, xix. 17
  

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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).