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Demetrius I Poliorcetes

Demetrius I Poliorcetes

337 BCE283 BCE · Gaza

Demetrius I Poliorcetes was a Hellenistic king and the son of Antigonus I, sharing the royal title with his father from 306 BCE. His epithet, meaning "the Besieger," reflects his reputation for elaborate siege warfare, most famously his prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful siege of Rhodes. After his father's death at Ipsus in 301 BCE he continued to campaign for power across the Greek world and secured the throne of Macedon, ruling there from 294 to 288 BCE before being driven out. He died in 283 BCE as a captive of Seleucus I, and his son Antigonus II would later restore the family's rule in Macedon.

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Stop 1 of 7312 BCEBattle Of Gaza (312 Bce)

Gaza

What they did here

In his first major independent command, Demetrius, son of Antigonus Monophthalmus, was defeated near Gaza by Ptolemy I and Seleucus I during the Third War of the Diadochi, losing his war elephants and thousands of troops before retreating northward to Phoenicia.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Demetrius I Poliorcetes’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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