1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7… (1911)
“ On the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he was condemned to death by the fickle Athenians and obliged to leave the city. He escaped to Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus, to whom he is said to have suggested the foundation of the Alexandrian library. Having incurred the displeasure of Lagus’s successor Philadelphus, Demetrius was banished to Upper Egypt, where he died (according to some, voluntarily) from the bite of an asp. Demetrius composed a large number of works on poetry, history, politics, rhetoric and accounts of embassies, all of which are lost. ”
