Meidias (Greek: Mειδίας; lived during the 4th century BC), an Athenian of considerable wealth and influence, was a violent and bitter enemy of Demosthenes, the orator.
[1] He displayed his first act of hostility in 361 BC when he broke violently into the house of Demosthenes with his brother Thrasylochus in order to take possession of it.
Their mutual relations soured even more when Demosthenes attempted to oppose the proposal for sending aid against Callias and Taurosthenes of Chalcis to Plutarch, the tyrant of Eretria, and the friend of Meidias.
The breaking point arrived when Meidias violently attacked Demosthenes during the celebration of the great Dionysia.
Such an act gave Demosthenes a good opportunity for moving a public incrimination against his enemy (353 BC), and on this occasion wrote Against Meidias, still extant, which was never pronounced as the two adversaries found an amicable arrangement under which Demosthenes retired his accusation for thirty minae.