gods that he might not long remain in Ptolemy's debt, but that he might
soon recompense him in like manner. He did not behave himself like a
youth who has received a check at the outset of his first campaign, but
repaired his failure like an old and wary commander, enrolling fresh
soldiers, providing new supplies of arms, keeping a firm hold over the
cities near him and carefully drilling his new levies.
VI. Antigonus when he heard of the defeat remarked that Ptolemy had
conquered beardless boys, but that he would have to fight his next
battle with grown men. He yielded however to his son's entreaty to be
allowed to repair his fault by himself, and, as he did not wish to damp
his spirits, left him in sole command. Soon after this Killes, Ptolemy's
lieutenant, arrived in Syria with a large force, meaning to chase
Demetrius, whom he supposed to be disheartened by his defeat, quite out
of Syria. But Demetrius by a sudden attack surprised his army and struck
it with panic. He captured the enemy's camp and their general, and took
eight thousand prisoners and a great quantity of booty. He was overjoyed
at this, not because he meant to keep what he had won, but to give it
back, and did not so much value the glory and wealth which he had gained
as the opportunity now offered him for repaying the courtesy of Ptolemy.
He did not presume to do this on his own responsibility, but wrote
first to his father. On receiving permission from him to deal as he
pleased with the fruits of his victory, he gave costly presents to
Killes and his friends, and sent them back to Ptolemy. This battle
forced Ptolemy to retire from Syria, and brought Antigonus from Kelænæ
rejoicing at the victory and eager to see his son.
VII. After this Demetrius was sent to subdue the Nabathean Arabs, in
performing which service he incurred great danger by journeying through
waterless deserts; but his intrepid courage overawed the barbarians, and
he returned loaded with plunder, having captured seven hundred camels.
Seleukus had once lost his capital city, Babylon, which Antigonus took
from him; but he had since recovered it by his own arms, and at this
time was marching with an army to attempt the conquest of the nations
bordering upon India, and the provinces near mount Caucasus. Demetrius,
hoping that he might find Mesopotamia in a defenceless condition,
suddenly crossed the Euphrates, took Babylon by surprise, and made
himself master of one of its two citadels, driving out the garrison
placed there by Seleukus. Demetrius placed seven thousand of his own
troops in the citadel, ordered his troops to enrich themselves by the
plunder of the surrounding country, and then returned to the sea-coast,
leaving Seleukus more firmly established on his throne than before; for
by plundering the country he seemed to admit that he had no claim to it.
As Ptolemy was now besieging Halikarnassus, he quickly marched thither
and succeeded in saving the city.
VIII. As the glory which he won by this action was very great, he and
his father Antigonus conceived a strong desire to liberate the whole of
Greece from the tyranny of Ptolemy and Kassander. None of the successors
of Alexander ever waged a more just or honourable war than this; for
Demetrius and Antigonus, to gain themselves honour by freeing the
Greeks, spent upon them the treasure which they had won in their
victories over the barbarians. They determined first of all to attack
Athens, and when one of the friends of Antigonus advised him, if he
captured that city, to keep it in his own hands because it was the key
of Greece, Antigonus replied that the best key to a country was the
goodwill of its people, and that Athens was the watch-tower of the
world, from whence the glory of his deeds should shine like a
beacon-light to all mankind.
Demetrius now set sail for Athens with five thousand talents of silver,
and a fleet of two hundred and fifty vessels. At this time Demetrius of
Phalerum governed the city as Kassander's lieutenant, and a garrison was
placed in Munychia. By good fortune and good management the fleet
arrived on the twenty-fifth day of the month Thargelion, without anyone
being aware of its coming. When the ships were seen, they were thought
to form part of Ptolemy's fleet, and preparations were made to give them
a friendly reception. At last the officers in command discovered their
mistake, and a scene of great confusion ensued, as they hastily made
preparations to resist the enemy, who were already in the act of
disembarking; for Demetrius, finding the mouths of the harbours open,
sailed straight in, and could be seen distinctly by all standing on the
deck of the ship, and making signs to the Athenians to be quiet and keep
silence. When this was done, he bade a herald proclaim that his father
Antigonus had sent him thither in an auspicious hour to liberate the
Athenians, drive out their Macedonian garrison, and restore to them
their own laws and ancient constitution.
IX. Upon hearing this proclamation the greater part of the people laid
down their shields at their feet, clapped their hands, and shouted to
Demetrius to come ashore, calling him their saviour and benefactor;
while Demetrius of Phalerum thought it necessary to admit so powerful a
man to the city, even though he might have no intention of performing
any of his promises. He therefore sent ambassadors to make their
submission. Demetrius received them graciously and sent back with them
Aristodemus of Miletus, one of his father's friends. As the Phalerean,
in consequence of this sudden turn of fortune, was more afraid of his
own countrymen than of the enemy, Demetrius, who admired his courage and
public spirit, took care to have him conveyed in safety to Thebes, to
which town he himself wished to go. Demetrius himself now declared that,
although he was very eager to view the city, he would not do so until
he had completely set it free and expelled its garrison. He therefore
surrounded Munychia with a ditch and rampart, cutting it off from the
rest of the city, and then sailed to attack Megara, which town was held
by a garrison of Kassander's troops.
As he heard that Kratesipolis, the wife of Alexander the son of
Polysperchon, a celebrated beauty, was at Patræ, and was not unwilling
to grant him an interview, he left his army encamped in the territory of
Megara and proceeded thither with only a few lightly equipped followers.
When he was near the place, he pitched his own tent apart from his men,
that the lady might not be seen when she came to visit him. Some of the
enemy discovered this, and made a sudden attack upon him. He only
escaped by putting on a mean cloak and running away alone; so that his
licentiousness very nearly exposed him to ignominious capture. When
Megara was taken the soldiers were about to plunder the city, but the
Athenians with great difficulty prevailed upon Demetrius to spare it. He
drove out the Macedonian garrison and made the city independent. While
he was doing this he remembered Stilpon the philosopher, who was reputed
to have chosen for himself a life of retirement and study. Demetrius
sent for him, and inquired whether anything had been stolen from him.
"Nothing," replied Stilpon. "I saw no one taking away any knowledge."
As, however, nearly all the slaves were stolen, after Demetrius had
talked graciously to Stilpon and at length dismissed him with the words,
"My Stilpon, I leave you a free city;" "Quite true," replied Stilpon,
"for you have not left us a single slave."
X. Demetrius now returned to Munychia, encamped before it, dislodged the
garrison, and demolished the fort. And now at the invitation of the
Athenians he proceeded into the city, where he assembled the people and
re-established the ancient constitution. He also promised that his
father Antigonus would send them one hundred and fifty thousand bushels
of wheat and timber enough to build a fleet of one hundred ships of war.
Thus did the Athenians recover their democratic constitution fifteen
years after it had been dissolved; for during the period between the
Lamian war and the battle of Krannon their government had nominally been
an oligarchy, but practically had been a despotism, on account of the
great power of Demetrius of Phalerum.
The benefits which Demetrius conferred upon the Athenians rendered him
indeed great and glorious; but they rendered his fame invidious by the
extravagant honours which they conferred upon him. They were the first
of all men who bestowed upon Antigonus and Demetrius the title of Kings,
a name which they greatly disliked because of its association, and which
moreover belonged at that time in an especial manner to the descendants
of Philip and Alexander, being the only one of their ensigns of royalty
which had not been adopted by other princes. The Athenians too were the
only people who styled Antigonus and Demetrius their saviour gods, and
they even abolished the ancient office of the archon from whom the year
received its name, and elected in his place every year a priest to
minister at the altar of the saviour gods. They also decreed that their
images should be woven into the sacred peplus of Athena,[297] with those
of the gods. They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first set his
foot on the ground when he alighted from his chariot, and built an altar
upon it which was called the altar of "The Descending Demetrius." They
added two to the number of their tribes, and called them Demetrias and
Antigonis; and consequently they raised the number of the senators from
five to six hundred, because each tribe supplied it with fifty members.
XI. But the most outrageous of these devices of Stratokles, for it was
he who invented all these new extravagancies of adulation, was a decree
that ambassadors sent to Antigonus or to Demetrius should wear the same
holy title which had hitherto been given to the envoys who conducted the
public sacrifices to the great festivals at Olympia and at Delphi.
Indeed, in all other respects Stratokles was a man of shameless
effrontery and debauched life, who appeared to imitate the scurrility of
Kleon in ancient times by the reckless contempt with which he treated
the people. He publicly kept a courtesan named Phylakion; and one day
when she had bought some necks and brains in the market, he said to her,
"Why, you have bought us the same things for dinner which we politicians
play at ball with."
When the Athenians were defeated in the great sea-fight at Amorgos, he
reached Athens before the news of the disaster, and drove though the
Kerameikus with a garland on his head, telling all the people that a
victory had been won. He decreed a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and had
meat publicly distributed among the tribes for entertainments. Shortly
afterwards the scattered ships began to arrive, coming home as well as
they could after the defeat. When the people angrily turned upon him,
resenting the trick which he had played them, he met their clamour with
the utmost impudence, and said, "What harm have I done you, in giving
you two days of happiness?" Such was the audacity of Stratokles.
XII. There were, however, other marks of servility, "hotter than fire,"
as Aristophanes calls it. One Athenian surpassed Stratokles himself by
passing a decree that Demetrius, whenever he visited Athens, should be
received with the same divine honours which were paid to Demeter and
Dionysius, and that money should be granted from the public treasury to
the person who should celebrate the festival of the reception with the
greatest magnificence, in order that with it he might erect some
memorial of his success. At last the name of the month Munychion was
changed to Demetrion, and the first day of it named Demetrias, while the
name of the festival of the Dionysia was changed to Demetria.
Most of these acts produced manifest signs of the displeasure of the
gods. The peplus, upon which, according to the decree, the images of
Zeus and Athena were woven together with those of Antigonus and
Demetrius, was rent in two by a violent gust of wind as it was being
conveyed in procession through the Kerameikus, while a great quantity of
hemlock grew up round the altars which were erected in their honour,
although it was not a common plant in the neighbourhood. On the day of
the festival of Dionysius the procession was put a stop to by excessive
cold, which came entirely out of season, and a severe frost not only
destroyed all the fig-trees and vines, but even cut off a great part of
the corn in the blade. In consequence of this, Philippides, who was an
enemy of Stratokles, made the following allusion to him in one of his
comedies:
"Who was it caused the peplus to be rent?
Who was it caused the frost to blight our vines?
The wretch, who worships mortals like to gods,
His crimes destroy us, not my harmless rhymes?"
This Philippides was a friend of Lysimachus, who for his sake conferred
many benefits on the Athenians. Lysimachus imagined that the sight of
Philippides before any campaign or expedition was a certain omen of good
luck; while Philippides was beloved by him on other grounds, because he
gave no trouble and never veiled his thoughts in courtly periphrases.
Once Lysimachus, meaning to be very civil to him said, "Philippides,
which of my possessions shall I bestow upon you?" "Whichever you
please," answered he, "except your secrets." I have mentioned these
incidents in the life of Philippides, in order to mark the distinction
between the comic poet and the mob-orator.
XIII. The most extraordinary of all the honours conferred upon Demetrius
was the proposal made by Demokleides of Sphettus to go and ask for an
oracular response from him about the consecration of the shields at
Delphi. I will write down the exact words of the law as it was proposed.
"In a happy hour the people decree that one man shall be chosen from the
citizens of Athens, who shall go to our saviour, and after he has done
sacrifice unto him, shall ask Demetrius, our saviour, in what manner the
people may, with greatest holiness and without delay, make consecration
of their offerings; and whatever oracle it shall please him to give
them, the people shall perform it." By this absurd flattery the
intellect of Demetrius, at no time very powerful, was thrown completely
off its balance.
XIV. While he was living at Athens he married Eurydike, a descendant of
the ancient hero Miltiades, who was the widow of Opheltas, King of
Cyrene, and had returned to Athens after her husband's death. The
Athenians were greatly delighted at this marriage, which they regarded
as an honour to their city; though Demetrius made no sort of difficulty
about marriage, and had many wives at the same time. The chief of his
wives, and the one whom he most respected, was Phila, the daughter of
Antipater, and the widow of Kraterus, who was the most popular with the
Macedonians of all the successors of Alexander during his life, and the
most lamented by them after his death. Demetrius when very young was
forced by his father to marry this woman, who was too old to be a
suitable match for him. It is said that when Demetrius expressed his
unwillingness to marry her, his father whispered in his ear the line of
Euripides:
"To gain a fortune, marriage must be dared."
substituting the word "marriage" for "bondage," which occurs in the
original. However, the respect which Demetrius paid to her and to his
other wives did not prevent his intriguing with various courtesans and
mistresses, but he had a worse reputation in this respect than any other
king of his age.
XV. His father now ordered him to proceed to Cyprus, and to attack
Ptolemy, who was in possession of that island. He was forced to obey
this summons, but as he was very unwilling to desist from the war in
defence of the liberties of Greece, a much more noble and glorious
struggle, he first endeavoured to bribe Ptolemy's lieutenant in command
of the garrison of Sikyon and Corinth to evacuate those cities and
render them independent. As this attempt failed he quickly set sail,
collected a large force, and proceeded to Cyprus. Here he fought a
battle with Menelaus, Ptolemy's brother, and at once defeated him.
Shortly afterwards Ptolemy himself came to Cyprus with an immense fleet
and army. The two commanders now interchanged messages of scornful
defiance. Ptolemy bade Demetrius put to sea before his own host
assembled and overwhelmed him, while Demetrius offered to permit
Ptolemy to withdraw from Cyprus on condition that he would give up
Corinth and Sikyon. The battle which ensued was one of the deepest
interest, not merely to the combatants themselves, but to all the other
princes, since its issue would determine not only the fate of Cyprus and
Syria, but would at once render the victor the most powerful man in all
the world.
XVI. Ptolemy advanced with a fleet of one hundred and fifty sail, and
ordered Menelaus, when the battle was at its hottest, to sally out from
Salamis with his sixty ships and throw the fleet of Demetrius into
disorder by attacking it in the rear. Demetrius sent ten ships to oppose
these sixty, for the mouth of the harbour (of Salamis) was so narrow
that this number sufficed to close it. He himself now got his land force
under arms, disposed it upon several neighbouring promontories, and put
to sea with one hundred and eighty ships. He bore straight down upon the
enemy's fleet, and completely defeated it. Ptolemy himself, when all was
lost, escaped with only eight ships, the sole survivors of his fleet.
All the rest were sunk, except seventy which were captured with their
crews on board. All his numerous train of servants, friends and wives,
all his arms, money and military engines, which were stationed near the
fleet in transports, were captured by Demetrius, who at once conveyed
them to his own camp.
Among the spoil was the celebrated Lamia, who had at first been brought
into notice by her musical skill, for she was an admirable flute-player,
and who had afterwards become notorious by her amours. Her beauty was at
this time somewhat faded, yet, although Demetrius was much younger than
herself, she so fascinated and enslaved him by her charms, that, though
many other women wished for his love, he cared only for her.
After the sea-fight, Menelaus held out no longer, but surrendered
Salamis to Demetrius, with all his ships, and a land army of twelve
hundred cavalry and twelve thousand heavy-armed infantry.
XVII. Demetrius added to the glory of this brilliant victory by his
generous and humane conduct in burying the enemy's dead with great
honour, and in setting free all his prisoners. He sent a present to the
Athenians of twelve hundred complete suits of armour from the spoils
which he had taken. He also sent Aristodemus of Miletus to bear the news
of the victory to his father. Of all his courtiers, this man was the
boldest flatterer, and on this occasion he surpassed himself. After his
passage from Cyprus, he would not allow his ship to approach the land,
but cast anchor, bade all the crew remain on board, and himself rowed
ashore in a small boat. He now walked up to the palace of Antigonus, who
was in a state of great excitement and impatience to learn the issue of
the battle, as may easily be imagined, considering the importance of the
stake. When he heard that Aristodemus was come, his anxiety reached its
highest pitch. He could scarcely keep himself indoors, and sent
messenger after messenger, both servants and his own friends, to learn
from Aristodemus what had taken place. Aristodemus returned no answer to
any of them, but walked leisurely on with immovable countenance.
Antigonus could bear the suspense no longer, but came to the door of his
palace to meet Aristodemus, who was now accompanied by a large crowd.
When he came near, he stretched forth his right hand, and in a loud
voice exclaimed, "Hail, King Antigonus. We have defeated Ptolemy in a
sea-fight. We are masters of Cyprus, and have taken sixteen thousand
eight hundred prisoners." To this Antigonus answered, "Hail to you,
also; but you shall pay the penalty of having tortured us so long: you
shall wait long before you receive the reward for your good news."
XVIII. After this success, the people for the first time saluted
Antigonus and Demetrius with the title of kings. The friends of
Antigonus at once placed a diadem upon his head, and he sent one to
Demetrius, with a letter in which he addressed him as king. The
Egyptians, when they heard of this, also proclaimed Ptolemy king, that
they might not appear to be dispirited by their defeat. Their example
was soon followed by the other successors of Alexander, out of rivalry,
for Lysimachus and Seleukus now began to wear the diadem in the presence
of Greeks, though Seleukus had long before adopted the royal style in
his dealings with Asiatics. Kassander, however, although every one both
in interviews and letters addressed him as king, never used the title in
his own letters, but signed them simply with his own name as he had been
wont to do.
The assumption of this title produced more important results than a mere
empty change of name and style. It caused its bearers to be more exalted
in their ideas, more extensive in their ambition, and more pompous and
stately in their demeanour, just as actors when they put on royal robes
adopt also the lofty port and the haughty voice and carriage of a king.
They also became more severe in their administration of justice, because
they now laid aside that dissimulation by which they had hitherto
concealed their power, and which had rendered them so much more lenient
and gentle in their treatment of their subjects. So great was the power
of the voice of one flatterer, and such great changes did it effect in
the entire world.
XIX. Antigonus, elated by the successes of Demetrius at Cyprus, at once
marched to attack Ptolemy. He himself led the land force, while
Demetrius accompanied him along the coast with an enormous fleet. But
Medius, a friend of Antigonus, was warned in a dream of what was
destined to be the issue of the campaign. He dreamed that Antigonus with
all his army was running a race in the circus. At first he appeared to
be running strongly and fast, but soon his strength seemed to be ebbing
away, and at last when he turned round the extreme point of the course
and began to return, he was so weak and out of breath that he could
hardly recover himself.
Indeed Antigonus by land met with many disasters, while Demetrius at sea
met with a terrible storm, and narrowly escaped being driven ashore upon
an iron-bound coast. He lost many ships, and returned without having
accomplished anything. Antigonus was now very near eighty years of age,
and was incapacitated for active service by his size and unwieldiness
rather than by his age. He consequently entrusted the management of the
war to Demetrius, who had already by his good fortune and skill
conducted several most important campaigns with success.