proceeded at once to Quinda, where he found the sum of twelve hundred
talents still remaining. Having made himself master of this, he quickly
reembarked and put to sea. He was now joined by his wife Phila, and met
Seleukus at Rhossas. Here the two princes conversed together in a truly
royal style, without the least suspicion or fear of treachery. First
Seleukus feasted Demetrius in his tent in the midst of his camp, and
afterwards Demetrius entertained him at a banquet on board his great
thirteen-banked ship. They also talked freely together for a long time,
spending several days in friendly intercourse without any bodyguard or
arms, till at length Seleukus took Stratonike, and escorted her with
great pomp to Antiocheia.[310] Demetrius now made himself master of
Cilicia, and sent his wife Phila to her brother, Kassander, to answer
the accusations brought against him by Pleistarchus. During this time
Deidameia sailed from Greece and joined Demetrius, but not long after
her arrival she sickened and died. By the good offices of Seleukus,
Demetrius was now reconciled with Ptolemy, and arranged to take
Ptolemäis, Ptolemy's daughter, for his wife. So far Seleukus behaved
very well; but he could not prevail upon Demetrius to give up Cilicia to
him for a sum of money, and when he angrily demanded the surrender of
Tyre and Sidon, his conduct appears very overbearing and ungenerous, as
though he, who had made himself master of all the country between the
Red Sea and the Mediterranean, were so poor and needy as to be obliged
to squabble with his father-in-law about two cities, at a time, too,
when the latter was suffering from a great reverse of fortune. How
strongly does this bear out the truth of Plato's maxim, that he who
wishes to be really rich ought to lessen his desires rather than
increase his property, because if a man places no bounds to his
covetousness, he never will be free from want and misery.
XXXIII. Demetrius on this occasion showed no want of spirit. He declared
that not if he had lost ten thousand fields like Ipsus would he consent
to buy Seleukus for his son-in-law. He strengthened the garrisons of the
cities,[311] and hearing that Lachares, taking advantage of the factions
into which the Athenians were divided, had made himself despot of that
city, he thought that if he only were to show himself before Athens he
might easily obtain possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety with
a large fleet, but when off the coast of Attica he encountered a violent
storm, in which he lost most of his ships and a great number of his men.
He himself escaped unhurt, and at once began to make war against the
Athenians. As, however, he could not effect anything, he sent his
lieutenants to collect another fleet, and meanwhile proceeded to
Peloponnesus. Here he laid siege to Messene, and during an assault
nearly lost his life, for he was struck full in the face by a dart from
a catapult, which pierced through his jaw into his mouth. He recovered
from his wound, received the submission of several insurgent cities, and
returned to Attica, where he made himself master of Eleusis and Rhamnus,
and ravaged the country. He captured a ship loaded with wheat bound for
Athens, and hanged the captain and pilot, which measure terrified the
other merchants so much that they avoided Athens, and a terrible famine
took place there, and the want of food brought about a scarcity of
everything else. A medimnus[312] of salt was sold for forty drachmas,
and a modius[313] of corn sold for three hundred drachmas.
The Athenians gained a short respite from their sufferings by the
appearance near Ægina of a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, which was
sent by Ptolemy to aid them. Soon, however, Demetrius collected from
Peloponnesus and Cyprus a fleet of three hundred ships, before which
those of Ptolemy were forced to retire. Upon this the despot Lachares
made his escape and abandoned the city to its fate.
XXXIV. The Athenians, although they had decreed that anyone who proposed
to make peace and come to terms with Demetrius should be put to death,
now at once opened their nearest gates and sent an embassy to him; not
that they expected to be well treated by him, but acting under the
pressure of starvation. It was said that, among other painful incidents,
it happened that a father and a son were sitting in the same room,
without any hopes of surviving, when a dead mouse fell from the roof,
upon which they both started up and began to fight for it. We are told
that during this time the philosopher Epikurus kept his disciples alive
by counting out to them a fixed allowance of beans every day. This was
the condition of the city when Demetrius made his entry into it. He
ordered all the Athenians to assemble in the theatre, occupied the stage
with armed men, placing his own bodyguard round the part usually
reserved for the actors, and made his appearance, like a tragic actor,
through the entrance at the back.[314] The Athenians were greatly
terrified at these proceedings, but the first words of his address put
an end to their fears. He spoke in a mild and conciliatory tone, briefly
and gently, complained of their conduct towards him, and announced his
forgiveness of them. He distributed among them one hundred thousand
medimni of wheat, and appointed the most popular men in the city to the
vacant magistracies. Dromokleides the orator, seeing that the people
could scarcely find enough means to express their delight, and that they
were eager to outdo the panegyrics which were being lavished upon
Demetrius from the bema, proposed that the ports of Peiræus and Munychia
should be handed over to King Demetrius. When this was agreed to,
Demetrius himself placed a garrison in the Museum, by which he intended
to curb the people in case they should grow restive and take off his
attention from his other enterprises.
XXXV. Being now master of Athens, Demetrius at once began to attack
Lacedæmon. He met the King of Sparta, Archidamus, near Mantinea,
defeated him, and invaded Laconia, driving the beaten army before him.
He fought a second battle before the walls of Sparta itself, in which
he killed two hundred Spartans, and took five hundred prisoners; and he
very nearly took the city itself, which up to that time had never been
taken. Fortune, however, seems to have introduced greater and more
sudden vicissitudes into the life of Demetrius than into that of any
other prince, for he was constantly rising from the most abject poverty
to the highest pinnacles of wealth and power, and then being as suddenly
cast down again. He himself is said, when his fortunes were at their
lowest, to have quoted the verse of Æschylus,
"Thou raisest up, and thou dost bring me down."
So at this time, when everything seemed to be succeeding, and his empire
and power constantly increasing, Demetrius received the news that
Lysimachus had taken all the cities in Asia which had belonged to him,
and that Ptolemy had made himself master of Cyprus with the exception of
Salamis, which he was besieging, in which city was the mother and the
children of Demetrius. Yet, like the woman spoken of by the poet
Archilochus, who deceitfully offers water in one hand, while she holds a
firebrand in the other, the fortune of Demetrius, after soaring him away
from the conquest of Sparta by these terrifying pieces of intelligence,
at once offered him hopes of accomplishing a new and mighty enterprise,
in the following manner.
XXXVI. After the death of Kassander, his eldest son Philip ascended the
throne, but not long afterwards died. Upon this Kassander's two younger
sons each aspired to the crown. One of them, Antipater, murdered his
mother Thessalonike, upon which the other[315] invited Pyrrhus to come
from Epirus, and Demetrius from Peloponnesus, to support his claims.
Pyrrhus was the first to arrive, and demanded so large a portion of the
kingdom of Macedonia as the price of his assistance, that he soon became
an object of terror to Alexander. When Demetrius, in answer to the
appeal of Alexander, arrived with his army, Alexander was even more
terrified, because of his great renown. He met Demetrius near Dium, and
welcomed him as an honoured guest, but gave him to understand that he no
longer stood in need of his services. Upon this each began to suspect
the other, and Demetrius, when he was proceeding to a banquet to which
he had been invited by the young prince, was warned that his host
intended to assassinate him while they were drinking after dinner.
Demetrius was not in the least disturbed at this intelligence, but
merely delayed going to the banquet for a short time, while he ordered
his officers to keep their men under arms, and bade his personal
followers and pages, who far out-numbered the retinue of Alexander, to
enter the banqueting hall with him, and to remain there until he left
the table. Alarmed by these precautions, Alexander did not venture to
offer him any violence; and Demetrius soon left the room, excusing
himself on the ground that his health would not permit him to drink
wine. On the following day Demetrius made preparations for departure,
announcing that he had received news which made this necessary. He
begged Alexander to pardon him for so sudden a retreat, and promised
that when he was more at leisure he would pay him another visit.
Alexander was delighted at this, thinking that Demetrius was leaving the
country of his own free-will, and not as an enemy; and he escorted him
as far as the borders of Thessaly. When they reached Larissa, each again
invited the other to a banquet, each intending to murder the other. This
decided the fall of Alexander, who fell into his own trap, being loth to
show any distrust of Demetrius, lest Demetrius should distrust him. He
accepted Demetrius's invitation to a banquet, during which Demetrius
suddenly rose. Alexander in alarm also started to his feet, and followed
Demetrius towards the door. Demetrius as he passed the door said to his
bodyguard, "Kill the man who follows me," and walked on. Alexander, who
followed him, was cut down by the guard, as were his friends, who rushed
to his assistance. One of these men when dying is said to have remarked
that Demetrius had got the start of them by one day.
XXXVII. The night was spent in tumult and alarm. At daybreak the
Macedonians, who had feared an attack from the army of Demetrius, became
reassured, as nothing of the kind took place; and when Demetrius
intimated to them his wish to address them and to explain his conduct,
they received him in a friendly manner. When he appeared, he had no need
to make a long speech, for the Macedonians, who hated Antipater for
having murdered his mother, and who knew not where to look for a better
sovereign, saluted Demetrius as King of the Macedonians, and at once
conducted him into Macedonia. The new reign was not displeasing to the
remainder of the Macedonians, who had never forgotten the disgraceful
conduct of Kassander after the death of Alexander. If any remembrance of
the moderation of their old governor Antipater still remained amongst
them, Demetrius reaped the benefit of it, as his wife Phila was the
daughter of Antipater, and his son,[316] by her, who was nearly grown
up, and accompanied his father on this campaign, was now the heir to the
throne.
XXXVIII. After this brilliant piece of good fortune, Demetrius received
the news that his mother and children had been set at liberty by
Ptolemy, who had given them presents and treated them with respect;
while he also heard that his daughter, who had been given in marriage to
Seleukus, was living with his son Antiochus, with the title of "queen of
the native tribes of the interior." It appears that Antiochus fell
violently in love with Stratonike, who was quite a young girl, though
she had already borne a child to Seleukus. After making many fruitless
efforts to resist his passion, he reflected upon the wickedness of
indulging a love which he was unable to restrain, and decided that he
would put an end to his life. Under pretence of illness he refused to
take nourishment, neglected his person, and was quietly sinking.
Erasistratus, his physician, had without much difficulty perceived that
he was in love, but could not guess with whom. He consequently spent the
entire day in the same room with Antiochus, and whenever any young
persons came to visit him, narrowly watched his countenance and those
parts by which emotion is especially betrayed. He found that his
condition was unaltered except when Stratonike came to see him, either
alone or with her husband, Seleukus, and that then all the symptoms
mentioned by Sappho were visible in him, such as stammering, fiery
blushes, failure of eyesight, violent perspiration, disturbed and
quickened pulse, and at length, as his passions gained the mastery over
him, pallor and bewilderment. Erasistratus, after making these
observations, reflected that it was not probable that the king's son
would starve himself to death in silence for love of any other woman
than his mother-in-law. He judged it to be a perilous enterprise to
explain the real state of the case, but, nevertheless, trusting to the
love of Seleukus for his son, he one day ventured to tell him that love
was really the disorder from which young Antiochus was suffering, and
that it was a hopeless and incurable passion. "How incurable?" inquired
Seleukus. "Because," answered Erasistratus, "he is in love with my
wife." "Well, then," said Seleukus, "will you not give her up,
Erasistratus, and marry her to my son, who is your friend, especially as
that is the only way out of this trouble for us?" "No," said
Erasistratus, "I will not. Why, you yourself, although you are his
father, would not do this, if Antiochus were enamoured of Stratonike."
To this Seleukus replied, "My friend, I would that by any means, human
or divine, his passion could be directed to her; for I would willingly
even give up my crown if I could thereby save Antiochus."
When Seleukus, in a tone of deep feeling and with tears in his eyes,
made this avowal, Erasistratus took him by the hand, in token of good
faith, and declared that his own services were quite useless, for that
Seleukus himself was best able to heal the disorders which had arisen in
his household. After this Seleukus convoked a general assembly of his
people, and declared to them that he had determined to nominate
Antiochus king, and Stratonike queen of all the nations of the interior,
and that they were to be married. He believed, he said, that his son,
who had always been accustomed to obey him, would raise no objection to
the marriage; and that if his wife was discontented with it on the
ground of its illegality, he begged his friends to argue with her and
persuade her to regard everything as legal and honourable which the king
decided upon as expedient. In this manner it is said to have come to
pass that Antiochus was married to Stratonike.
XXXIX. After obtaining Macedonia, Demetrius made himself master of
Thessaly also. As he possessed the greater part of Peloponnesus, besides
Megara and Athens, he now marched against Boeotia. At first the Boeotians
came to terms, and formed an alliance with him, but afterwards, when
Kleonymus of Sparta came to Thebes with an army, and Pisis, the most
influential citizen of Thespiæ, encouraged them to recover their
liberty, they revolted from Demetrius. Upon this, Demetrius brought up
his famous siege train to attack their cities.[317] Kleonymus was so
terrified that he secretly withdrew, and the Boeotians were scared into
submission. Demetrius, though he garrisoned all their cities with his
own troops, levied a large sum of money, and left Hieronymus[318] the
historian as governor of the province, was thought to have dealt very
mildly with the Boeotians, especially because of his treatment of Pisis;
for he not only dismissed him unharmed when brought before him as a
prisoner, but conversed with him in a friendly manner, and nominated him
polemarch of Thespiæ.
Not long after these events, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by
Dromichætus. Upon this, Demetrius at once hurriedly marched towards
Thrace, hoping to find it unguarded. The Boeotians seized the opportunity
of his absence to revolt, while news was brought to Demetrius that
Lysimachus had been dismissed by his captors. Enraged at this, he
speedily returned, and finding that the Boeotians had been defeated in a
pitched battle by his son Antigonus, he a second time laid siege to
Thebes.
XL. However, as Pyrrhus was now overrunning Thessaly, and had pushed
even as far as Thermopylæ, Demetrius left Antigonus to prosecute the
siege, and himself marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus beat a hasty
retreat, and Demetrius, leaving ten thousand infantry and a thousand
cavalry in Thessaly, returned to press the siege of Thebes. He now
brought up his great machine, called the "City-taker," which was moved
by levers with great difficulty on account of its enormous weight; so
that it is said that in two months it hardly moved two furlongs, The
Boeotians made a vigorous defence, and Demetrius frequently forced his
soldiers to engage in battle with them, more out of arrogance than
through any real necessity for fighting. After one of these battles,
Antigonus, grieved at the number of men who had fallen, said, "My
father, why do we allow all these men to perish, when there is no
occasion for it?" Demetrius sharply answered, "Why do you take offence
at this? Do you have to pay the dead?" Yet Demetrius, not wishing it to
be thought that he was lavish of other men's blood and not of his own,
but being anxious to fight among the foremost, was wounded by a dart
thrown from a catapult, which pierced through his neck. He suffered much
from this wound, but still continued the siege, and at length took
Thebes for the second time. When he entered the city, he inspired the
citizens with the most intense terror, as they expected to be treated
with the greatest severity. He was satisfied, however, with putting to
death thirteen of the citizens, and banishing a few others. Thus was
Thebes taken twice within less than ten years since it was first
rebuilt.
As the time for the Pythian games had now come round, Demetrius took
upon himself to make a most startling innovation. As the passes leading
to Delphi were held by the Ætolians, he celebrated the games in Athens,
declaring that it was right that especial honour should be paid there to
Apollo, who is the tutelary god of the Athenians, and is said to have
been the founder of their race.
XLI. Demetrius now returned to Macedonia. As he could not bear a life of
repose, and found that his subjects were more easily governed on a
campaign, since they were troublesome and turbulent when at home, he
marched against the Ætolians. After laying waste their country he left
Pantauchus there with a large portion of his army, and with the rest
marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was equally eager to meet him, but
they missed each other, so that Demetrius invaded and ravaged Epirus,
while Pyrrhus[319] fell in with Pantauchus and fought with him. He
himself exchanged blows with Pantauchus and put him to flight, killing
many of his followers, and taking five thousand prisoners. This did more
damage to the cause of Demetrius than anything else; for Pyrrhus was not
so much disliked for the harm which he had done them, as he was admired
for his personal prowess. His fame became great in Macedonia after this
battle, and many Macedonians were heard to say that he alone, of all the
princes of the time, revived the image of Alexander's daring courage,
while the rest, and especially Demetrius, only imitated his demeanour by
their theatrical pomp and trappings of royalty. Indeed, Demetrius gave
himself the most extravagant airs, wearing magnificent purple robes and
hats with a double crown, and even wore shoes of purple felt embroidered
with gold. There was a cloak which was for a long time being embroidered
for his use, a most extravagantly showy piece of work, upon which was
depicted a figure of the world and of the heavenly bodies. This cloak
was left unfinished when Demetrius lost his crown, and none of his
successors on the throne of Macedonia ever presumed to wear it, although
some of them were very ostentatious princes.
XLII. The spectacle of this unusual pomp irritated the Macedonians, who
were not accustomed to see their kings thus attired, while the luxury
and extravagance of Demetrius's mode of life also gave offence to them.
They were especially enraged at his haughty reserve, and the difficulty
of obtaining access to him; for he either refused to grant an interview,
or else treated those who were admitted to his presence with harshness
and insolence. He kept an embassy of the Athenians, whom he respected
beyond all other Greeks, waiting for two years for an audience; and when
one ambassador arrived from Lacedæmon, he construed it as a mark of
disrespect, and was angry. But when Demetrius said to the
ambassador:--"What is this that you tell me? the Lacedæmonians have sent
one ambassador!" "Yes," answered he cleverly and laconically, "one
ambassador to one king."
One day when Demetrius came out of his palace he appeared to be in a
more affable humour than usual, and willing to converse with his
subjects. Upon this, many persons ran to present him with written
statements of their grievances. As he received them all and placed them
in the folds of his cloak, the petitioners were greatly delighted, and
accompanied him; but when he came to the bridge over the Axius, he
emptied them all out of his cloak into the river. This conduct greatly
exasperated the Macedonians, who declared that they were insulted
instead of being governed by him, and who remembered or were told by
older men how gentle and easy of access Philip was always wont to be.
Once an old woman met him when he was walking, and begged repeatedly for
a hearing. When he replied that he had no leisure to attend to her, she
loudly cried out, "Then be king no more." Stung by this taunt he
returned to his palace, and gave audiences to all who wished it,
beginning with the old woman, and so continued for many days. Indeed
nothing becomes a king so much as to do justice to his subjects. As
Timotheus the poet has it, Ares is a despot, but Pindar tells us that
law is lord of all. Homer also says that kings have been entrusted by
Zeus, not with City-takers or brazen-bound ships, but with justice,
which they must keep and respect; and that Zeus does not love the most
warlike or the most unjust of kings, but the most righteous, and calls
him his friend and disciple. Demetrius however rejoiced in being called
by a name most unlike that of the Lord of Heaven, for his title is "The
Preserver of Cities," while Demetrius was known as "The Besieger." Thus
through the worship of mere brute force, the bad gradually overcame the
good side of his character, and his fame became sullied by the unworthy
acts with which it was associated.