DEMETRIUS

Ingenious men have long observed a resemblance between the arts

and the bodily senses. And they were first led to do so, I

think, by noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with

our senses, we examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the

use to which we put it differs in the two cases. Our senses are

not meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet

to bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects;

all they have to do is to receive impressions as they occur, and

report to the understanding the impressions as received. The

arts, on the other hand, which reason institutes expressly to

choose and obtain some suitable, and to refuse and get rid of

some unsuitable object, have their proper concern in the

consideration of the former; though, in a casual and contingent

way, they must also, for the very rejection of them, pay

attention to the latter. Medicine, to produce health, has to

examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must investigate

discord; and the supreme arts, of temperance, of justice, and of

wisdom, as they are acts of judgment and selection, exercised

not on good and just and expedient only, but also on wicked,

unjust, and inexpedient objects, do not give their commendations

to the mere innocence whose boast is its inexperience of evil,

and whose truer name is, by their award, suppleness and

ignorance of what all men who live aright should know. The

ancient Spartans, at their festivals, used to force their Helots

to swallow large quantities of raw wine, and then to expose them

at the public tables, to let the young men see what it is to be

drunk. And, though I do not think it consistent with humanity

or with civil justice to correct one man's morals by corrupting

those of another, yet we may, I think, avail ourselves of the

cases of those who have fallen into indiscretions, and have, in

high stations, made themselves conspicuous for misconduct; and I

shall not do ill to introduce a pair or two of such examples

among these biographies, not, assuredly, to amuse and divert my

readers, or give variety to my theme, but, as Ismenias, the

Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad performers on the

flute, and to tell them, "You should play like this man," and

"You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas used to say,

Young people would take greater pleasure in hearing good

playing, if first they were set to hear bad, so, and in the same

manner, it seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the

more zealous and more emulous to read, observe, and imitate the

better lives, if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy

and the bad.

For this reason, the following book contains the lives of

Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Antonius the Triumvir; two persons

who have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great

natures produce great vices as well as virtues. Both alike were

amorous and intemperate, warlike and munificent, sumptuous in

their way of living, and overbearing in their manners. And the

likeness of their fortunes carried out the resemblance in their

characters. Not only were their lives each a series of great

successes and great disasters, mighty acquisitions and

tremendous losses of power, sudden overthrows, followed by

unexpected recoveries, but they died, also, Demetrius in actual

captivity to his enemies, and Antony on the verge of it.

Antigonus had by his wife, Stratonice, the daughter of

Corrhaeus, two sons; the one of whom, after the name of his

uncle, he called Demetrius, the other had that of his

grandfather Philip, and died young. This is the most general

account, although some have related, that Demetrius was not the

son of Antigonus, but of his brother; and that his own father

dying young, and his mother being afterwards married to

Antigonus, he was accounted to be his son.

Demetrius had not the height of his father Antigonus, though he

was a tall man. But his countenance was one of such singular

beauty and expression, that no painter or sculptor ever produced

a good likeness of him. It combined grace and strength, dignity

with boyish bloom, and, in the midst of youthful heat and

passion, what was hardest of all to represent was a certain

heroic look and air of kingly greatness. Nor did his character

belie his looks, as no one was better able to render himself

both loved and feared. For as he was the most easy and

agreeable of companions, and the most luxurious and delicate of

princes in his drinking and banqueting and daily pleasures, so

in action there was never anyone that showed a more vehement

persistence, or a more passionate energy. Bacchus, skilled in

the conduct of war, and after war in giving peace its pleasures

and joys, seems to have been his pattern among the gods.

He was wonderfully fond of his father Antigonus; and the

tenderness he had for his mother led him, for her sake, to

redouble attentions, which it was evident were not so much owing

to fear or duty as to the more powerful motives of inclination.

It is reported, that, returning one day from hunting, he went

immediately into the apartment of Antigonus, who was conversing

with some ambassadors, and after stepping up and kissing his

father, he sat down by him, just as he was, still holding in his

hand the javelins which he had brought with him. Whereupon

Antigonus, who had just dismissed the ambassadors with their

answer, called out in a loud voice to them, as they were going,

"Mention, also, that this is the way in which we two live

together;" as if to imply to them that it was no slender mark of

the power and security of his government that there was so

perfect a good understanding between himself and his son. Such

an unsociable, solitary thing is power, and so much of jealousy

and distrust in it, that the first and greatest of the

successors of Alexander could make it a thing to glory in that

he was not so afraid of his son as to forbid his standing beside

him with a weapon in his hand. And, in fact, among all the

successors of Alexander, that of Antigonus was the only house

which, for many descents, was exempted from crime of this kind;

or, to state it exactly, Philip was the only one of this family

who was guilty of a son's death. All the other families, we may

fairly say, afforded frequent examples of fathers who brought

their children, husbands their wives, children their mothers, to

untimely ends; and that brothers should put brothers to death

was assumed, like the postulates of mathematicians, as the

common and recognized royal first principle of safety.

Let us here record an example in the early life of Demetrius,

showing his natural humane and kindly disposition. It was an

adventure which passed betwixt him and Mithridates, the son of

Ariobarzanes, who was about the same age with Demetrius, and

lived with him, in attendance on Antigonus; and although nothing

was said or could be said to his reproach, he fell under

suspicion, in consequence of a dream which Antigonus had.

Antigonus thought himself in a fair and spacious field, where he

sowed golden seed, and saw presently a golden crop come up; of

which, however, looking presently again, he saw nothing remain

but the stubble, without the ears. And as he stood by in anger

and vexation, he heard some voices saying, Mithridates had cut

the golden harvest and carried it off into Pontus. Antigonus,

much discomposed with his dream, first bound his son by an oath

not to speak, and then related it to him, adding, that he had

resolved, in consequence, to lose no time in ridding himself of

Mithridates, and making away with him. Demetrius was extremely

distressed; and when the young man came, as usual, to pass his

time with him, to keep his oath he forbore from saying a word,

but, drawing him aside little by little from the company, as

soon as they were by themselves, without opening his lips, with

the point of his javelin he traced before him the words, "Fly,

Mithridates." Mithridates took the hint, and fled by night into

Cappadocia, where Antigonus's dream about him was quickly

brought to its due fulfillment; for he got possession of a large

and fertile territory; and from him descended the line of the

kings of Pontus, which, in the eighth generation, was reduced by

the Romans. This may serve for a specimen of the early goodness

and love of justice that was part of Demetrius's natural

character.

But as in the elements of the world, Empedocles tells us, out of

liking and dislike, there spring up contention and warfare, and

all the more, the closer the contact, or the nearer the approach

of the objects, even so the perpetual hostilities among the

successors of Alexander were aggravated and inflamed, in

particular cases, by juxtaposition of interests and of

territories; as, for example, in the case of Antigonus and

Ptolemy. News came to Antigonus that Ptolemy had crossed from

Cyprus and invaded Syria, and was ravaging the country and

reducing the cities. Remaining, therefore, himself in Phrygia,

he sent Demetrius, now twenty-two years old, to make his first

essay as sole commander in an important charge. He, whose

youthful heat outran his experience, advancing against an

adversary trained in Alexander's school, and practiced in many

encounters, incurred a great defeat near the town of Gaza, in

which eight thousand of his men were taken, and five thousand

killed. His own tent, also, his money, and all his private

effects and furniture, were captured. These, however, Ptolemy

sent back, together with his friends, accompanying them with the

humane and courteous message, that they were not fighting for

anything else but honor and dominion. Demetrius accepted the

gift, praying only to the gods not to leave him long in

Ptolemy's debt, but to let him have an early chance of doing the

like to him. He took his disaster, also, with the temper not of

a boy defeated in his attempt, but of an old and long-tried

general, familiar with reverse of fortune; he busied himself in

collecting his men, replenishing his magazines, watching the

allegiance of the cities, and drilling his new recruits.

Antigonus received the news of the battle with the remark, that

Ptolemy had beaten boys, and would now have to fight with men.

But not to humble the spirit of his son, he acceded to his

request, and left him to command on the next occasion.

Not long after, Cilles, Ptolemy's lieutenant, with a powerful

army, took the field, and, looking upon Demetrius as already

defeated by the previous battle, he had in his imagination

driven him out of Syria before he saw him. But he quickly found

himself deceived; for Demetrius came so unexpectedly upon him

that he surprised both the general and his army, making him and

seven thousand of the soldiers prisoners of war, and possessing

himself of a large amount of treasure. But his joy in the

victory was not so much for the prizes he should keep, as for

those he could restore; and his thankfulness was less for the

wealth and glory than for the means it gave him of requiting his

enemy's former generosity. He did not, however, take it into

his own hands, but wrote to his father. And on receiving leave

to do as he liked, he sent back to Ptolemy Cilles and his

friends, loaded with presents. This defeat drove Ptolemy out of

Syria, and brought Antigonus from Celaenae, to enjoy the

victory, and the sight of the son who had gained it.

Soon after, Demetrius was sent to bring the Nabathaean Arabs

into obedience. And here he got into a district without water,

and incurred considerable danger, but by his resolute and

composed demeanor he overawed the barbarians, and returned after

receiving from them a large amount of booty, and seven hundred

camels. Not long after, Seleucus, whom Antigonus had formerly

chased out of Babylon, but who had afterwards recovered his

dominion by his own efforts and maintained himself in it, went

with large forces on an expedition to reduce the tribes on the

confines of India and the provinces near Mount Caucasus. And

Demetrius, conjecturing that he had left Mesopotamia but

slenderly guarded in his absence, suddenly passed the Euphrates

with his army, and made his way into Babylonia unexpectedly;

where he succeeded in capturing one of the two citadels, out of

which he expelled the garrison of Seleucus, and placed in it

seven thousand men of his own. And after allowing his soldiers

to enrich themselves with all the spoil they could carry with

them out of the country, he retired to the sea, leaving Seleucus

more securely master of his dominions than before, as he seemed

by this conduct to abandon every claim to a country which he

treated like an enemy's. However, by a rapid advance, he

rescued Halicarnassus from Ptolemy, who was besieging it. The

glory which this act obtained them inspired both the father and

son with a wonderful desire for freeing Greece, which Cassander

and Ptolemy had everywhere reduced to slavery. No nobler or

juster war was undertaken by any of the kings; the wealth they

had gained while humbling, with Greek assistance, the barbarians

being thus employed, for honor's sake and good repute, in

helping the Greeks. When the resolution was taken to begin

their attempt with Athens, one of his friends told Antigonus, if

they captured Athens, they must keep it safe in their own hands,

as by this gangway they might step out from their ships into

Greece when they pleased. But Antigonus would not hear of it;

he did not want a better or a steadier gangway than people's

good-will; and from Athens, the beacon of the world, the news of

their conduct would soon be handed on to all the world's

inhabitants. So Demetrius, with a sum of five thousand talents,

and a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, set sail for Athens,

where Demetrius the Phalerian was governing the city for

Cassander, with a garrison lodged in the port of Munychia. By

good fortune and skillful management he appeared before Piraeus,

on the twenty-sixth of Thargelion, before anything had been

heard of him. Indeed, when his ships were seen, they were taken

for Ptolemy's, and preparations were commenced for receiving

them; till at last, the generals discovering their mistake,

hurried down, and all was alarm and confusion, and attempts to

push forward preparations to oppose the landing of this hostile

force. For Demetrius, having found the entrances of the port

undefended, stood in directly, and was by this time safely

inside, before the eyes of everybody, and made signals from his

ship, requesting a peaceable hearing. And on leave being given,

he caused a herald with a loud voice to make proclamation that

he was come thither by the command of his father, with no other

design than what he prayed the gods to prosper with success, to

give the Athenians their liberty, to expel the garrison, and to

restore the ancient laws and constitution of the country.

The people, hearing this, at once threw down their shields, and,

clapping their hands, with loud acclamations entreated Demetrius

to land, calling him their deliverer and benefactor. And the

Phalerian and his party, who saw that there was nothing for it

but to receive the conqueror, whether he should perform his

promises or not, sent, however, messengers to beg for his

protection; to whom Demetrius gave a kind reception, and sent

back with them Aristodemus of Miletus, one of his father's

friends. The Phalerian, under the change of government, was

more afraid of his fellow-citizens than of the enemy; but

Demetrius took precautions for him, and, out of respect for his

reputation and character, sent him with a safe conduct to

Thebes, whither he desired to go. For himself, he declared he

would not, in spite of all his curiosity, put his foot in the

city, till he had completed its deliverance by driving out the

garrison. So, blockading Munychia with a palisade and trench,

he sailed off to attack Megara, where also there was one of

Cassander's garrisons. But, hearing that Cratesipolis, the wife

of Alexander son of Polysperchon, who was famous for her beauty,

was well disposed to see him, he left his troops near Megara,

and set out with a few light-armed attendants for Patrae, where

she was now staying. And, quitting these also, he pitched his

tent apart from everybody, that the woman might pay her visit

without being seen. This some of the enemy perceived, and

suddenly attacked him; and, in his alarm, he was obliged to

disguise himself in a shabby cloak, and run for it, narrowly

escaping the shame of being made a prisoner, in reward for his

foolish passion. And as it was, his tent and money were taken.

Megara, however, surrendered, and would have been pillaged by

the soldiers, but for the urgent intercession of the Athenians.

The garrison was driven out, and the city restored to

independence. While he was occupied in this, he remembered that

Stilpo, the philosopher, famous for his choice of a life of

tranquillity, was residing here. He, therefore, sent for him,

and begged to know whether anything belonging to him had been

taken. "No," replied Stilpo, "I have not met with anyone to

take away knowledge." Pretty nearly all the servants in the

city had been stolen away; and so, when Demetrius, renewing his

courtesies to Stilpo, on taking leave of him, said, "I leave

your city, Stilpo, a city of freemen," "certainly," replied

Stilpo, "there is not one serving man left among us all."

Returning from Megara, he sat down before the citadel of

Munychia, which in a few days he took by assault, and caused the

fortifications to be demolished; and thus having accomplished

his design, upon the request and invitation of the Athenians he

made his entrance into the upper city, where, causing the people

to be summoned, he publicly announced to them that their ancient

constitution was restored, and that they should receive from his

father, Antigonus, a present of one hundred and fifty thousand

measures of wheat, and such a supply of timber as would enable

them to build a hundred galleys. In this manner did the

Athenians recover their popular institutions, after the space of

fifteen years from the time of the war of Lamia and the battle

before Cranon, during which interval of time the government had

been administered nominally as an oligarchy, but really by a

single man, Demetrius the Phalerian being so powerful. But the

excessive honors which the Athenians bestowed, for these noble

and generous acts, upon Demetrius, created offense and disgust.

The Athenians were the first who gave Antigonus and Demetrius

the title of kings, which hitherto they had made it a point of

piety to decline, as the one remaining royal honor still

reserved for the lineal descendants of Philip and Alexander, in

which none but they could venture to participate. Another name

which they received from no people but the Athenians was that of

the Tutelar Deities and Deliverers. And to enhance this

flattery, by a common vote it was decreed to change the style of

the city, and not to have the years named any longer from the

annual archon; a priest of the two Tutelary Divinities, who was

to be yearly chosen, was to have this honor, and all public acts

and instruments were to bear their date by his name. They

decreed, also, that the figures of Antigonus and Demetrius

should be woven, with those of the gods, into the pattern of the

great robe. They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first

alighted from his chariot, and built an altar there, with the

name of the Altar of the Descent of Demetrius. They created two

new tribes, calling them after the names of these princes, the

Antigonid and the Demetriad; and to the Council, which consisted

of five hundred persons, fifty being chosen out of every tribe,

they added one hundred more to represent these new tribes. But

the wildest proposal was one made by Stratocles, the great

inventor of all these ingenious and exquisite compliments,

enacting that the members of any deputation that the city should

send to Demetrius or Antigonus should have the same title as

those sent to Delphi or Olympia for the performance of the

national sacrifices in behalf of the state, at the great Greek

festivals. This Stratocles was, in all respects, an audacious

and abandoned character, and seemed to have made it his object

to copy, by his buffoonery and impertinence, Cleon's old

familiarity with the people. His mistress, Phylacion, one day

bringing him a dish of brains and neckbones for his dinner,

"Oh," said he, "I am to dine upon the things which we statesmen

play at ball with." At another time, when the Athenians

received their naval defeat near Amorgos, he hastened home

before the news could reach the city, and, having a chaplet on

his head, came riding through the Ceramicus, announcing that

they had won a victory, and moved a vote for thanksgivings to

the gods, and a distribution of meat among the people in their

tribes. Presently after came those who brought home the wrecks

from the battle; and when the people exclaimed at what he had

done, he came boldly to face the outcry, and asked what harm

there had been in giving them two days' pleasure.

Such was Stratocles. And, "adding flame to fire," as

Aristophanes says, there was one who, to outdo Stratocles,

proposed, that it should be decreed, that whensoever Demetrius

should honor their city with his presence, they should treat him

with the same show of hospitable entertainment, with which Ceres

and Bacchus are received; and the citizen who exceeded the rest

in the splendor and costliness of his reception should have a

sum of money granted him from the public purse to make a sacred

offering. Finally, they changed the name of the month of

Munychion, and called it Demetrion; they gave the name of the

Demetrian to the odd day between the end of the old and the

beginning of the new month; and turned the feast of Bacchus, the

Dionysia, into the Demetria, or feast of Demetrius. Most of

these changes were marked by the divine displeasure. The sacred

robe, in which, according to their decree, the figures of

Demetrius and Antigonus had been woven with those of Jupiter and

Minerva, was caught by a violent gust of wind, while the

procession was conveying it through the Ceramicus, and was torn

from the top to the bottom. A crop of hemlock, a plant which

scarcely grew anywhere, even in the country thereabout, sprang

up in abundance round the altars which they had erected to these

new divinities. They had to omit the solemn procession at the

feast of Bacchus, as upon the very day of its celebration there

was such a severe and rigorous frost, coming quite out of its

time, that not only the vines and fig-trees were killed, but

almost all the wheat was destroyed in the blade. Accordingly,

Philippides, an enemy to Stratocles, attacked him in a comedy,

in the following verses: --

He for whom frosts that nipped your vines were sent,

And for whose sins the holy robe was rent,

Who grants to men the gods' own honors, he,

Not the poor stage, is now the people's enemy.

Philippides was a great favorite with king Lysimachus, from whom

the Athenians received, for his sake, a variety of kindnesses.

Lysimachus went so far as to think it a happy omen to meet or

see Philippides at the outset of any enterprise or expedition.

And, in general, he was well thought of for his own character,

as a plain, uninterfering person, with none of the officious,

self-important habits of a court. Once, when Lysimachus was

solicitous to show him kindness, and asked what he had that he

could make him a present of, "Anything," replied Philippides,

"but your state secrets." The stage-player, we thought,

deserved a place in our narrative quite as well as the public

speaker.

But that which exceeded all the former follies and flatteries,

was the proposal of Dromoclides of Sphettus; who, when there was

a debate about sending to the Delphic Oracle to inquire the

proper course for the consecration of certain bucklers, moved in

the assembly that they should rather send to receive an oracle

from Demetrius. I will transcribe the very words of the order,

which was in these terms: "May it be happy and propitious. The

people of Athens have decreed, that a fit person shall be

chosen among the Athenian citizens, who shall be deputed to be

sent to the Deliverer; and after he hath duly performed the

sacrifices, shall inquire of the Deliverer, in what most

religious and decent manner he will please to direct, at the

earliest possible time, the consecration of the bucklers; and

according to the answer the people shall act." With this

befooling they completed the perversion of a mind which even

before was not so strong or sound as it should have been.

During his present leisure in Athens, he took to wife Eurydice,

a descendant of the ancient Miltiades, who had been married to

Opheltas, the ruler of Cyrene, and after his death had come back

to Athens. The Athenians took the marriage as a compliment and

favor to the city. But Demetrius was very free in these

matters, and was the husband of several wives at once; the

highest place and honor among all being retained by Phila, who

was Antipater's daughter, and had been the wife of Craterus, the

one of all the successors of Alexander who left behind him the

strongest feelings of attachment among the Macedonians. And for

these reasons Antigonus had obliged him to marry her,

notwithstanding the disparity of their years, Demetrius being

quite a youth, and she much older; and when upon that account he

made some difficulty in complying, Antigonus whispered in his

ear the maxim from Euripides, broadly substituting a new word

for the original, serve, --

Natural or not,

A man must wed where profit will be got.

Any respect, however, which he showed either to Phila or to his

other wives did not go so far as to prevent him from consorting

with any number of mistresses, and bearing, in this respect,

the worst character of all the princes of his time.

A summons now arrived from his father, ordering him to go and

fight with Ptolemy in Cyprus, which he was obliged to obey,

sorry as he was to abandon Greece. And in quitting this nobler

and more glorious enterprise, he sent to Cleonides, Ptolemy's

general, who was holding garrisons in Sicyon and Corinth,

offering him money to let the cities be independent. But on his

refusal, he set sail hastily, taking additional forces with him,

and made for Cyprus; where, immediately upon his arrival, he

fell upon Menelaus, the brother of Ptolemy, and gave him a

defeat. But when Ptolemy himself came in person, with large

forces both on land and sea, for some little time nothing took

place beyond an interchange of menaces and lofty talk. Ptolemy

bade Demetrius sail off before the whole armament came up, if he

did not wish to be trampled under foot; and Demetrius offered to

let him retire, on condition of his withdrawing his garrisons

from Sicyon and Corinth. And not they alone, but all the other

potentates and princes of the time, were in anxiety for the

uncertain impending issue of the conflict; as it seemed evident,

that the conqueror's prize would be, not Cyprus or Syria, but

the absolute supremacy.

Ptolemy had brought a hundred and fifty galleys with him, and

gave orders to Menelaus to sally, in the heat of the battle, out

of the harbor of Salamis, and attack with sixty ships the rear

of Demetrius. Demetrius, however, opposing to these sixty ten

of his galleys, which were a sufficient number to block up the

narrow entrance of the harbor, and drawing out his land forces

along all the headlands running out into the sea, went into

action with a hundred and eighty galleys, and, attacking with

the utmost boldness and impetuosity, utterly routed Ptolemy, who

fled with eight ships, the sole remnant of his fleet, seventy

having been taken with all their men, and the rest destroyed in

the battle; while the whole multitude of attendants, friends,

and women, that had followed in the ships of burden, all the

arms, treasure, and military engines fell, without exception,

into the hands of Demetrius, and were by him collected and

brought into the camp. Among the prisoners was the celebrated

Lamia, famed at one time for her skill on the flute, and

afterwards renowned as a mistress. And although now upon the

wane of her youthful beauty, and though Demetrius was much her

junior, she exercised over him so great a charm, that all other

women seemed to be amorous of Demetrius, but Demetrius amorous

only of Lamia. After this signal victory, Demetrius came before

Salamis; and Menelaus, unable to make any resistance,

surrendered himself and all his fleet, twelve hundred horse, and

twelve thousand foot, together with the place. But that which

added more than all to the glory and splendor of the success was

the humane and generous conduct of Demetrius to the vanquished.

For, after he had given honorable funerals to the dead, he

bestowed liberty upon the living; and that he might not forget

the Athenians, he sent them, as a present, complete arms for

twelve hundred men.

To carry this happy news, Aristodemus of Miletus, the most

perfect flatterer belonging to the court, was dispatched to

Antigonus; and he, to enhance the welcome message, was resolved,

it would appear, to make his most successful effort. When he

crossed from Cyprus, he bade the galley which conveyed him come

to anchor off the land; and, having ordered all the ship's crew

to remain aboard, he took the boat, and was set ashore alone.

Thus he proceeded to Antigonus, who, one may well imagine, was

in suspense enough about the issue, and suffered all the

anxieties natural to men engaged in so perilous a struggle. And

when he heard that Aristodemus was coming alone, it put him into

yet greater trouble; he could scarcely forbear from going out to

meet him himself; he sent messenger on messenger, and friend

after friend, to inquire what news. But Aristodemus, walking

gravely and with a settled countenance, without making any

answer, still proceeded quietly onward; until Antigonus, quite

alarmed and no longer able to refrain, got up and met him at the

gate, whither he came with a crowd of anxious followers now

collected and running after him. As soon as he saw Antigonus

within hearing, stretching out his hands, he accosted him with

the loud exclamation, "Hail, king Antigonus! we have defeated

Ptolemy by sea, and have taken Cyprus and sixteen thousand eight

hundred prisoners." "Welcome, Aristodemus," replied Antigonus,

"but, as you chose to torture us so long for your good news, you

may wait awhile for the reward of it."

Upon this the people around gave Antigonus and Demetrius, for

the first time, the title of kings. His friends at once set a

diadem on the head of Antigonus; and he sent one presently to

his son, with a letter addressed to him as King Demetrius. And

when this news was told in Egypt, that they might not seem to be

dejected with the late defeat, Ptolemy's followers also took

occasion to bestow the style of king upon him; and the rest of

the successors of Alexander were quick to follow the example.

Lysimachus began to wear the diadem; and Seleucus, who had

before received the name in all addresses from the barbarians,

now also took it upon him in all business with the Greeks.

Cassander still retained his usual superscription in his

letters, but others, both in writing and speaking, gave him the

royal title. Nor was this the mere accession of a name, or

introduction of a new fashion. The men's own sentiments about

themselves were disturbed, and their feelings elevated; a spirit

of pomp and arrogance passed into their habits of life and

conversation, as a tragic actor on the stage modifies, with a

change of dress, his step, his voice, his motions in sitting

down, his manner in addressing another. The punishments they

inflicted were more violent after they had thus laid aside that

modest style under which they formerly dissembled their power,

and the influence of which had often made them gentler and less

exacting to their subjects. A single pattering voice effected a

revolution in the world.

Antigonus, extremely elevated with the success of his arms in

Cyprus under the conduct of Demetrius, resolved to push on his

good fortune, and to lead his forces in person against Ptolemy

by land, whilst Demetrius should coast with a great fleet along

the shore, to assist him by sea. The issue of the contest was

intimated in a dream which Medius, a friend to Antigonus, had at

this time in his sleep. He thought he saw Antigonus and his

whole army running, as if it had been a race; that, in the first

part of the course, he went off showing great strength and

speed; gradually, however, his pace slackened; and at the end he

saw him come lagging up, tired and almost breathless and quite

spent. Antigonus himself met with many difficulties by land;

and Demetrius, encountering a great storm at sea, was driven,

with the loss of many or his ships, upon a dangerous coast

without a harbor. So the expedition returned without effecting

anything. Antigonus, now nearly eighty years old, was no

longer well able to go through the fatigues of a marching

campaign, though rather on account of his great size and

corpulence than from loss of strength; and for this reason he

left things to his son, whose fortune and experience appeared

sufficient for all undertakings, and whose luxury and expense

and revelry gave him no concern. For though in peace he vented

himself in his pleasures, and, when there was nothing to do, ran

headlong into any excesses, in war he was as sober and

abstemious as the most temperate character. The story is told,

that once, after Lamia had gained open supremacy over him, the

old man, when Demetrius coming home from abroad began to kiss

him with unusual warmth, asked him if he took him for Lamia. At

another time, Demetrius, after spending several days in a

debauch, excused himself for his absence, by saying he had had a

violent flux. "So I heard," replied Antigonus; "was it of

Thasian wine, or Chian?" Once he was told his son was ill, and

went to see him. At the door he met some young beauty. Going

in, he sat down by the bed and took his pulse. "The fever,"

said Demetrius, "has just left me." "O yes," replied the

father, "I met it going out at the door." Demetrius's great

actions made Antigonus treat him thus easily. The Scythians in

their drinking-bouts twang their bows, to keep their courage

awake amidst the dreams of indulgence; but he would resign his

whole being, now, to pleasure, and now to action; and though he

never let thoughts of the one intrude upon the pursuit of the

other, yet, when the time came for preparing for war, he showed

as much capacity as any man.

And indeed his ability displayed itself even more in preparing

for, than in conducting a war. He thought he could never be too

well supplied for every possible occasion, and took a pleasure,

not to be satiated, in great improvements in ship-building and

machines. He did not waste his natural genius and power of

mechanical research on toys and idle fancies, turning, painting,

and playing on the flute, like some kings, Aeropus, for example,

king of Macedon, who spent his days in making small lamps and

tables; or Attalus Philometor, whose amusement was to cultivate

poisons, henbane and hellebore, and even hemlock, aconite, and

dorycnium, which he used to sow himself in the royal gardens,

and made it his business to gather the fruits and collect the

juices in their season. The Parthian kings took a pride in

whetting and sharpening with their own hands the points of their

arrows and javelins. But when Demetrius played the workman, it

was like a king, and there was magnificence in his handicraft.

The articles he produced bore marks upon the face of them not of

ingenuity only, but of a great mind and a lofty purpose. They

were such as a king might not only design and pay for, but use

his own hands to make; and while friends might be terrified with

their greatness, enemies could be charmed with their beauty; a

phrase which is not so pretty to the ear as it is true to the

fact. The very people against whom they were to be employed

could not forbear running to gaze with admiration upon his

galleys of five and six ranges of oars, as they passed along

their coasts; and the inhabitants of besieged cities came on

their walls to see the spectacle of his famous City-takers.

Even Lysimachus, of all the kings of his time the greatest enemy

of Demetrius, coming to raise the siege of Soli in Cilicia, sent

first to desire permission to see his galleys and engines, and,

having had his curiosity gratified by a view of them, expressed

his admiration and quitted the place. The Rhodians, also, whom

he long besieged, begged him, when they concluded a peace, to

let them have some of his engines, which they might preserve as

a memorial at once of his power and of their own brave

resistance.

The quarrel between him and the Rhodians was on account of their

being allies to Ptolemy, and in the siege the greatest of all

the engines was planted against their walls. The base of it was

exactly square, each side containing twenty-four cubits; it rose

to a height of thirty-three cubits, growing narrower from the

base to the top. Within were several apartments or chambers,

which were to be filled with armed men, and in every story the

front towards the enemy had windows for discharging missiles of

all sorts, the whole being filled with soldiers for every

description of fighting. And what was most wonderful was that,

notwithstanding its size, when it was moved it never tottered or

inclined to one side, but went forward on its base in perfect

equilibrium, with a loud noise and great impetus, astounding the

minds, and yet at the same time charming the eyes of all the

beholders.

Whilst Demetrius was at this same siege, there were brought to

him two iron cuirasses from Cyprus, weighing each of them no

more than forty pounds, and Zoilus, who had forged them, to show

the excellence of their temper, desired that one of them might

be tried with a catapult missile, shot out of one of the engines

at no greater distance than six and twenty paces; and, upon the

experiment, it was found, that though the dart exactly hit the

cuirass, yet it made no greater impression than such a slight

scratch as might be made with the point of a style or graver.

Demetrius took this for his own wearing, and gave the other to

Alcimus the Epirot, the best soldier and strongest man of all

his captains, the only one who used to wear armor to the weight

of two talents, one talent being the weight which others thought

sufficient. He fell during this siege in a battle near the

theater.

The Rhodians made a brave defense, insomuch that Demetrius saw

he was making but little progress, and only persisted out of

obstinacy and passion; and the rather because the Rhodians,

having captured a ship in which some clothes and furniture, with

letters from herself; were coming to him from Phila his wife,

had sent on everything to Ptolemy, and had not copied the

honorable example of the Athenians, who, having surprised an

express sent from king Philip, their enemy, opened all the

letters he was charged with, excepting only those directed to

queen Olympias, which they returned with the seal unbroken.

Yet, although greatly provoked, Demetrius, into whose power it

shortly after came to repay the affront, would not suffer

himself to retaliate. Protogenes the Caunian had been making

them a painting of the story of Ialysus, which was all but

completed, when it was taken by Demetrius in one of the suburbs.

The Rhodians sent a herald begging him to be pleased to spare

the work and not let it be destroyed; Demetrius's answer to

which was that he would rather burn the pictures of his father

than a piece of art which had cost so much labor. It is said to

have taken Protogenes seven years to paint, and they tell us

that Apelles, when he first saw it, was struck dumb with wonder,

and called it, on recovering his speech, "a great labor and a

wonderful success," adding, however, that it had not the graces

which carried his own paintings as it were up to the heavens.

This picture, which came with the rest in the general mass to

Rome, there perished by fire.

While the Rhodians were thus defending their city to the

uttermost, Demetrius, who was not sorry for an excuse to retire,

found one in the arrival of ambassadors from Athens, by whose

mediation terms were made that the Rhodians should bind

themselves to aid Antigonus and Demetrius against all enemies,

Ptolemy excepted.

The Athenians entreated his help against Cassander, who was

besieging the city. So he went thither with a fleet of three

hundred and thirty ships, and many soldiers; and not only drove

Cassander out of Attica, but pursued him as far as Thermopylae,

routed him, and became master of Heraclea, which came over to

him voluntarily, and of a body of six thousand Macedonians,

which also joined him. Returning hence, he gave their liberty

to all the Greeks on this side Thermopylae, and made alliance

with the Boeotians, took Cenchreae, and reducing the fortresses

of Phyle and Panactum, in which were garrisons of Cassander,

restored them to the Athenians. They, in requital, though they

had before been so profuse in bestowing honors upon him, that

one would have thought they had exhausted all the capacities of

invention, showed they had still new refinements of adulation to

devise for him. They gave him, as his lodging, the back temple

in the Parthenon, and here he lived, under the immediate roof,

as they meant it to imply, of his hostess, Minerva; no reputable

or well-conducted guest to be quartered upon a maiden goddess.

When his brother Philip was once put into a house where three

young women were living, Antigonus saying nothing to him, sent

for his quartermaster, and told him, in the young man's

presence, to find some less crowded lodgings for him.

Demetrius, however, who should, to say the least, have paid the

goddess the respect due to an elder sister, for that was the

purport of the city's compliment, filled the temple with such

pollutions that the place seemed least profaned when his license

confined itself to common women like Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and

Anticyra.

The fair name of the city forbids any further plain particulars;

let us only record the severe virtue of the young Damocles,

surnamed, and by that surname pointed out to Demetrius, the

beautiful; who, to escape importunities, avoided every place of

resort, and when at last followed into a private bathing room by

Demetrius, seeing none at hand to help or deliver, seized the

lid from the cauldron, and, plunging into the boiling water,

sought a death untimely and unmerited, but worthy of the country

and of the beauty that occasioned it. Not so Cleaenetus, the

son of Cleomedon, who, to obtain from Demetrius a letter of

intercession to the people in behalf of his father, lately

condemned in a fine of fifty talents, disgraced himself, and got

the city into trouble. In deference to the letter, they

remitted the fine, yet they made an edict prohibiting any

citizen for the future to bring letters from Demetrius. But

being informed that Demetrius resented this as a great

indignity, they not only rescinded in alarm the former order,

but put some of the proposers and advisers of it to death and

banished others, and furthermore enacted and decreed, that

whatsoever king Demetrius should in time to come ordain, should

be accounted right towards the gods and just towards men; and

when one of the better class of citizens said Stratocles must be

mad to use such words, Demochares of Leuconoe observed, he

would be a fool not to be mad. For Stratocles was well rewarded

for his flatteries; and the saying was remembered against

Demochares, who was soon after sent into banishment. So fared

the Athenians, after being relieved of the foreign garrison, and

recovering what was called their liberty.

After this Demetrius marched with his forces into Peloponnesus,

where he met with none to oppose him, his enemies flying before

him, and allowing the cities to join him. He received into

friendship all Acte, as it is called, and all Arcadia except

Mantinea. He bought the liberty of Argos, Corinth, and Sicyon,

by paying a hundred talents to their garrisons to evacuate them.

At Argos, during the feast of Juno, which happened at the time,

he presided at the games, and, joining in the festivities with

the multitude of the Greeks assembled there, he celebrated his

marriage with Deidamia, daughter of Aeacides, king of the

Molossians, and sister of Pyrrhus. At Sicyon he told the people

they had put the city just outside of the city, and, persuading

them to remove to where they now live, gave their town not only

a new site but a new name, Demetrias, after himself. A general

assembly met on the Isthmus, where he was proclaimed, by a great

concourse of people, the Commander of Greece, like Philip and

Alexander of old; whose superior he, in the present height of

his prosperity and power, was willing enough to consider

himself; and, certainly, in one respect he outdid Alexander, who

never refused their title to other kings, or took on himself the

style of king of kings, though many kings received both their

title and their authority as such from him; whereas Demetrius

used to ridicule those who gave the name of king to any except

himself and his father; and in his entertainments was well

pleased when his followers, after drinking to him and his father

as kings, went on to drink the health of Seleucus, with the

title of Master of the Elephants; of Ptolemy, by the name of

High Admiral; of Lysimachus, with the addition of Treasurer; and

of Agathocles, with the style of Governor of the Island of

Sicily. The other kings merely laughed when they were told of

this vanity; Lysimachus alone expressed some indignation at

being considered a eunuch; such being usually then selected for

the office of treasurer. And, in general, there was a more

bitter enmity between him and Lysimachus than with any of the

others. Once, as a scoff at his passion for Lamia, Lysimachus

said he had never before seen a courtesan act a queen's part; to

which Demetrius rejoined that his mistress was quite as honest

us Lysimachus's own Penelope.

But to proceed. Demetrius being about to return to Athens,

signified by letter to the city that he desired immediate

admission to the rites of initiation into the Mysteries, and

wished to go through all the stages of the

ceremony, from first to last, without delay. This was

absolutely contrary to the rules, and a thing which had never

been allowed before; for the lesser mysteries were celebrated in

the month of Anthesterion, and the great solemnity in

Boedromion, and none of the novices were finally admitted till

they had completed a year after this latter. Yet all this

notwithstanding, when in the public assembly these letters of

Demetrius were produced and read, there was not one single

person who had the courage to oppose them, except Pythodorus,

the torch-bearer. But it signified nothing, for Stratocles at

once proposed that the month of Munychion, then current, should

by edict be reputed to be the month of Anthesterion; which being

voted and done, and Demetrius thereby admitted to the lesser

ceremonies, by another vote they turned the same month of

Munychion into the other month of Boedromion; the celebration of

the greater mysteries ensued, and Demetrius was fully admitted.

These proceedings gave the comedian, Philippides, a new occasion

to exercise his wit upon Stratocles,

whose flattering fear

Into one month hath crowded all the year.

And on the vote that Demetrius should lodge in the Parthenon,

Who turns the temple to a common inn,

And makes the Virgin's house a house of sin.

Of all the disreputable and flagitious acts of which he was

guilty in this visit, one that particularly hurt the feelings of

the Athenians was that, having given comment that they should

forthwith raise for his service two hundred and fifty talents,

and they to comply with his demands being forced to levy it upon

the people with the utmost rigor and severity, when they

presented him with the money, which they had with such

difficulty raised, as if it were a trifling sum, he ordered it

to be given to Lamia and the rest of his women, to buy soap.

The loss, which was bad enough, was less galling than the shame,

and the words more intolerable than the act which they

accompanied. Though, indeed, the story is variously reported;

and some say it was the Thessalians, and not the Athenians, who

were thus treated. Lamia, however, exacted contributions

herself to pay for an entertainment she gave to the king, and

her banquet was so renowned for its sumptuosity, that a

description of it was drawn up by the Samian writer, Lynceus.

Upon this occasion, one of the comic writers gave Lamia the name

of the real Helepolis; and Demochares of Soli called Demetrius

Mythus, because the fable always has its Lamia, and so had he.

And, in truth, his passion for this woman and the prosperity in

which she lived were such as to draw upon him not only the envy

and jealousy of all his wives, but the animosity even of his

friends. For example, on Lysimachus's showing to some

ambassadors from Demetrius the scars of the wounds which he had

received upon his thighs and arms by the paws of the lion with

which Alexander had shut him up, after hearing his account of

the combat, they smiled and answered, that their king, also, was

not without his scars, but could show upon his neck the marks of

a Lamia, a no less dangerous beast. It was also matter of

wonder that, though he had objected so much to Phila on account

of her age, he was yet such a slave to Lamia, who was so long

past her prime. One evening at supper, when she played the

flute, Demetrius asked Demo, whom the men called Madness, what

she thought of her. Demo answered she thought her an old woman.

And when a quantity of sweetmeats were brought in, and the king

said again, "See what presents I get from Lamia!" "My old

mother," answered Demo, "will send you more, if you will make

her your mistress." Another story is told of a criticism passed

by Lamia or the famous judgment of Bocchoris. A young Egyptian

had long made suit to Thonis, the courtesan, offering a sum of

gold for her favor. But before it came to pass, he dreamed one

night that he had obtained it, and, satisfied with the shadow,

felt no more desire for the substance. Thonis upon this brought

an action for the sum. Bocchoris, the judge, on hearing the

case, ordered the defendant to bring into court the full amount

in a vessel, which he was to move to and fro in his hand, and

the shadow of it was to be adjudged to Thonis. The fairness of

this sentence Lamia contested, saying the young man's desire

might have been satisfied with the dream, but Thonis's desire

for the money could not be relieved by the shadow. Thus much

for Lamia.

And now the story passes from the comic to the tragic stage in

pursuit of the acts and fortunes of its subject. A general

league of the kings, who were now gathering and combining their

forces to attack Antigonus, recalled Demetrius from Greece. He

was encouraged by finding his father full of a spirit and

resolution for the combat that belied his years. Yet it would

seem to be true, that if Antigonus could only have borne to

make some trifling concessions, and if he had shown any

moderation in his passion for empire, he might have maintained

for himself till his death, and left to his son behind him, the

first place among the kings. But he was of a violent and

haughty spirit; and the insulting words as well as actions in

which he allowed himself could not be borne by young and

powerful princes, and provoked them into combining against him.

Though now when he was told of the confederacy, he could not

forbear from saying that this flock of birds would soon be

scattered by one stone and a single shout. He took the field at

the head of more than seventy thousand foot, and of ten thousand

horse, and seventy-five elephants. His enemies had sixty-four

thousand foot, five hundred more horse than he, elephants to the

number of four hundred, and a hundred and twenty chariots. On

their near approach to each other, an alteration began to be

observable, not in the purposes, but in the presentiments of

Antigonus. For whereas in all former campaigns he had ever

shown himself lofty and confident, loud in voice and scornful in

speech, often by some joke or mockery on the eve of battle

expressing his contempt and displaying his composure, he was now

remarked to be thoughtful, silent, and retired. He presented

Demetrius to the army, and declared him his successor; and what

everyone thought stranger than all was that he now conferred

alone in his tent with Demetrius, whereas in former time he had

never entered into any secret consultations even with him; but

had always followed his own advice, made his resolutions, and

then given out his commands. Once when Demetrius was a boy and

asked him how soon the army would move, he is said to have

answered him sharply, "Are you afraid lest you, of all the army,

should not hear the trumpet?"

There were now, however, inauspicious signs, which affected his

spirits. Demetrius, in a dream, had seen Alexander, completely

armed, appear and demand of him what word they intended to give

in the time of the battle; and Demetrius answering that he

intended the word should be "Jupiter and Victory." "Then," said

Alexander, "I will go to your adversaries and find my welcome

with them." And on the morning of the combat, as the armies

were drawing up, Antigonus, going out of the door of his tent,

by some accident or other, stumbled and fell flat upon the

ground, hurting himself a good deal. And on recovering his

feet, lifting up his hands to heaven, he prayed the gods to

grant him "either victory, or death without knowledge of

defeat." When the armies engaged, Demetrius, who commanded the

greatest and best part of the cavalry, made a charge on

Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, and, gloriously routing the

enemy, followed the pursuit, in the pride and exultation of

success, so eagerly, and so unwisely far, that it fatally lost

him the day, for when, perceiving his error, he would have come

in to the assistance of his own infantry, he was not able, the

enemy with their elephants having cut off his retreat. And on

the other hand, Seleucus, observing the main battle of Antigonus

left naked of their horse, did not charge, but made a show of

charging; and keeping them in alarm and wheeling about and still

threatening an attack, he gave opportunity for those who wished

it to separate and come over to him; which a large body of them

did, the rest taking to flight. But the old king Antigonus

still kept his post, and when a strong body of the enemies drew

up to charge him, and one of those about him cried out to him,

"Sir, they are coming upon you," he only replied, "What else

should they do? but Demetrius will come to my rescue." And in

this hope he persisted to the last, looking out on every side

for his son's approach, until he was borne down by a whole

multitude of darts, and fell. His other followers and friends

fled, and Thorax of Larissa remained alone by the body.

The battle having been thus decided, the kings who had gained

the victory, carving up the whole vast empire that had belonged

to Demetrius and Antigonus, like a carcass, into so many

portions, added these new gains to their former possessions. As

for Demetrius, with five thousand foot and four thousand horse,

he fled at his utmost speed to Ephesus, where it was the common

opinion he would seize the treasures of the temple to relieve

his wants; but he, on the contrary, fearing such an attempt on

the part of his soldiers, hastened away, and sailed for Greece,

his chief remaining hopes being placed in the fidelity of the

Athenians, with whom he had left part of his navy and of his

treasure and his wife Deidamia. And in their attachment he had

not the least doubt but he should in this his extremity find a

safe resource. Accordingly when, upon reaching the Cyclades, he

was met by ambassadors from Athens, requesting him not to

proceed to the city, as the people had passed a vote to admit no

king whatever within their walls, and had conveyed Deidamia with

honorable attendance to Megara, his anger and surprise

overpowered him, and the constancy quite failed him which he had

hitherto shown in a wonderful degree under his reverses, nothing

humiliating or mean-spirited having as yet been seen in him

under all his misfortunes. But to be thus disappointed in the

Athenians, and to find the friendship he had trusted prove, upon

trial, thus empty and unreal, was a great pang to him. And, in

truth, an excessive display of outward honor would seem to be

the most uncertain attestation of the real affection of a people

for any king or potentate. Such shows lose their whole credit

as tokens of affection (which has its virtue in the feelings and

moral choice), when we reflect that they may equally proceed

from fear. The same decrees are voted upon the latter motive as

upon the former. And therefore judicious men do not look so

much to statues, paintings, or divine honors that are paid them,

as to their own actions and conduct, judging hence whether they

shall trust these as a genuine, or discredit them as a forced

homage. As in fact nothing is less unusual than for a people,

even while offering compliments, to be disgusted with those who

accept them greedily, or arrogantly, or without respect to the

freewill of the givers.

Demetrius, shamefully used as he thought himself, was in no

condition to revenge the affront. He returned a message of

gentle expostulation, saying, however, that he expected to have

his galleys sent to him, among which was that of thirteen banks

of oars. And this being accorded him, he sailed to the Isthmus,

and, finding his affairs in very ill condition, his garrisons

expelled, and a general secession going on to the enemy, he left

Pyrrhus to attend to Greece, and took his course to the

Chersonesus, where he ravaged the territories of Lysimachus,

and, by the booty which he took, maintained and kept together

his troops, which were now once more beginning to recover and to

show some considerable front. Nor did any of the other princes

care to meddle with him on that side; for Lysimachus had quite

as little claim to be loved, and was more to be feared for his

power. But, not long after, Seleucus sent to treat with

Demetrius for a marriage betwixt himself and Stratonice,

daughter of Demetrius by Phila. Seleucus, indeed, had already,

by Apama the Persian, a son named Antiochus, but he was

possessed of territories that might well satisfy more than one

successor, and he was the rather induced to this alliance with

Demetrius, because Lysimachus had just married himself to one

daughter of king Ptolemy, and his son Agathocles to another.

Demetrius, who looked upon the offer as an unexpected piece of

good fortune, presently embarked with his daughter, and with his

whole fleet sailed for Syria. Having during his voyage to touch

several times on the coast, among other places he landed in part

of Cilicia, which, by the apportionment of the kings after the

defeat of Antigonus, was allotted to Plistarchus, the brother of

Cassander. Plistarchus, who took this descent of Demetrius upon

his coasts as an infraction of his rights, and was not sorry to

have something to complain of hastened away to expostulate in

person with Seleucus for entering separately into relations with

Demetrius, the common enemy, without consulting the other kings.

Demetrius, receiving information of this, seized the

opportunity, and fell upon the city of Quinda, which he

surprised, and took in it twelve hundred talents, still

remaining of the treasure. With this prize, he hastened back to

his galleys, embarked, and set sail. At Rhosus, where his wife

Phila was now with him, he was met by Seleucus, and their

communications with each other at once were put on a frank,

unsuspecting, and kingly footing. First, Seleucus gave a

banquet to Demetrius in his tent in the camp; then Demetrius

received him in the ship of thirteen banks of oars. Meetings

for amusements, conferences, and long visits for general

intercourse succeeded, all without attendants or arms; until at

length Seleucus took his leave, and in great state conducted

Stratonice to Antioch. Demetrius meantime possessed himself of

Cilicia, and sent Phila to her brother Cassander, to answer the

complaints of Plistarchus. And here his wife Deidamia came by

sea out of Greece to meet him, but not long after contracted an

illness, of which she died. After her death, Demetrius, by the

mediation of Seleucus, became reconciled to Ptolemy, and an

agreement was made that he should marry his daughter Ptolemais.

Thus far all was handsomely done on the part of Seleucus. But,

shortly after, desiring to have the province of Cilicia from

Demetrius for a sum of money, and being refused it, he then

angrily demanded of him the cities of Tyre and Sidon, which

seemed a mere piece of arbitrary dealing, and, indeed, an

outrageous thing, that he, who was possessed of all the vast

provinces between India and the Syrian sea, should think himself

so poorly off as for the sake of two cities, which he coveted,

to disturb the peace of his near connection, already a sufferer

under a severe reverse of fortune. However, he did but justify

the saying of Plato, that the only certain way to be truly rich

is not to have more property, but fewer desires. For whoever is

always grasping at more avows that he is still in want, and must

be poor in the midst of affluence.

But Demetrius, whose courage did not sink, resolutely sent him

answer, that, though he were to lose ten thousand battles like

that of Ipsus, he would pay no price for the good-will of such a

son-in-law as Seleucus. He reinforced these cities with

sufficient garrisons to enable them to make a defense against

Seleucus; and, receiving information that Lachares, taking the

opportunity of their civil dissensions, had set up himself as an

usurper over the Athenians, he imagined that if he made a sudden

attempt upon the city, he might now without difficulty get

possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety, with a large

fleet; but, passing along the coast of Attica, was met by a

violent storm, and lost the greater number of his ships, and a

very considerable body of men on board of them. As for him, he

escaped, and began to make war in a petty manner with the

Athenians, but finding himself unable to effect his design, he

sent back orders for raising another fleet, and, with the troops

which he had, marched into Peloponnesus, and laid siege to the

city of Messena. In attacking which place, he was in danger of

death; for a missile from an engine struck him in the face, and

passed through the cheek into his mouth. He recovered, however,

and, as soon as he was in a condition to take the field, won

over divers cities which had revolted from him, and made an

incursion into Attica, where he took Eleusis and Rhamnus and

wasted the country thereabout. And that he might straighten the

Athenians by cutting off all manner of provision, a vessel laden

with corn bound thither falling into his hands, he ordered the

master and the supercargo to be immediately hanged, thereby to

strike a terror into others, that so they might not venture to

supply the city with provisions. By which means they were

reduced to such extremities, that a bushel of salt sold for

forty drachmas, and a peck of wheat for three hundred. Ptolemy

had sent to their relief a hundred and fifty galleys, which came

so near as to be seen off Aegina; but this brief hope was soon

extinguished by the arrival of three hundred ships, which came

to reinforce Demetrius from Cyprus, Peloponnesus, and other

places; upon which Ptolemy's fleet took to flight, and Lachares,

the tyrant, ran away, leaving the city to its fate.

And now the Athenians, who before had made it capital for any

person to propose a treaty or accommodation with Demetrius,

immediately opened the nearest gates to send ambassadors to him,

not so much out of hopes of obtaining any honorable conditions

from his clemency as out of necessity, to avoid death by famine.

For among many frightful instances of the distress they were

reduced to, it is said that a father and son were sitting in a

room together, having abandoned every hope, when a dead mouse

fell from the ceiling; and for this prize they leaped up and

came to blows. In this famine, it is also related, the

philosopher Epicurus saved his own life, and the lives of his

scholars, by a small quantity of beans, which he distributed to

them daily by number.

In this condition was the city when Demetrius made his entrance

and issued a proclamation that all the inhabitants should

assemble in the theater; which being done, he drew up his

soldiers at the back of the stage, occupied the stage itself

with his guards, and, presently coming in himself by the actor's

passages, when the people's consternation had risen to its

height, with his first words he put an end to it. Without any

harshness of tone or bitterness of words, he reprehended them in

a gentle and friendly way, and declared himself reconciled,

adding a present of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat, and

appointing as magistrates persons acceptable to the people. So

Dromoclides the orator, seeing the people at a loss how to

express their gratitude by any words or acclamations, and ready

for anything that would outdo the verbal encomiums of the

public speakers, came forward, and moved a decree for delivering

Piraeus and Munychia into the hands of king Demetrius. This was

passed accordingly, and Demetrius, of his own motion, added a

third garrison, which he placed in the Museum, as a precaution

against any new restiveness on the part of the people, which

might give him the trouble of quitting his other enterprises.

He had not long been master of Athens before he had formed

designs against Lacedaemon; of which Archidamus, the king, being

advertised, came out and met him, but he was overthrown in a

battle near Mantinea; after which Demetrius entered Laconia,

and, in a second battle near Sparta itself, defeated him again

with the loss of two hundred Lacedaemonians slain, and five

hundred taken prisoners. And now it was almost impossible for

the city, which hitherto had never been captured, to escape his

arms. But certainly there never was any king upon whom fortune

made such short turns, nor any other life or story so filled

with her swift and surprising changes, over and over again, from

small things to great, from splendor back to humiliation, and

from utter weakness once more to power and might. They say in

his sadder vicissitudes he used sometimes to apostrophize

fortune in the words of Aeschylus --

Thou liftest up, to cast us down again.

And so at this moment, when all things seemed to conspire

together to give him his heart's desire of dominion and power,

news arrived that Lysimachus had taken all his cities in Asia,

that Ptolemy had reduced all Cyprus with the exception of

Salamis, and that in Salamis his mother and children were shut

up and close besieged: and yet like the woman in Archilochus,

Water in one deceitful hand she shows,

While burning fire within her other glows.

The same fortune that drew him off with these disastrous tidings

from Sparta, in a moment after opened upon him a new and

wonderful prospect, of the following kind. Cassander, king of

Macedon, dying, and his eldest son, Philip, who succeeded him,

not long surviving his father, the two younger brothers fell at

variance concerning the succession. And Antipater having

murdered his mother Thessalonica, Alexander, the younger

brother, called in to his assistance Pyrrhus out of Epirus, and

Demetrius out of the Peloponnese. Pyrrhus arrived first, and,

taking in recompense for his succor a large slice of Macedonia,

had made Alexander begin to be aware that he had brought upon

himself a dangerous neighbor. And, that he might not run a yet

worse hazard from Demetrius, whose power and reputation were so

great, the young man hurried away to meet him at Dium, whither

he, who on receiving his letter had set out on his march, was

now come. And, offering his greetings and grateful

acknowledgments, he at the same time informed him that his

affairs no longer required the presence of his ally, and

thereupon he invited him to supper. There were not wanting some

feelings of suspicion on either side already; and when Demetrius

was now on his way to the banquet, someone came and told him

that in the midst of the drinking he would be killed. Demetrius

showed little concern, but, making only a little less haste, he

sent to the principal officers of his army, commanding them to

draw out the soldiers, and make them stand to their arms, and

ordered his retinue (more numerous a good deal than that of

Alexander) to attend him into the very room of the entertainment,

and not to stir from thence till they saw him rise from the table.

Thus Alexander's servants, finding themselves overpowered,

had not courage to attempt anything. And,

indeed, Demetrius gave them no opportunity, for he made a very

short visit, and, pretending to Alexander that he was not at

present in health for drinking wine, left early. And the next

day he occupied himself in preparations for departing, telling

Alexander he had received intelligence that obliged him to

leave, and begging him to excuse so sudden a parting; he would

hope to see him further when his affairs allowed him leisure.

Alexander was only too glad, not only that he was going, but

that he was doing so of his own motion, without any offense, and

proposed to accompany him into Thessaly. But when they came to

Larissa, new invitations passed between them, new professions of

good-will, covering new conspiracies; by which Alexander put

himself into the power of Demetrius. For as he did not like to

use precautions on his own part, for fear Demetrius should take

the hint to use them on his, the very thing he meant to do was

first done to him. He accepted an invitation, and came to

Demetrius's quarters; and when Demetrius, while they were still

supping, rose from the table and went forth, the young man rose

also, and followed him to the door, where Demetrius, as he

passed through, only said to the guards, "Kill him that follows

me," and went on; and Alexander was at once dispatched by them,

together with such of his friends as endeavored to come to his

rescue, one of whom, before he died, said, "You have been one

day too quick for us."

The night following was one, as may be supposed, of disorder and

confusion. And with the morning, the Macedonians, still in

alarm, and fearful of the forces of Demetrius, on finding no

violence offered, but only a message sent from Demetrius

desiring an interview and opportunity for explanation of his

actions, at last began to feel pretty confident again, and

prepared to receive him favorably. And when he came, there was

no need of much being said; their hatred of Antipater for his

murder of his mother, and the absence of anyone better to

govern them, soon decided them to proclaim Demetrius king of

Macedon. And into Macedonia they at once started and took him.

And the Macedonians at home, who had not forgotten or forgiven

the wicked deeds committed by Cassander on the family of

Alexander, were far from sorry at the change. Any kind

recollections that still might subsist, of the plain and simple

rule of the first Antipater, went also to the benefit of

Demetrius, whose wife was Phila, his daughter, and his son by

her, a boy already old enough to be serving in the army with his

father, was the natural successor to the government.

To add to this unexpected good fortune, news arrived that

Ptolemy had dismissed his mother and children, bestowing upon

them presents and honors; and also that his daughter Stratonice,

whom he had married to Seleucus, was remarried to Antiochus, the

son of Seleucus, and proclaimed queen of Upper Asia.

For Antiochus, it appears, had fallen passionately in love with

Stratonice, the young queen, who had already made Seleucus the

father of a son. He struggled very hard with the beginnings of

this passion, and at last, resolving with himself that his

desires were wholly unlawful, his malady past all cure, and his

powers of reason too feeble to act, he determined on death, and

thought to bring his life slowly to extinction by neglecting his

person and refusing nourishment, under the pretense of being

ill. Erasistratus, the physician who attended him, quickly

perceived that love was his distemper, but the difficulty was to

discover the object. He therefore waited continually in his

chamber, and when any of the beauties of the court made their

visits to the sick prince, he observed the emotions and

alterations in the countenance of Antiochus, and watched for the

changes which he knew to be indicative of the inward passions

and inclinations of the soul. He took notice that the presence

of other women produced no effect upon him; but when Stratonice

came, as she often did, alone, or in company with Seleucus, to

see him, he observed in him all Sappho's famous symptoms, his

voice faltered, his face flushed up, his eyes glanced

stealthily, a sudden sweat broke out on his skin, the beatings

of his heart were irregular and violent, and, unable to support

the excess of his passion, he would sink into a state of

faintness, prostration, and pallor.

Erasistratus, reasoning upon these symptoms, and, upon the

probability of things, considering that the king's son would

hardly, if the object of his passion had been any other, have

persisted to death rather than reveal it, felt, however, the

difficulty of making a discovery of this nature to Seleucus.

But, trusting to the tenderness of Seleucus for the young man,

he put on all the assurance he could, and at last, on some

opportunity, spoke out, and told him the malady was love, a love

impossible to gratify or relieve. The king was extremely

surprised, and asked, "Why impossible to relieve?" "The fact

is," replied Erasistratus, "he is in love with my wife."

"How!" said Seleucus, "and will our friend Erasistratus refuse to

bestow his wife upon my son and only successor, when there is no

other way to save his life?" "You," replied Erasistratus, "who

are his father, would not do so, if he were in love with

Stratonice." "Ah, my friend," answered Seleucus, "would to

heaven any means, human or divine, could but convert his present

passion to that; it would be well for me to part not only with

Stratonice, but with my empire, to save Antiochus." This he

said with the greatest passion, shedding tears as he spoke; upon

which Erasistratus, taking him by the hand, replied, "In that

case, you have no need of Erasistratus; for you, who are the

husband, the father, and the king, are the proper physician for

your own family." Seleucus, accordingly, summoning a general

assembly of his people, declared to them, that he had resolved

to make Antiochus king, and Stratonice queen, of all the

provinces of Upper Asia, uniting them in marriage; telling them,

that he thought he had sufficient power over the prince's will,

that he should find in him no repugnance to obey his commands;

and for Stratonice, he hoped all his friends would endeavor to

make her sensible, if she should manifest any reluctance to such

a marriage, that she ought to esteem those things just and

honorable which had been determined upon by the king as

necessary to the general good. In this manner, we are told, was

brought about the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonice.

To return to the affairs of Demetrius. Having obtained the

crown of Macedon, he presently became master of Thessaly also.

And, holding the greatest part of Peloponnesus, and, on this

side the Isthmus, the cities of Megara and Athens, he now turned

his arms against the Boeotians. They at first made overtures

for an accommodation; but Cleonymus of Sparta having ventured

with some troops to their assistance, and having made his way

into Thebes, and Pisis, the Thespian, who was their first man in

power and reputation, animating them to make a brave resistance,

they broke off the treaty. No sooner, however, had Demetrius

begun to approach the walls with his engines, but Cleonymus in

affright secretly withdrew; and the Boeotians, finding

themselves abandoned, made their submission. Demetrius placed a

garrison in charge of their towns, and, having raised a large

sum of money from them, he placed Hieronymus, the historian, in

the office of governor and military commander over them, and was

thought on the whole to have shown great clemency, more

particularly to Pisis, to whom he did no hurt, but spoke with

him courteously and kindly, and made him chief magistrate of

Thespiae. Not long after, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by

Dromichaetes, and Demetrius went off instantly in the hopes of

possessing himself of Thrace, thus left without a king. Upon

this, the Boeotians revolted again, and news also came that

Lysimachus had regained his liberty. So Demetrius, turning back

quickly and in anger, found on coming up that his son Antigonus

had already defeated the Boeotians in battle, and therefore

proceeded to lay siege again to Thebes.

But, understanding that Pyrrhus had made an incursion into

Thessaly, and that he was advanced as far as Thermopylae,

leaving Antigonus to continue the siege, he marched with the

rest of his army to oppose this enemy. Pyrrhus, however, made a

quick retreat. So, leaving ten thousand foot and a thousand

horse for the protection of Thessaly, he returned to the siege

of Thebes, and there brought up his famous City-taker to the

attack, which, however, was so laboriously and so slowly moved

on account of its bulk and heaviness, that in two months it did

not advance two furlongs. In the meantime the citizens made a

stout defense, and Demetrius, out of heat and contentiousness

very often, more than upon any necessity, sent his soldiers into

danger; until at last Antigonus, observing how many men were

losing their lives, said to him, "Why, my father, do we go on

letting the men be wasted in this way, without any need of it?"

But Demetrius, in a great passion, interrupted him: "And you,

good sir, why do you afflict yourself for the matter? will dead

men come to you for rations?" But that the soldiers might see

he valued his own life at no dearer rate than theirs, he exposed

himself freely, and was wounded with a javelin through his neck,

which put him into great hazard of his life. But,

notwithstanding, he continued the siege, and in conclusion took

the town again. And after his entrance, when the citizens were

in fear and trembling, and expected all the severities which an

incensed conqueror could indict, he only put to death thirteen,

and banished some few others, pardoning all the rest. Thus the

city of Thebes, which had not yet been ten years restored, in

that short space was twice besieged and taken.

Shortly after, the festival of the Pythian Apollo was to be

celebrated, and the Aetolians having blocked up all the passages

to Delphi, Demetrius held the games and celebrated the feast at

Athens, alleging it was great reason those honors should be paid

in that place, Apollo being the paternal god of the Athenian

people, and the reputed first founder of their race.

From thence Demetrius returned to Macedon, and as he not only

was of a restless temper himself, but saw also that the

Macedonians were ever the best subjects when employed in

military expeditions, but turbulent and desirous of change in

the idleness of peace, he led them against the Aetolians, and,

having wasted their country, he left Pantauchus with a great

part of his army to complete the conquest, and with the rest he

marched in person to find out Pyrrhus, who in like manner was

advancing to encounter him. But so it fell out, that by taking

different ways the two armies did not meet; but whilst Demetrius

entered Epirus, and laid all waste before him, Pyrrhus fell upon

Pantauchus, and, in a battle in which the two commanders met in

person and wounded each other, he gained the victory, and took

five thousand prisoners, besides great numbers slain on the

field. The worst thing, however, for Demetrius was that Pyrrhus

had excited less animosity as an enemy than admiration as a

brave man. His taking so large a part with his own hand in the

battle had gained him the greatest name and glory among the

Macedonians. Many among them began to say that this was the

only king in whom there was any likeness to be seen of the great

Alexander's courage; the other kings, and particularly

Demetrius, did nothing but personate him, like actors on a

stage, in his pomp and outward majesty. And Demetrius truly was

a perfect play and pageant, with his robes and diadems, his

gold-edged purple and his hats with double streamers, his very

shoes being of the richest purple felt, embroidered over in

gold. One robe in particular, a most superb piece of work, was

long in the loom in preparation for him, in which was to be

wrought the representation of the universe and the celestial

bodies. This, left unfinished when his reverses overtook him,

not any one of the kings of Macedon, his successors, though

divers of them haughty enough, ever presumed to use.

But it was not this theatric pomp alone which disgusted the

Macedonians, but his profuse and luxurious way of living; and,

above all, the difficulty of speaking with him or of obtaining

access to his presence. For either he would not be seen at all,

or, if he did give audience, he was violent and overbearing.

Thus he made the envoys of the Athenians, to whom yet he was

more attentive than to all the other Grecians, wait two whole

years before they could obtain a hearing. And when the

Lacedaemonians sent a single person on an embassy to him, he

held himself insulted, and asked angrily whether it was the fact

that the Lacedaemonians had sent but one ambassador. "Yes," was

the happy reply he received, "one ambassador to one king."

Once when in some apparent fit of a more popular and acceptable

temper he was riding abroad, a number of people came up and

presented their written petitions. He courteously received all

these, and put them up in the skirt of his cloak, while the poor

people were overjoyed, and followed him close. But when he came

upon the bridge of the river Axius, shaking out his cloak, he

threw all into the river. This excited very bitter resentment

among the Macedonians, who felt themselves to be not governed,

but insulted. They called to mind what some of them had seen,

and others had heard related of King Philip's unambitious and

open, accessible manners. One day when an old woman had

assailed him several times in the road and importuned him to

hear her, after he had told her he had no time, "If so," cried

she, "you have no time to be a king." And this reprimand so

stung the king that after thinking of it a while he went back

into the house, and, setting all other matters apart, for

several days together he did nothing else but receive, beginning

with the old woman, the complaints of all that would come. And

to do justice, truly enough, might well be called a king's first

business. "Mars," as says Timotheus, "is the tyrant;" but Law,

in Pindar's words, the king of all. Homer does not say that

kings received at the hands of Jove besieging engines or ships

of war, but sentences of justice, to keep and observe; nor is it

the most warlike, unjust, and murderous, but the most righteous

of kings, that has from him the name of Jupiter's "familiar

friend" and scholar. Demetrius's delight was the title most

unlike the choices of the king of gods. The divine names were

those of the Defender and Keeper, his was that of the Besieger

of Cities. The place of virtue was given by him to that which,

had he not been as ignorant as he was powerful, he would have

known to be vice, and honor by his act was associated with

crime. While he lay dangerously ill at Pella, Pyrrhus pretty

nearly overran all Macedon, and advanced as far as the city of

Edessa. On recovering his health, he quickly drove him out, and

came to terms with him, being desirous not to employ his time in

a string of petty local conflicts with a neighbor, when all his

thoughts were fixed upon another design. This was no less than

to endeavor the recovery of the whole empire which his father

had possessed; and his preparations were suitable to his hopes,

and the greatness of the enterprise. He had arranged for the

levying of ninety-eight thousand foot, and nearly twelve

thousand horse; and he had a fleet of five hundred galleys on

the stocks, some building at Athens, others at Corinth and

Chalcis, and in the neighborhood of Pella. And he himself was

passing evermore from one to another of these places, to give

his directions and his assistance to the plans, while all that

saw were amazed, not so much at the number, as at the magnitude

of the works. Hitherto, there had never been seen a galley with

fifteen or sixteen ranges of oars. At a later time, Ptolemy

Philopator built one of forty rows, which was two hundred and

eighty cubits in length, and the height of her to the top of her

stern forty eight cubits; she had four hundred sailors and four

thousand rowers, and afforded room besides for very near three

thousand soldiers to fight on her decks. But this, after all,

was for show, and not for service, scarcely differing from a

fixed edifice ashore, and was not to be moved without extreme

toil and peril; whereas these galleys of Demetrius were meant

quite as much for fighting as for looking at, were not the less

serviceable for their magnificence, and were as wonderful for

their speed and general performance as for their size.

These mighty preparations against Asia, the like of which had

not been made since Alexander first invaded it, united Seleucus,

Ptolemy, and Lysimachus in a confederacy for their defense.

They also dispatched ambassadors to Pyrrhus, to persuade him to

make a diversion by attacking Macedonia; he need not think there

was any validity in a treaty which Demetrius had concluded, not

as an engagement to be at peace with him, but as a means for

enabling himself to make war first upon the enemy of his choice.

So when Pyrrhus accepted their proposals, Demetrius, still in

the midst of his preparations, was encompassed with war on all

sides. Ptolemy, with a mighty navy, invaded Greece; Lysimachus

entered Macedonia upon the side of Thrace, and Pyrrhus, from the

Epirot border, both of them spoiling and wasting the country.

Demetrius, leaving his son to look after Greece, marched to the

relief of Macedon, and first of all to oppose Lysimachus. On

his way, he received the news that Pyrrhus had taken the city

Beroea; and the report quickly getting out among the soldiers,

all discipline at once was lost, and the camp was filled with

lamentations and tears, anger and execrations on Demetrius; they

would stay no longer, they would march off, as they said, to

take care of their country, friends, and families; but in

reality the intention was to revolt to Lysimachus. Demetrius,

therefore, thought it his business to keep them as far away as

he could from Lysimachus, who was their own countryman, and for

Alexander's sake kindly looked upon by many; they would be ready

to fight with Pyrrhus, a new-comer and a foreigner, whom they

could hardly prefer to himself. But he found himself under a

great mistake in these conjectures. For when he advanced and

pitched his camp near, the old admiration for Pyrrhus's

gallantry in arms revived again; and as they had been used from

time immemorial to suppose that the best king was he that was

the bravest soldier, so now they were also told of his generous

usage of his prisoners, and, in short, they were eager to have

anyone in the place of Demetrius, and well pleased that the man

should be Pyrrhus. At first, some straggling parties only

deserted, but in a little time the whole army broke out into an

universal mutiny, insomuch that at last some of them went up,

and told him openly that if he consulted his own safety he were

best to make haste to be gone, for that the Macedonians were

resolved no longer to hazard their lives for the satisfaction of

his luxury and pleasure. And this was thought fair and moderate

language, compared with the fierceness of the rest. So,

withdrawing into his tent, and, like an actor rather than a real

king, laying aside his stage-robes of royalty, he put on some

common clothes and stole away. He was no sooner gone but the

mutinous army were fighting and quarreling for the plunder of

his tent, but Pyrrhus, coming immediately, took possession of

the camp without a blow, after which he, with Lysimachus, parted

the realm of Macedon betwixt them, after Demetrius had securely

held it just seven years.

As for Demetrius, being thus suddenly despoiled of everything,

he retired to Cassandrea. His wife Phila, in the passion of her

grief, could not endure to see her hapless husband reduced to

the condition of a private and banished man. She refused to

entertain any further hope, and, resolving to quit a fortune

which was never permanent except for calamity, took poison and

died. Demetrius, determining still to hold on by the wreck,

went off to Greece, and collected his friends and officers

there. Menelaus, in the play of Sophocles, to give an image of

his vicissitudes of estate, says, --

For me, my destiny, alas, is found

Whirling upon the gods' swift wheel around,

And changing still, and as the moon's fair frame

Cannot continue for two nights the same,

But out of shadow first a crescent shows,

Thence into beauty and perfection grows,

And when the form of plenitude it wears,

Dwindles again, and wholly disappears.

The simile is yet truer of Demetrius and the phases of his

fortunes, now on the increase, presently on the wane, now

filling up and now falling away. And so, at this time of

apparent entire obscuration and extinction, his light again

shone out, and accessions of strength, little by little, came in

to fulfill once more the measure of his hope. At first he

showed himself in the garb of a private man, and went about the

cities without any of the badges of a king. One who saw him

thus at Thebes applied to him not inaptly, the lines of

Euripides,

Humbled to man, laid by the godhead's pride,

He comes to Dirce and Ismenus' side.

But erelong his expectations had reentered the royal track, and

he began once more to have about him the body and form of

empire. The Thebans received back, as his gift, their ancient

constitution. The Athenians had deserted him. They displaced

Diphilus, who was that year the priest of the two Tutelar

Deities, and restored the archons, as of old, to mark the year;

and on hearing that Demetrius was not so weak as they had

expected, they sent into Macedonia to beg the protection of

Pyrrhus. Demetrius, in anger, marched to Athens, and laid close

siege to the city. In this distress, they sent out to him

Crates the philosopher, a person of authority and reputation,

who succeeded so far, that what with his entreaties and the

solid reasons which he offered, Demetrius was persuaded to raise

the siege; and, collecting all his ships, he embarked a force of

eleven thousand men with cavalry, and sailed away to Asia, to

Caria and Lydia, to take those provinces from Lysimachus.

Arriving at Miletus, he was met there by Eurydice, the sister of

Phila, who brought along with her Ptolemais, one of her

daughters by king Ptolemy, who had before been affianced to

Demetrius, and with whom he now consummated his marriage.

Immediately after, he proceeded to carry out his project, and

was so fortunate in the beginning, that many cities revolted to

him; others, as particularly Sardis, he took by force; and some

generals of Lysimachus, also, came over to him with troops and

money. But when Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus, arrived with

an army, he retreated into Phrygia, with an intention to pass

into Armenia, believing that, if he could once plant his foot in

Armenia, he might set Media in revolt, and gain a position in

Upper Asia, where a fugitive commander might find a hundred ways

of evasion and escape. Agathocles pressed hard upon him, and

many skirmishes and conflicts occurred, in which Demetrius had

still the advantage; but Agathocles straitened him much in his

forage, and his men showed a great dislike to his purpose, which

they suspected, of carrying them far away into Armenia and

Media. Famine also pressed upon them, and some mistake occurred

in their passage of the river Lycus, in consequence of which a

large number were swept away and drowned. Still, however, they

could pass their jests, and one of them fixed upon Demetrius's

tent-door a paper with the first verse, slightly altered of the

Oedipus; --

Child of the blind old man, Antigonus,

Into what country are you bringing us?

But at last, pestilence, as is usual, when armies are driven to

such necessities as to subsist upon any food they can get, began

to assail them as well as famine. So that, having lost eight

thousand of his men, with the rest he retreated and came to

Tarsus, and because that city was within the dominions of

Seleucus, he was anxious to prevent any plundering, and wished

to give no sort of offense to Seleucus. But when he perceived

it was impossible to restrain the soldiers in their extreme

necessity, Agathocles also having blocked up all the avenues of

Mount Taurus, he wrote a letter to Seleucus, bewailing first all

his own sad fortunes, and proceeding with entreaties and

supplications for some compassion on his part towards one

nearly connected with him, who was fallen into such calamities

as might extort tenderness and

pity from his very enemies.

These letters so far moved Seleucus, that he gave orders to the

governors of those provinces that they should furnish Demetrius

with all things suitable to his royal rank, and with sufficient

provisions for his troops. But Patrocles, a person whose

judgment was greatly valued, and who was a friend highly trusted

by Seleucus, pointed out to him, that the expense of maintaining

such a body of soldiers was the least important consideration,

but that it was contrary to all policy to let Demetrius stay in

the country, since he, of all the kings of his time, was the

most violent, and most addicted to daring enterprises; and he

was now in a condition which might tempt persons of the greatest

temper and moderation to unlawful and desperate attempts.

Seleucus, excited by this advice, moved with a powerful army

towards Cilicia; and Demetrius, astonished at this sudden

alteration, betook himself for safety to the most inaccessible

places of Mount Taurus; from whence he sent envoys to Seleucus,

to request from him that he would permit him the liberty to

settle with his army somewhere among the independent barbarian

tribes, where he might be able to make himself a petty king, and

end his life without further travel and hardship; or, if he

refused him this, at any rate to give his troops food during the

winter, and not expose him in this distressed and naked

condition to the fury of his enemies.

But Seleucus, whose jealousy made him put an ill construction on

all he said, sent him answer, that he would permit him to stay

two months and no longer in Cataonia, provided he presently sent

him the principal of his friends as hostages for his departure

then; and, in the meantime, he fortified all the passages into

Syria. So that Demetrius, who saw himself thus, like a wild

beast, in the way to be encompassed on all sides in the toils,

was driven in desperation to his defense, overran the country,

and in several engagements in which Seleucus attacked him, had

the advantage of him. Particularly, when he was once assailed

by the scythed chariots, he successfully avoided the charge and

routed his assailants, and then, expelling the troops that were

in guard of the passes, made himself master of the roads leading

into Syria. And now, elated himself, and finding his soldiers

also animated by these successes, he was resolved to push at

all, and to have one deciding blow for the empire with Seleucus;

who, indeed, was in considerable anxiety and distress, being

averse to any assistance from Lysimachus, whom he both

mistrusted and feared, and shrinking from a battle with

Demetrius, whose desperation he knew, and whose fortune he had

so often seen suddenly pass from the lowest to the highest.

But Demetrius, in the meanwhile, was taken with a violent

sickness, from which he suffered extremely himself, and which

ruined all his prospects. His men deserted to the enemy, or

dispersed. At last, after forty days, he began to be so far

recovered as to be able to rally his remaining forces, and

marched as if he directly designed for Cilicia; but in the

night, raising his camp without sound of trumpet, he took a

countermarch, and, passing the mountain Amanus, he ravaged an

the lower country as far as Cyrrhestica.

Upon this, Seleucus advancing towards him and encamping at no

great distance, Demetrius set his troops in motion to surprise

him by night. And almost to the last moment Seleucus knew

nothing, and was lying asleep. Some deserter came with the

tidings just so soon that he had time to leap, in great

consternation, out of bed, and give the alarm to his men. And

as he was putting on his boots to mount his horse, he bade the

officers about him look well to it, for they had to meet a

furious and terrible wild beast. But Demetrius, by the noise he

heard in the camp, finding they had taken the alarm, drew off

his troops in haste. With the morning's return he found

Seleucus pressing hard upon him; so, sending one of his officers

against the other wing, he defeated those that were opposed to

himself. But Seleucus, lighting from his horse, pulling off his

helmet, and taking a target, advanced to the foremost ranks of

the mercenary soldiers, and, showing them who he was, bade them

come over and join him, telling them that it was for their sakes

only that he had so long forborne coming to extremities. And

thereupon, without a blow more, they saluted Seleucus as their

king, and passed over.

Demetrius, who felt that this was his last change of fortune,

and that he had no more vicissitudes to expect, fled to the

passes of Amanus, where, with a very few friends and followers,

he threw himself into a dense forest, and there waited for the

night, purposing, if possible, to make his escape towards

Caunus, where he hoped to find his shipping ready to transport

him. But upon inquiry, finding that they had not provisions

even for that one day, he began to think of some other project.

Whilst he was yet in doubt, his friend Sosigenes arrived, who

had four hundred pieces of gold about him, and, with this

relief, he again entertained hopes of being able to reach the

coast, and, as soon as it began to be dark, set forward towards

the passes. But, perceiving by the fires that the enemies had

occupied them, he gave up all thought of that road, and

retreated to his old station in the wood, but not with all his

men; for some had deserted, nor were those that remained as

willing as they had been. One of them, in fine, ventured to

speak out, and say that Demetrius had better give himself up to

Seleucus; which Demetrius overhearing, drew out his sword, and

would have passed it through his body, but that some of his

friends interposed and prevented the attempt, persuading him to

do as had been said. So at last he gave way, and sent to

Seleucus, to surrender himself at discretion.

Seleucus, when he was told of it, said it was not Demetrius's

good fortune that had found out this means for his safety, but

his own, which had added to his other honors the opportunity of

showing his clemency and generosity. And forthwith he gave

order to his domestic officers to prepare a royal pavilion, and

all things suitable to give him a splendid reception and

entertainment. There was in the attendance of Seleucus one

Apollonides, who formerly had been intimate with Demetrius. He

was, therefore, as the fittest person, dispatched from the king

to meet Demetrius, that he might feel himself more at his ease,

and might come with the confidence of being received as a friend

and relative. No sooner was this message known, but the

courtiers and officers, some few at first, and afterwards almost

the whole of them, thinking, Demetrius would presently become

of great power with the king, hurried off, vying who should be

foremost to pay him their respects. The effect of which was

that compassion was converted into jealousy, and ill-natured,

malicious people could the more easily insinuate to Seleucus

that he was giving way to an unwise humanity, the very first

sight of Demetrius having been the occasion of a dangerous

excitement in the army. So, whilst Apollonides, in great

delight, and after him many others, were relating to Demetrius

the kind expressions of Seleucus, and he, after so many troubles

and calamities, if indeed he had still any sense of his

surrender of himself being a disgrace, had now, in confidence on

the good hopes held out to him, entirely forgotten all such

thoughts, Pausanias, with a guard of a thousand horse and foot,

came and surrounded him; and, dispersing the rest that were with

him, carried him, not to the presence of Seleucus, but to the

Syrian Chersonese, where he was committed to the safe custody

of a strong guard. Sufficient attendance and liberal provision

were here allowed him, space for riding and walking, a park with

game for hunting, those of his friends and companions in exile

who wished it had permission to see him, and messages of

kindness, also, from time to time, were brought him from

Seleucus, bidding him fear nothing, and intimating, that, so

soon as Antiochus and Stratonice should arrive, he would receive

his liberty.

Demetrius, however, finding himself in this condition, sent

letters to those who were with his son, and to his captains and

friends at Athens and Corinth, that they should give no manner

of credit to any letters written to them in his name, though

they were sealed with his own signet, but that, looking upon him

as if he were already dead, they should maintain the cities and

whatever was left of his power, for Antigonus, as his successor.

Antigonus received the news of his father's captivity with great

sorrow; he put himself into mourning, and wrote letters to the

rest of the kings, and to Seleucus himself, making entreaties,

and offering not only to surrender whatever they had left, but

himself to be a hostage for his father. Many cities, also, and

princes joined in interceding for him; only Lysimachus sent and

offered a large sum of money to Seleucus to take away his life.

But he, who had always shown his aversion to Lysimachus before,

thought him only the greater barbarian and monster for it.

Nevertheless, he still protracted the time, reserving the favor,

as he professed, for the intercession of Antiochus and

Stratonice.

Demetrius, who had sustained the first stroke of his misfortune,

in time grew so familiar with it, that, by continuance, it

became easy. At first he persevered one way or other in taking

exercise, in hunting, so far as he had means, and in riding.

Little by little, however, after a while, he let himself grow

indolent and indisposed for them, and took to dice and drinking,

in which he passed most of his time, whether it were to escape

the thoughts of his present condition, with which he was haunted

when sober, and to drown reflection in drunkenness, or that he

acknowledged to himself that this was the real happy life he had

long desired and wished for, and had foolishly let himself be

seduced away from it by a senseless and vain ambition, which had

only brought trouble to himself and others; that highest good

which he had thought to obtain by arms and fleets and soldiers,

he had now discovered unexpectedly in idleness, leisure, and

repose. As, indeed, what other end or period is there of all

the wars and dangers which hapless princes run into, whose

misery and folly it is, not merely that they make luxury and

pleasure, instead of virtue and excellence, the object of their

lives, but that they do not so much as know where this luxury

and pleasure are to be found?

Having thus continued three years a prisoner in Chersonesus, for

want of exercise, and by indulging himself in eating and

drinking, he fell into a disease, of which he died at the age of

fifty-four. Seleucus was ill-spoken of, and was himself greatly

grieved, that he had yielded so far to his suspicions, and had

let himself be so much outdone by the barbarian Dromichaetes of

Thrace, who had shown so much humanity and such a kingly temper

in his treatment of his prisoner Lysimachus.

There was something dramatic and theatrical in the very funeral

ceremonies with which Demetrius was honored. For his son

Antigonus, understanding that his remains were coming over from

Syria, went with all his fleet to the islands to meet them.

They were there presented to him in a golden urn, which he

placed in his largest admiral galley. All the cities where they

touched in their passage sent chaplets to adorn the urn, and

deputed certain of their citizens to follow in mourning, to

assist at the funeral solemnity. When the fleet approached the

harbor of Corinth, the urn, covered with purple, and a royal

diadem upon it, was visible upon the poop, and a troop of young

men attended in arms to receive it at landing Xenophantus, the

most famous musician of the day, played on the flute his most

solemn measure, to which the rowers, as the ship came in, made

loud response, their oars, like the funeral beating of the

breast, keeping time with the cadences of the music. But

Antigonus, in tears and mourning attire, excited among the

spectators gathered on the shore the greatest sorrow and

compassion. After crowns and other honors had been offered at

Corinth, the remains were conveyed to Demetrias, a city to which

Demetrius had given his name, peopled from the inhabitants of

the small villages of Iolcus.

Demetrius left no other children by his wife Phila but Antigonus

and Stratonice, but he had two other sons, both of his own name,

one surnamed the Thin, by an Illyrian mother, and one who ruled

in Cyrene, by Ptolemais. He had also, by Deidamia, a son,

Alexander, who lived and died in Egypt; and there are some who

say that he had a son by Eurydice, named Corrhabus. His family

was continued in a succession of kings down to Perseus, the

last, from whom the Romans took Macedonia.

And now, the Macedonian drama being ended, let us prepare to see

the Roman.