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                                      75 AD
                                   DEMETRIUS
                                 337?-283 B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden
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,
simpleness 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 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, 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 any one 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 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 of 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 postulate 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 springs 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 practised 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 honour 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 Calaenae 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 demeanour 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; when 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 honour'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 skilful 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 peaceful 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 his 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 any one 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 honours which the
Athenians bestowed, for these noble and generous acts, upon Demetrius,
created offence 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 honour
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 honour, 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 honour 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 splendour 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 Demetrion 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 thereabouts, 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 honours, he,
          Not the poor stage, is now the people's enemy."

Philippides was a great favourite 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 favour to the
city. But Demetrius was very free in these matters, and was the
husband of several wives at once; the highest place and honour 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
harbour 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 harbour, and drawing out his land forces along all the headlands
running out into 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 splendour of the
success was the humane and generous conduct of Demetrius to the
vanquished. For, after he had given honourable 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 despatched 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 to 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 steps, 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 flattering 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 of 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 of his ships, upon a dangerous coast without a harbour.
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 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." "Oh 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 bellebore, 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 spectacles of his famous City-takers. Even
Lysmachus, 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 on 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 armour 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 theatre.
  The Rhodians made a brave defence, 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 honourable 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 labour. 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
labour 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 utmost,
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
honours 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 licence 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 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
the 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 healths 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 as 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 command 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 rigour 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 on the
famous judgment of Bocchoris. A young Egyptian had long made suit to
Thonis, the courtesan, offering a sum of gold for her favour. 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 subjects. 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 every one 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 he "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 treasures 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 honourable 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 honour 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 honours 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 free-will 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 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 dear 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 defence against Seleucus; and, receiving
information that Lachares, taking the opportunity of their civil
dissensions, had set up himself as a 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 straiten 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 honourable 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 theatre; 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 actors' 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 splendour 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 succour a large slice of
Macedonia, had made Alexander begin to be aware that he had brought
upon himself a dangerous neighbour. 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, 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, some one 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, 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 offence, 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 use 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 despatched by them, together with such
of his friends as endeavoured 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
favourably. 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 any one 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 honours; 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 beginning 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 pretence 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 visit 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
probabilities 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 assurances
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
Seleusus, "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 endeavour to make her sensible, if she should
manifest any reluctance to such a marriage, that she ought to esteem
those things just and honourable 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 of 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 defence, 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 that 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 inflict, 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 honours 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 in 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 reverse
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 choice 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 honour 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
neighbour, when all his thoughts were fixed upon another design.
This was no less than to endeavour 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 neighbourhood 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 defence. They
also despatched 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 of 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 any one 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 a 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 quarrelling 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 fulfil 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 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's side."

But ere long his expectations had re-entered 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 offence 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 defence, 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 all 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 honours 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, despatched
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 provisions 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, as 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 favour, 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 honoured. 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 harbour 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
honours 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 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.
                              THE END