Demetrius

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language

Those who first supposed that the arts resemble the senses seem to me to have grasped especially well the power involved in judging them, by which we are naturally able to apprehend opposites alike in each kind. For this is common to both; but they differ in the reference their judgments make to their respective ends.

For sense-perception has come into being no more for distinguishing white from black, or sweet from bitter, or soft and yielding from hard and resistant, than for anything else; rather its function, in meeting with each of these, is to be moved by all of them and, once moved, to report to the mind how it has been affected. But the arts, being constituted along with reason for the choosing and taking of what is proper to them, and the avoidance and rejection of what is foreign, contemplate the one primarily for its own sake, the other incidentally, for the sake of guarding against it.

For it belongs to the art of medicine to consider what is sickly, and to the art of music what is discordant, in each case for the sake of producing their opposites; and those most perfect of all arts, temperance, justice, and prudence, being judgments not only of what is noble, just, and beneficial, but also of what is harmful, base, and unjust, do not praise the innocence that prides itself on inexperience of evils, but consider it foolishness and ignorance of matters which those who intend to live rightly ought especially to know.

Now the ancient Spartans, at their festivals, would compel the helots to drink much unmixed wine and would bring them into the banquets, thereby showing the young what drunkenness looks like. We, however, do not consider it a very humane or civilized form of correction to reform some by the corruption of others;

but of those who have used themselves less carefully, and who, being placed in positions of authority and great affairs, have become conspicuous for vice, it is perhaps no worse to insert one pair or two into our models of lives — not, by Zeus, for the pleasure and entertainment of our readers, embellishing the narrative,

but rather, just as Ismenias the Theban, when demonstrating for his pupils, used to play both those who piped well and those who piped badly, saying, 'thus one ought to pipe,' and again, 'thus one ought not to pipe,' while Antigenides held the view that young listeners would take more delight in skilled flute-players once they had also encountered the inept ones — so it seems to me that we too shall pursue with greater zeal, whether as onlookers or as imitators, the lives that deserve emulation, provided we are not kept ignorant of the base and blameworthy ones as well.

This book, then, will contain the life of Demetrius the Besieger and of Antony the Imperator — men who, above all others, confirmed by their own case Plato's remark — namely, that great natures bring forth great vices no less than great virtues. Being alike given to love, to drink, to soldiering, to lavish giving, to extravagance, and to insolence, they had as well the corresponding likenesses in their fortunes.

For not only did they, throughout the rest of their lives, accomplish great things and suffer great falls, gain mastery over very many things and lose very many, stumble unexpectedly and rise again unhopefully, but they even met their ends in similar fashion — the one being captured by his enemies, the other coming very near to suffering this same fate.

Antigonus, then, having had two sons by Stratonice the daughter of Corrhagus, named the first Demetrius, after his own brother, and gave the second the name Philip, taken from his own father. Such is what most writers relate. But some say that Demetrius was not his son but his nephew; for his father having died while he was still altogether an infant, and his mother having then straightway been married to Antigonus, he was accordingly reckoned as the latter's son.

Now Philip, who was not many years younger than Demetrius, happened to die; but Demetrius, though less in stature than his father, great though he was, was in form and beauty of countenance so marvelous and extraordinary that none of those who modeled or painted him could attain the likeness. For his features held at once grace and weight and awe-inspiring charm, and mingled with his youthful boldness there was a heroic majesty and royal dignity difficult to imitate.

And his character too was somehow so naturally disposed as to inspire in men both astonishment and affection at once. For while most delightful to be with, and given over, in his leisure, to drinking-parties, luxury, and the most soft-living manner of life of any king, he had again, when it came to action, the most vigorous and intense persistence and energy; wherefore he emulated above all the gods Dionysus, in that he was most formidable in the use of war, and again most graceful in turning peace, after war, to cheerfulness and delight.

He was, moreover, exceptionally devoted to his father; and by the zeal he showed toward his mother as well he made it clear that the honor he paid his father sprang from genuine goodwill rather than from a courting of power. And once, when Antigonus was at leisure attending to some embassy, having returned from hunting, Demetrius came upon him, and going up to his father and kissing him, sat down beside him just as he was, still holding his javelins.

Antigonus, just as the envoys were leaving to carry back their reply, raised his voice and called after them: 'This too,' he said, 'gentlemen, you should report concerning us — that this is how we stand toward one another' — implying that harmony and trust toward a son were a display of the strength and power of royal affairs.

So utterly difficult it is, it seems, for royal power to be shared, and so full of mistrust and ill-will, that the greatest and eldest of Alexander's successors took pride in the fact that he did not fear his son, but let him approach with his spear close to his own body. And indeed this house alone, one might almost say, remained pure of such evils through very many successions — or rather, only one of Antigonus's descendants, Philip, killed a son.

But nearly all the other successions have, among their many children, many murders too, of mothers and of wives: for to do away with brothers was granted, like a postulate that geometers take for themselves, as a sort of common and royal postulate assumed for the sake of safety.

That Demetrius was by nature both humane and a good friend to his companions, there is this example to relate, from the beginning. Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes, was his companion and familiar in age, and served Antigonus, being neither, nor thought to be, wicked; yet from a certain dream he brought suspicion upon himself in Antigonus's eyes.

For Antigonus dreamed that, walking over a great and beautiful plain, he was sowing gold-dust upon it; and from this there first sprang up a golden harvest, but a little later, returning, he saw nothing but stubble that had been cut down. And being grieved and much troubled, he heard some people saying that Mithridates had gone off to the Pontus Euxinus, having reaped the golden harvest.

Disturbed by this, and having made his son swear to keep silence, he told him the vision, and said that he had resolved in every way to remove the man and destroy him. Demetrius, hearing this, was greatly distressed, and when the young man came to him, as he was accustomed, and was together with him at leisure, he did not dare to speak out or to denounce the plan aloud, because of the oath, but drawing him away little by little from their friends, when they had come to be alone by themselves, he wrote in the ground with the butt-spike of his spear, while the other watched, 'Flee, Mithridates.'

Understanding, the man fled by night into Cappadocia. And soon the vision that had come to Antigonus was fulfilled for him in waking reality. For Mithridates gained mastery over much good country, and it was he who founded the royal dynasty of Pontus, which endured through some eight generations of kings until the Romans finally put an end to it. This, then, is an example of Demetrius's natural inclination toward fairness and justice.

But since, just as in Empedocles's elements there exists among themselves, because of Strife and Love, difference and conflict — or rather all the more in those that touch and draw near one another — so too the unbroken warfare which every one of Alexander's successors carried on against the rest was, in certain instances, rendered more conspicuous and further kindled by the coming together of circumstance and place — as indeed then befell between Antigonus and Ptolemy,

Antigonus himself was then residing in Phrygia; and on learning that Ptolemy had sailed across from Cyprus and was laying waste Syria, seizing cities and treating them with violence, he dispatched his son Demetrius southward, then twenty-two years old and for the first time engaging in an independent command in great affairs. Being, as young and inexperienced, matched against a man trained in the palaestra of Alexander, who had contested many great struggles on his own account, he was worsted and defeated near the city of Gaza, eight thousand of his men being taken prisoner and five thousand killed.

He lost, besides, his tent and his treasure, and indeed the entire equipment of his personal comfort. But these Ptolemy sent back to him along with his friends, adding a courteous and humane message, that they ought to wage war for glory and empire alone, not for everything together. Demetrius, receiving them, prayed to the gods not to remain long a debtor to Ptolemy for this favor, but to repay him quickly in kind.

And, suffering an experience not that of a mere youth overthrown at the outset of an undertaking, but rather that of a weighty general accustomed to the changes of fortune, he saw to the gathering of men and the preparation of arms, kept the cities in hand, and drilled those who were assembled.

Antigonus, on learning of the battle, said that Ptolemy had beaten beardless boys, and would now have to contend against men once more; but not wishing to crush and diminish his son's spirit, he did not oppose him when he asked again to fight on his own. And not long after, Cillas, Ptolemy's general, arrived with a splendid force, meaning to expel Demetrius from the whole of Syria altogether, since after his previous defeat he was now held cheaply.

But Demetrius, falling upon him suddenly while he was unaware and off his guard, and striking terror into him, captured his camp along with the general himself: he took seven thousand soldiers alive, and got possession of a very great deal of money. Yet he rejoiced in his victory not for what he was to keep, but for what he intended to give back, and he valued the victory not so much for its wealth or its glory as for the opportunity it gave to repay that act of kindness and generosity.

He did not, however, act in this on his own judgment, but wrote to his father. And when the latter granted it and bade him deal with them all as he pleased, he sent away Cillas himself and his friends, presenting them with lavish gifts. This reversal forced Ptolemy out of Syria and drew Antigonus down from Celaenae, rejoicing at the victory and eager to see his son again.

After this, Demetrius, having been sent to subdue the Arabs called the Nabataeans, ran into danger by falling into waterless regions, but by not being thrown into confusion or terror he struck fear into the barbarians, and, having taken a great deal of plunder and seven hundred camels from them, withdrew.

And when Seleucus, who had earlier been driven out of Babylonia by Antigonus, but had afterward recovered his rule by his own efforts and now held it firmly, went up with a force to bring under him the peoples bordering on India and the provinces around the Caucasus, Demetrius, hoping to find Mesopotamia undefended, crossed the Euphrates suddenly and got the jump on him by invading Babylonia; and having driven out Seleucus's garrison from one of the two citadels there and gained mastery of it, he installed seven thousand of his own men in it.

Then, having ordered his soldiers to take and carry off whatever they could bear or lead away from the countryside as booty, he returned to the sea, leaving to Seleucus a rule made more secure; for it seemed to him a case of withdrawing from doing harm, since it no longer belonged to them. Yet when Ptolemy was besieging Halicarnassus, he went swiftly to its aid and rescued the city.

This act of ambition having brought him fame, a wonderful impulse came upon them to free the whole of Greece, which had been enslaved by Cassander and Ptolemy. No king waged a fairer or more just war than this one; for the resources which they had gathered together in humbling the barbarians, they spent for the sake of glory and honor upon the Greeks.

When an expedition against Athens first seemed the best course, a certain friend told Antigonus that Demetrius should keep the city for himself once captured, since it was a gangway into Greece; but Antigonus paid no heed, and said that goodwill was a fine and unshakeable gangway, and that Athens, like a watchtower over the inhabited world, would swiftly beacon his deeds by reputation to all mankind.

Demetrius sailed against Athens with five thousand talents of silver, commanding two hundred and fifty ships in all, while the city itself was administered for Cassander by Demetrius of Phalerum, and a garrison was stationed in Munychia. Enjoying good fortune together with foresight, he appeared off the Piraeus on the fifth day from the end of Thargelion,

no one having sensed it beforehand; and when the fleet was seen close at hand, everyone was preparing to receive the ships as Ptolemy's, until the generals, realizing the truth late, rushed to defend, and there was confusion, such as is natural when men are forced to defend themselves against enemies landing unexpectedly. For Demetrius, finding the mouths of the harbors unclosed, sailed through and was already inside in plain view of all, and signaled from his ship a request for quiet and silence.

When this was done, he set forward a herald and proclaimed that his father had sent him, with good fortune, to free the Athenians, to expel the garrison, and to restore to them their laws and their ancestral constitution.

When this had been announced, most of the people at once set down their shields before their feet, clapped, and shouted for Demetrius to land, hailing him as benefactor and savior; but the men around Phalereus thought it necessary in every case to receive the conqueror, even if he meant to fulfill nothing of what he proclaimed, and nonetheless sent envoys with entreaties, whom Demetrius received kindly and sent back accompanied by Aristodemus of Miletus, a man counted among his father's companions.

Since Phalereus, because of the change of constitution, feared his fellow citizens more than the enemy, Demetrius did not neglect him, but out of respect for the man's reputation and virtue sent him off safely to Thebes, as he wished. As for himself, he said he would not look upon the city, much as he desired to, until he had entirely freed it by removing the garrison; and having thrown up a palisade and trench around Munychia in the meantime, he sailed against Megara, which was garrisoned by Cassander.

Learning that Cratesipolis, who had become the wife of Alexander the son of Polyperchon, was staying in Patrae and would not be unwilling to come to him, since she was renowned for her beauty, he left the bulk of his troops behind in Megarian territory and pressed ahead with only a few lightly-armed men. Then, turning even these away, he pitched camp apart by himself, so that the woman might come to him unnoticed.

Some of the enemy became aware of this and suddenly ran down upon him. He, taking fright, snatched up a cheap cloak and fled at a run, escaping, though he came within little of being captured in the most shameful manner through his own incontinence. His tent, together with his money, the enemy made off with.

When Megara was taken and the soldiers turned to plunder, the Athenians interceded for the Megarians with much entreaty; and Demetrius, expelling the garrison, freed the city. While still engaged in this, he remembered the philosopher Stilpo, a man reputed to have chosen to live out his life in quiet retirement. He sent for him, then, and asked whether anyone had taken anything of his. And Stilpo said, "No one; for I saw no one carrying off knowledge."

When nearly all his household slaves had been stolen away, Demetrius again showed him kindness, and finally, as he was leaving, said, "I leave your city free, Stilpo." "You speak rightly," he replied, "for you have left none of us a slave."

When he had returned again to Munychia and encamped there, cut out the garrison, and razed the fortress to the ground, the Athenians now at last received and summoned him; he entered the city, and gathering the assembly, restored to them their ancestral constitution. He further promised on his father's behalf that a hundred and fifty thousand measures of grain would be sent to them, along with a quantity of shipbuilding timber sufficient for a hundred triremes.

The Athenians, recovering their democracy in the fifteenth year — the years between, dating from the war at Lamia and the clash at Crannon, having been in name an oligarchic but in fact a monarchic condition because of the power of Phalereus — made Demetrius, who had appeared so brilliant and great in his benefactions, burdensome and heavy by the excess of the honors they voted him.

For they were the first of all men to proclaim Demetrius and Antigonus kings, others still shrinking from the name out of scruple, this being the one royal title still seeming to remain untouched and unshared by others among the descendants of Philip and Alexander. They alone recorded them in writing as savior gods, and, abolishing the eponymous, ancestral archon, they elected each year a priest of the Saviors, whose name they prefixed to decrees and contracts.

They voted to have them woven into the sacred robe together with the gods; and the spot where he first stepped down from his chariot they consecrated, setting up an altar and calling it the altar of Demetrius Descender; to the tribes they added two more, Demetrias and Antigonis, and made the council of five hundred into one of six hundred, since each tribe now furnished fifty councillors.

But the most extravagant contrivance of Stratocles — for he was the inventor of these clever and excessive flatteries — was his decree ordaining that envoys chosen by public vote to go to Antigonus or Demetrius were henceforth to bear the title "sacred deputies" rather than ambassadors, in the manner of those who conduct the ancestral sacrifices on behalf of the cities to Delphi and Olympia at the Greek festivals.

Stratocles was reckless in other respects too, having lived a dissolute life and seeming to imitate the buffoonery and coarseness of the old Cleon in his readiness to please the people. He had taken up with the courtesan Phylacion; and once, when she had bought brains and necks from the market for his dinner, he said, "Ha! Such fare have you bought us, the very things we politicians play ball with."

When the defeat of the Athenian ships off Amorgos occurred, he got ahead of those bringing the report and rode into the city crowned with a garland through the Ceramicus, and announcing that they had won, moved that thank-offerings be sacrificed and made a distribution of meat by tribe. A little later, when those bringing back the wreckage from the battle arrived and the people angrily summoned him, he boldly withstood the uproar and said, "Well then, what terrible thing have you suffered, if you have spent two pleasant days?" Such was the impudence of Stratocles.

There were, it seems, things even hotter than fire, according to Aristophanes. For another man, outdoing Stratocles in servility, moved that Demetrius be received, whenever he arrived, with the hospitality due to Demeter and Dionysus, and that to whoever should surpass this reception in splendor and expense, funds be granted out of the public coffers toward setting up a votive offering.

Finally they renamed the month Munychion "Demetrion," and the last day of the month "Demetrias," and they changed the name of the festival of the Dionysia to the Demetria. The divine power gave signs of displeasure at most of these things. For the sacred robe, on which they had voted to have Demetrius and Antigonus woven in together with Zeus and Athena, was torn in two down the middle as it was being carried through the Ceramicus, a squall having struck it;

and around their altars a great quantity of hemlock sprang up in a circle from the earth, though it did not otherwise grow in many parts of the country; and on the very day when the procession of the Dionysia was to take place, they had to call it off because of a severe frost occurring out of season. And when a heavy hoarfrost fell, it did not merely scorch all the vines and fig trees with cold, but destroyed most of the grain while still in the blade.

For this reason Philippides, who was an enemy of Stratocles, wrote these lines against him in a comedy: "Through whom the frost scorched the vines, through whose impiety the sacred robe was torn in two, making the honors of the gods into honors for men. These things, not comedy, destroy a democracy."

Philippides was a friend of Lysimachus, and the people benefited much through him from that king. He was also thought to be a man of good omen to meet, both for business and for a military expedition, whenever one encountered and saw him. He was well regarded, too, for his character generally, being no trouble to anyone and not tainted with the meddlesomeness of courtiers. Once when Lysimachus was showing him favor and said, "Philippides, what of my possessions shall I share with you?" he replied, "Only, O king, not your secrets." This man, then, we have deliberately set beside the other, the man of the speaker's platform beside the man of the stage.

But the most extravagant and bizarre of the honors was that which Dromocleides of Sphettus proposed: that concerning the dedication of the shields, they should obtain an oracle from Demetrius in place of one from Delphi. I will transcribe the very wording from the decree, which runs thus: "With good fortune.

Be it resolved by the people to elect one man from among the Athenians who, going to the Savior and performing due sacrifice, shall inquire of the Savior how the people may most piously, most nobly, and most speedily accomplish the restoration of the dedicated offerings; and whatever answer he gives, the people shall carry it out." In this way, mocking the man, they further corrupted him, who was not sound in mind to begin with.

But while he was then at leisure in Athens he married the widow Eurydice, who was a descendant of the ancient Miltiades, and who, after living with Ophellas, ruler of Cyrene, came back again to Athens following his death.

The Athenians, then, took this marriage as a mark of favor and honor to their city; but Demetrius was in general rather easygoing about marriages, and kept company at the same time with many women, of whom Phila held the greatest rank and honor, both through her father Antipater and through her having previously been married to Craterus, the man who had left behind the greatest goodwill of himself among the Macedonians of all Alexander's successors. This woman, it seems, his father persuaded Demetrius, quite young as he was, to take, though she was not suited to him in age but older;

and to him, reluctant, it is said, his father whispered in his ear the line of Euripides: "Where profit lies, one must marry against nature," speaking frankly something equivalent to "one must serve as a slave." Such, then, was the regard Demetrius showed toward Phila and his other wives — he mingled without restraint with a great number of courtesans and no fewer freeborn women, and gained an especially bad reputation among the kings of that time for this indulgence in pleasure.

When his father summoned him to make war on Ptolemy over Cyprus, he was compelled to obey, though vexed that he was leaving behind the war on behalf of Greece, which was the nobler and more brilliant one; he dispatched envoys to Cleonides, the Ptolemaic commander holding Sicyon and Corinth under garrison, offering money so that he might release the cities free.

When Cleonides would not accept, Demetrius put out to sea quickly, took on additional forces, and sailed against Cyprus. He joined battle with Menelaus, Ptolemy's brother, and defeated him at once; but when Ptolemy himself appeared with a great force of both infantry and navy, there were some threats and boastful exchanges, Ptolemy bidding Demetrius sail away before he was trampled under by the whole assembled force, and Demetrius saying he would let him go, if he agreed to free Sicyon and Corinth from their garrisons.

This contest held great expectation, for the uncertainty hanging over it concerned not only these two men themselves but all the other rulers as well, since it was not Cyprus or Syria but at once the greatest of all things that victory would add to the one who prevailed.

Ptolemy himself sailed out with a hundred and fifty ships, and from Salamis he ordered Menelaus, with sixty ships, to bear down on Demetrius' rear once the battle was fully engaged, and to strike from behind and throw his line into disorder. Against these sixty Demetrius stationed ten ships opposite them (for that many were enough to block the narrow mouth of the harbor),

while he himself drew up his infantry and stationed them around the headlands that jutted into the sea, and then, taking a fleet of one hundred eighty vessels, moved out onto open water. Closing with the enemy in great strength and force, he routed Ptolemy decisively; Ptolemy himself, once defeated, fled swiftly with only eight ships (for that many alone were saved out of all of them), while of the rest some were destroyed in the sea battle and seventy were captured crews and all,

and of the crowd riding at anchor in transport ships — servants, friends, and women, and besides these arms, money, and siege engines — none of it eluded Demetrius; rather, he seized the whole of it and carried it back down to his camp. Among these was the celebrated Lamia, who at first had been sought after for her skill (for she was thought to play the flute not contemptibly), but later became famous for her amorous exploits as well.

At that time, though already past her prime and taking up with Demetrius, who was much younger than herself, she overpowered him with her charm and held him fast, so that she alone was his lover, while he was merely the beloved of the other women. After the sea battle, Menelaus too could not hold out, but surrendered Salamis to Demetrius, along with the ships and the infantry, twelve hundred cavalry and twelve thousand hoplites.

Making this splendid and glorious victory still more brilliant by his magnanimity and humanity, Demetrius buried the enemy dead magnificently and released the prisoners; and to the Athenians he gave as a gift twelve hundred suits of armor from the spoils.

As the messenger to bring news of the victory to his father, he sent Aristodemus of Miletus, who ranked first among all the courtiers in flattery, and who now, it seems, had prepared to bring the greatest of all his flatteries to bear on events. Once his crossing from Cyprus was complete, he refused to let the vessel put in at land, instead ordering the anchors let down and all hands to stay quietly on board,

while he himself boarded the ship's boat and went ashore alone, and made his way up to Antigonus, who was in suspense with anticipation over the battle and in the state one would expect a man to be in who is anxious about affairs of such magnitude. Then indeed, hearing that Aristodemus had arrived, he was thrown into even greater agitation than before, and could scarcely keep himself at home, but kept sending out one after another of his attendants and friends to learn from Aristodemus what had happened.

But Aristodemus answered no one at all, and approached at a walking pace with a composed expression and in deep silence, until Antigonus, utterly astonished and no longer able to contain himself, went out to meet him at the gates, while by now a great crowd was escorting Aristodemus and running together toward the palace.

So when he came near, Antigonus stretched out his right hand, and Aristodemus cried out in a great voice, "Hail, King Antigonus! We are victorious over Ptolemy in the sea battle, and we hold Cyprus, and sixteen thousand eight hundred soldiers taken prisoner." And Antigonus said, "And to you, by Zeus, hail! But since you have tortured us so, you shall pay the penalty — you shall receive your reward for the good news more slowly."

From this, the people first hailed Antigonus and Demetrius as kings. Antigonus his friends crowned at once, while to Demetrius his father sent a diadem and, in writing him a letter, addressed him as king. And the people in Egypt, when these things were reported, themselves also proclaimed Ptolemy king, so as not to seem to lower their pride on account of the defeat.

In this way the practice spread among the successors through rivalry. For Lysimachus too began to wear a diadem, and Seleucus, when meeting with the Greeks, did so as well, though toward the barbarians he had already been transacting business as king before this. Cassander, however, though the others addressed him and wrote to him as king, himself continued writing his letters as he had been accustomed to before.

This was not merely an addition of a title and a change of outward form, but it also stirred the men's pride and elevated their thinking, and it introduced pomp and gravity into their manner of life and their dealings with others — just as tragic actors, along with their costume, change together their walk, their voice, their manner of reclining, and their way of addressing others.

As a result of this they also became harsher in matters of justice, stripping away the pretense of powerlessness which had before made them lighter and gentler toward their subjects in many respects. Such was the power of one flatterer's words, and so vast was the transformation with which they filled the whole inhabited world.

Antigonus, elated by what Demetrius had accomplished at Cyprus, immediately marched against Ptolemy, himself leading the land force while Demetrius sailed alongside with a great fleet. Now as to how the matter was going to turn out, Medius, a friend of Antigonus, saw a vision in his sleep.

For he dreamed that Antigonus himself, with the whole army, was running a double-length race vigorously and swiftly at first, but then that his strength gradually gave out, and finally, as he rounded the turn, he grew weak and full of gasping breath, and had difficulty getting back. And in fact Antigonus encountered no small trouble on his own march by land, while Demetrius, caught in a great storm and heavy swell, was in danger of being cast onto harborless and hostile places, and lost many of his ships, and returned having accomplished nothing.

He was then not far short of eighty years old, and because of the size and heaviness of his body, more than because of his age, he had become hard to transport on campaigns, and so he made use of his son, who by now was managing the greatest affairs excellently both through good fortune and through experience, and was not troubled by his son's luxuries, extravagances, and drinking bouts. For when there was peace, Demetrius indulged in these to excess, and in his leisure gave himself over to pleasures freely and without restraint, but in wars he was sober like men who are temperate by nature.

It is said that once, when Lamia was already openly in control of him, Antigonus, seeing Demetrius kissing him upon returning from abroad, said with a laugh, "You seem to be kissing Lamia, my boy." And again once, when Demetrius had spent several days in drinking bouts and gave as his excuse that a discharge had troubled him, Antigonus said, "So I heard — but was the discharge Thasian or Chian wine?"

And once, hearing that he was ill, he went to see him, and met one of his handsome young men near the door; and going in and sitting down beside him, he took his hand. When Demetrius said that the fever had now gone away, Antigonus said, "Of course it has, my child — I just met it myself leaving by the door."

These things he bore so mildly from Demetrius on account of his conduct otherwise. For the Scythians, when drinking and getting drunk, pluck the strings of their bows, as if calling back their spirit when it is being relaxed by pleasure; but Demetrius, giving himself over wholly to pleasure at one time and to serious business at another, and keeping each pursuit undiluted by the other, he proved just as fearsome when readying himself for war.

Indeed he was thought a better general at equipping a force than at using one, since he wished everything to be available in abundance for whatever need might arise, and he had an insatiable appetite for grandeur in the building of ships and siege engines, and took a certain pleasure simply in contemplating them. For being naturally gifted and given to contemplation, he did not turn his love of craft toward idle amusements or useless pastimes, as other kings did who played the flute, painted, or worked in metal.

For Aëropus the Macedonian used to spend his leisure time making small tables and little lamp-stands. Attalus Philometor raised toxic herbs in his garden — henbane, hellebore, and hemlock among them, along with monkshood and dorycnium — planting and tending them with his own hands within the palace grounds, and taking care to study their properties, gathering the sap and seed of each once it had ripened in due course. Meanwhile the Parthian kings prided themselves on personally engraving and honing their arrowheads.

But Demetrius' craftsmanship, even so, was a royal one, and his method had a certain grandeur, since along with the elaborateness and skill of his works there was combined a certain loftiness of mind and spirit, so that his works appeared worthy not only of judgment and abundance but also of a royal hand. For by their size he astonished even his friends, and by their beauty he delighted even his enemies. And this has been said of him more truly than cleverly.

His ships of sixteen and fifteen banks of oars the enemy would stand and marvel at as they sailed along their own coast, and his siege towers were a spectacle even to those under siege, as the facts themselves bear witness. For Lysimachus, who of all the kings was most hostile to Demetrius, when he was arrayed against him during the siege of Soli in Cilicia, sent asking him to display his engines and his ships under sail; and when Demetrius had displayed them, Lysimachus went away in admiration.

The Rhodians, who had been besieged by him for a long time, when they made peace, asked for some of his siege engines, so that they might have a memorial both of his power and of their own valor.

He went to war against the Rhodians, allied as they were with Ptolemy, and moved the largest of his siege towers up to their fortifications, whose base was square, each side of the lower frame measuring forty-eight cubits, and it had a height of sixty-six cubits, narrowing toward the top so that the upper sides were narrower than the base.

Inside it was partitioned into stories and many compartments, and the face turned toward the enemy was opened on each story with windows, and through these all kinds of missiles poured out; for it was full of men fighting in every form of combat. And the fact that it did not shake or lean as it moved, but advanced upright on its base and unshaken, evenly balanced, with a great rushing sound and force, produced both awe in the soul and a certain pleasure in the sight for those watching.

For this war two iron breastplates were also brought to him from Cyprus, each weighing forty minas. To demonstrate their toughness and strength, the craftsman Zoilus ordered a catapult bolt to be shot from twenty paces; when it struck, the iron remained unbroken, and received only a faint scratch, as if from a stylus.

This one he wore himself; the other Alcimus the Epirote wore, the most warlike and most powerful man in his company, who alone made use of a full suit of armor weighing two talents, while the others used armor weighing one talent; and he fell fighting at Rhodes near the theater.

Though the Rhodians defended themselves vigorously, and Demetrius accomplished nothing worth mentioning, he nevertheless raged furiously against them, because, when his wife Phila had sent him letters and bedding and clothing, they had seized the ship, just as it was, and sent it off to Ptolemy, and had not imitated the humanity of the Athenians, who, when they captured Philip's letter-carriers during his war against them, read all the other letters but did not open that of Olympias alone, and sent it on to him just as it was sealed.

Nevertheless, though Demetrius was stung deeply by this, he did not, once they had given him an opening, bring himself to retaliate against the Rhodians. For it happened that Protogenes of Caunus was in the process of painting for them the disposition of the Ialysus, and Demetrius captured the panel, which lacked little of being finished, in one of the suburbs. When a herald came from the Rhodians asking him to spare it and leave the work undestroyed, he replied that he would sooner set fire to the portraits of his own father than to a labor of art of such magnitude.

Protogenes, they say, spent seven years finishing the painting. And Apelles said that he was so astonished when he beheld the work that his voice failed him, and at last he said only, "Great is the labor, and marvelous the work" — though it lacked the graces by which the things he himself painted touched heaven.

This painting, along with the others gathered in the same place, was consumed by fire at Rome. When the Rhodians rose up against the war, the Athenians, arriving and finding Demetrius in need of a pretext, reconciled the two sides, stipulating that the Rhodians become allies with Antigonus and Demetrius, save against Ptolemy.

The Athenians called on Demetrius while Cassander was besieging their city. Commanding a fleet of three hundred and thirty vessels along with a substantial land force, he arrived by sea, pushed Cassander not only out of Attica but in headlong retreat all the way to Thermopylae, and there defeated him decisively; he also took Heraclea, which surrendered to him of its own accord, along with six thousand Macedonian troops who came over to his side.

On his return he freed the Greeks within the Gates, made the Boeotians his allies, and took Cenchreae; and Phyle and Panactum, fortified posts in Attica garrisoned by Cassander's men, he reduced and gave back to the Athenians. And they, though they had already poured out upon him every extravagance and used up every form of flattery, still found ways at this time to appear fresh and original in their servility.

For they gave over to him, as his lodging, the innermost room of the Parthenon, where he settled in, said now to be a guest hosted by Athena herself — hardly a well-behaved guest, and hardly gentle in how he billeted himself upon the virgin goddess.

And yet, when his own father once learned that his brother Philip was lodged in a house that had three young women in it, he said nothing to Philip himself, but in his presence he summoned the billeting officer and said, "Will you not get my son out of these cramped quarters?"

Demetrius, however, who owed Athena at minimum the deference one gives an older sister — the kinship he himself claimed to hold with her — committed such outrages against freeborn boys and citizen wives within the Acropolis that the place was reckoned cleanest precisely while he indulged his debaucheries up there in the company of those courtesans Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and Anticyra.

As for the rest, it is not fitting to report it plainly, out of regard for the city, but the virtue and self-restraint of Democles ought not to be passed over. He was still a boy not yet come of age, and it had not escaped Demetrius that he carried in his very name an announcement of his beauty — for he was called Democles the Fair. Since neither many attempts, nor gifts, nor threats could win him over, at last, fleeing the wrestling-schools and the gymnasium, he took to visiting a private bathhouse to wash; and Demetrius, watching for his chance, came in upon him there alone.

And the boy, when he realized the solitude around him and the compulsion he was under, took the lid off the bronze cauldron and leapt into the boiling water and destroyed himself — suffering a fate he did not deserve, but displaying a courage matching both his homeland and his good looks. Cleaenetus, son of Cleomedon, showed no such spirit; who, having arranged to have his father released from a fine of fifty talents by procuring a letter from Demetrius to the Assembly, not only disgraced himself but threw the whole city into confusion.

For they let Cleomedon off from the fine, but a decree was passed forbidding any citizen from carrying a letter of Demetrius's before the people. Word of this reached Demetrius, who reacted with anger rather than calm; the Athenians, frightened once more, not only rescinded the decree but even executed several of the men who had moved and backed it, banishing still others; and further they voted that whatever King Demetrius should command was to be held holy toward the gods and just toward men.

And when one of the decent, respectable citizens said that Stratocles must be mad to write such things, Demochares of Leuconoe said, "Mad he would indeed be, if he were not mad." For Stratocles profited greatly by his flattery. And Demochares was slandered on this account and driven into exile. Such were the doings of the Athenians, who thought they had been freed of the garrison and had gained their liberty.

Demetrius then advanced into the Peloponnese, and since none of his opponents stood their ground but fled and abandoned their cities, he won over the district called Acte and Arcadia, except for Mantinea, and, handing over a hundred talents to their garrison troops, secured the freedom of Argos, Sicyon, and Corinth.

At Argos, when the festival of the Heraea fell due, he presided as director of the games and joined in the general assembly of the Greeks, and there he married Deidameia, whose father Aeacides ruled the Molossians and whose brother was Pyrrhus. And telling the Sicyonians that their city was built next to itself, he persuaded them to resettle where they now live; and the city, along with the place, changed its name from Sicyon and was called Demetrias.

At the Isthmus, when a general congress was held and many people had assembled, he was proclaimed leader of Greece, as Philip and Alexander had been before him; and he considered himself not a little superior to them, exalted as he was by his present fortune and the power of his circumstances. Alexander, after all, never stripped any of the other rulers of their royal title, and he refrained from styling himself King of Kings, even though it was he who had allowed many to be addressed and recognized as kings in the first place —

whereas Demetrius, mocking and laughing at those who addressed anyone but his father and himself as king, listened with pleasure when men pouring wine at drinking parties drank toasts hailing Demetrius King, giving Seleucus the title Elephant-Master, naming Ptolemy Fleet-Commander, calling Lysimachus Keeper of the Treasury, and dubbing Agathocles of Sicily Ruler of the Islands.

When these toasts were reported to the kings, the others laughed them off, but Lysimachus alone was indignant that Demetrius should think of him as a eunuch — for it was customary to have eunuchs serve as treasurers.

Lysimachus, indeed, was the man most hateful to him of all, and reviling him over his passion for Lamia he said that he had now for the first time seen a whore stepping out of a tragic stage-set; and Demetrius replied that his own whore was more chaste than Lysimachus' Penelope.

At that time, on setting out again for Athens, he wrote that he wished, as soon as he arrived, to be initiated at once and to receive the whole rite from the Lesser Mysteries through to the final revelation. This was neither lawful nor had precedent; custom set the Lesser Mysteries in the month of Anthesterion and the Greater in Boedromion, and men underwent the final revelation only after waiting at least a year from the Greater Mysteries.

When his letter was read out, only Pythodorus the torch-bearer dared to speak against it, but he accomplished nothing; instead, on Stratocles' motion, they voted to call and treat the month of Munychion as Anthesterion, and performed for Demetrius the rites at Agra; and after this, Munychion, having again become Boedromion out of Anthesterion, received the remaining rite, while Demetrius at the same time obtained his final revelation as well.

For this reason Philippides, reviling Stratocles, wrote of him: the man who compressed the year into a single month; and about the encampment in the Parthenon: the man who took the Acropolis for an inn and brought in the courtesans to the Virgin.

Of the many offenses and lawless acts that occurred in the city at that time, what is said to have grieved the Athenians most was this: when they were ordered to raise two hundred and fifty talents quickly and hand them over, and the collection was carried out with rigor and no exemptions, Demetrius, seeing the money gathered together, ordered it given to Lamia and her attendant courtesans for soap. For the shame of the exaction, and the very word used for it, troubled the people more than the loss itself.

Some say this happened to the Thessalians, not the Athenians, at his hands. Apart from this, Lamia herself, preparing a dinner for the king on her own, extorted money from many people. And the dinner became so famous for its extravagance that it was written up by Lynceus of Samos. For this reason one of the comic poets aptly called Lamia truly a "Taker of Cities." And Demochares of Soli called Demetrius himself Myth — for he too had his Lamia.

Not only to his wives but also to the friends of Demetrius, her prosperity and the affection shown her brought jealousy and envy. Some men, for instance, came to Lysimachus on an embassy from him, and Lysimachus, having leisure, showed them deep scars on his thighs and arms from a lion's claws, and told the story of the fight he had once had with the beast, having been shut up with it by King Alexander. And they, laughing, said that their own king too bore the bite-marks of a terrible beast on his neck — from Lamia.

It was a remarkable thing that though at first he was displeased with a mistress not suited to his age, he was conquered by Lamia and loved her for so long a time, even when she was already past her prime. Demo, at any rate, the one nicknamed Mania, when Lamia was playing the flute at dinner and Demetrius asked her, "What do you think of her?" said, "An old woman, my king." And again, when dainties were set before her and Demetrius said to her, "Do you see how much Lamia sends me?" she said, "My mother will send you more, if you're willing to sleep with her too."

There is also recorded a retort of Lamia's concerning the so-called judgment of Bocchoris. A man in Egypt, in love with the courtesan Thonis, asked for a great sum of gold; then, having dreamed that he had slept with her, his desire ceased, and Thonis brought a suit against him for her fee.

Bocchoris, once he had heard both sides, directed that the sum of gold demanded be counted into a vessel and that the man simply pass it back and forth in his hand, and the courtesan to hold on to its shadow, on the ground that reputation is but the shadow of reality. Lamia did not think this judgment just — for the shadow did not release the courtesan from her desire for the money, but the dream had released the young man from his desire. So much, then, concerning Lamia.

But the fortunes and the deeds of the man whose story we are telling now carry our narrative, as it were, out of a comic stage-set and back into a tragic one. For when all the other kings joined together against Antigonus and combined their forces into one, Demetrius set out from Greece, and joining his father, who was striving beyond his years for the coming war, gave him even greater strength.

And yet it seems that Antigonus, if he had yielded on some small points and relaxed his excessive love of power, might have preserved for himself, and left to his son, the first place among all, to the very end. But being by nature harsh and disdainful, and rough in speech no less than in action, he provoked and exasperated many powerful young men; and he himself said that their coalition and alliance at that time would be scattered, like a flock of grain-picking birds, by a single stone and a single noise.

He led more than seventy thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry and seventy-five elephants, while ranged against him were sixty-four thousand foot soldiers, a cavalry force outnumbering his by five hundred, four hundred beasts of war, and a hundred twenty scythed chariots. And when he drew near them, his mind suffered a reversal — more in feeling than in judgment.

For though he was accustomed to be lofty and proud in battle, using a great voice and boastful words, and often even displaying his composure and contempt by making some quip or joke while the enemy was at close quarters, at that time he was seen to be thoughtful and for the most part silent, and he brought his son before the troops, introducing him to them as the one who would succeed him.

But what everyone marveled at most was that Alexander conversed with him alone in his tent, though he was not accustomed to hold private conversations even with him, but kept his own counsel, and then gave his orders openly and acted on what he had resolved by himself. At any rate it is said that Demetrius, still a young lad, once asked him when they intended to break camp; and he answered angrily, "Are you afraid that you alone will not hear the trumpet?"

But at that time, indeed, evil omens too were mastering their minds. For Demetrius dreamed that Alexander, splendidly armored, asked what watchword he meant to issue for the fight to come; and when Demetrius answered, "Zeus and Victory," Alexander responded, "In that case I am joining the enemy, since they are the side taking me in."

And Antigonus, as the phalanx was already being drawn up, going out stumbled and fell flat on his face, and was badly hurt; but rising up and stretching his hands toward heaven he asked the gods for victory, or else an unfeeling death before defeat.

When the battle had come to close quarters, Demetrius, leading the greatest and finest portion of the horsemen, engaged Antiochus the son of Seleucus, and having fought brilliantly until he routed the enemy, he ruined the victory in the pursuit, which was carried on too far and too ambitiously, out of proportion to the occasion. For he himself could not manage to wheel about and rejoin the foot soldiers, since the elephants had come between them, and Seleucus' men, seeing the phalanx bare of cavalry, did not charge, but by threatening to charge and riding around them, terrified them and gave them the chance to change sides — which is in fact what happened.

For a large part of the force voluntarily broke away and went over to the other side, and the rest turned to flight. As many were bearing down on Antigonus, and one of his attendants said, "These men are coming for you, king," he said, "What other target could they have but me? But Demetrius will come to my aid."

And hoping for this to the very end, and looking about for his son, he fell when many javelins were hurled at him at once; and when the rest of his attendants and friends abandoned him, Thorax of Larissa alone remained beside the corpse.

The battle having thus been decided, the victorious kings, cutting up the whole realm that had belonged to Antigonus and Demetrius as if it were one great body, took their portions, and further divided among themselves those provinces which they themselves had held before. Demetrius, fleeing with five thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, and riding hard, reached Ephesus, where, though everyone supposed that since he lacked money he would not keep his hands off the temple,

fearing that his soldiers might do this, he rose up quickly and made his voyage toward Greece, placing the greatest of his remaining hopes in the Athenians. For indeed he had left ships and money and his wife Deidameia there, and he thought no refuge for his affairs more secure than the goodwill of the Athenians.

Hence, when he had come among the Cyclades, ambassadors of the Athenians met him urging him to keep away from the city, since the people had voted to admit none of the kings into the city, and they sent Deidameia to Megara with honor and a fitting escort. At this he lost his usual composure through anger, though he had borne all his other misfortune very easily and had shown himself, in such a reversal of fortune, neither abject nor ignoble.

But to be deceived, against his hope, by the Athenians, and to find their apparent goodwill exposed by events as empty and counterfeit, was painful to him. For the most worthless proof of the goodwill of crowds toward kings and rulers, it seems, is an excess of honors, since fear robs of its credit the beauty that such honors would have if given by the free choice of those who bestow them; for people vote the very same honors both out of fear and out of affection.

Wherefore men of sense do not look to statues or paintings or deifications, but rather to their own deeds and actions, and either believe, as in honors, or disbelieve, as in things done under compulsion: since the masses often, in the very midst of the honors themselves, hate most those who receive them immoderately, excessively, and against the will of the givers.

Demetrius, then, at that time, considering that he was suffering terrible treatment, but being unable to retaliate, sent to the Athenians with moderate complaints, demanding to get back his ships, among which was the Thirteen-Banker. Having recovered them, he sailed along the coast to the Isthmus, and since his affairs were going badly (for garrisons were being expelled from every quarter and everything was changing over to the enemy),

leaving Pyrrhus in charge of affairs in Greece, he himself set out and sailed for the Chersonese; and while doing harm to Lysimachus he was at the same time helping himself, holding together the force around him, which was beginning to recover and become once more not to be despised. Lysimachus was neglected by the other kings, being thought no more reasonable than Demetrius, but more to be feared because he was stronger.

Not long after, Seleucus, sending word, sought in marriage Stratonice, the daughter of Demetrius and Phila, though he already had a son, Antiochus, by Apama the Persian; he judged that his position was strong enough to sustain more than a single heir, and that he required the tie to Demetrius, especially since he saw that Lysimachus had taken one of Ptolemy's daughters for himself and the other for his son Agathocles.

For Demetrius it was an unhoped-for piece of good fortune to become related by marriage to Seleucus. And taking the girl he sailed with all his ships to Syria, touching necessarily at other land, and putting in at Cilicia, which Pleistarchus held, it having been given to him as a special prize by the kings after the battle against Antigonus; and Pleistarchus was the brother of Cassander.

Thinking that his own territory was being wronged by Demetrius through his landings, and wishing to reproach Seleucus for coming to terms with the common enemy apart from the other kings, he went up to see him.

On hearing this news, Demetrius left the coast and made for Cyinda; and finding there still remaining twelve hundred talents of money, he packed these up, and having anticipated loading them quickly, put out to sea. And when his wife Phila was already present, Seleucus met him near Rhosus.

And they conducted their meeting at once in a manner free of guile, suspicion, and befitting kings, Seleucus first entertaining Demetrius at a banquet in his tent in the camp, and then Demetrius receiving him aboard the Thirteen-Banker. There were also leisurely times and private conversations and days spent together unguarded and unarmed, until Seleucus, taking Stratonice, went up to Antioch in splendid style.

Demetrius held on to Cilicia, and dispatched his wife Phila to her own brother Cassander, so she might respond to Pleistarchus' charges. Meanwhile Deidameia, having sailed to him from Greece and spent a short time with him, died of some illness. When friendship came about between Demetrius and Ptolemy through Seleucus' mediation, it was agreed that he should take Ptolemais, the daughter of Ptolemy, as his wife.

So much for the courteous conduct of Seleucus. But when he asked Demetrius to hand over Cilicia in exchange for money, and Demetrius would not be persuaded, he angrily demanded Sidon and Tyre as well, and seemed to be acting violently and doing terrible things, if, having made everything from India to the sea off Syria subject to himself, he was still so lacking in resources and so poor as to harry, for the sake of two cities, a man who was his son-in-law and had experienced a reversal of fortune,

thereby giving splendid testimony to Plato's teaching, that the man who truly wishes to be rich should make not his possessions greater but his greed for more possessions smaller — since he who does not put an end to the love of wealth is rid neither of poverty nor of want.

Demetrius, however, was not cowed, but declaring that even if he were defeated ten thousand times in other battles like Ipsus, he would never love Seleucus as a son-in-law at such a price, he secured the cities with garrisons; and he himself, learning that Lachares had set himself up as tyrant by attacking the Athenians during their factional strife, hoped that by appearing before the city he would easily take it. And he crossed the open sea safely with a great fleet, but as he sailed along the coast of Attica he was caught in a storm and lost most of his ships, and no small number of men perished along with them.

He himself, having survived, took up some kind of war against the Athenians, but as he was accomplishing nothing, he sent for a fleet to be gathered again, while he himself passed into the Peloponnese and laid siege to Messene. And fighting against the walls he was in danger, when a catapult bolt hit him in the face, driving through his jaw and into his mouth.

Having recovered, and having brought back to his side some cities that had revolted, he invaded Attica again, and having taken Eleusis and Rhamnus he ravaged the country, and having captured a ship carrying grain and bringing it in to the Athenians, he hanged the merchant and the pilot, so that the others, turning away out of fear, a severe famine arose in the city, and along with the famine a shortage of everything else. At any rate they were buying a medimnus of salt for forty drachmas, and a modius of wheat sold for three hundred.

The Athenians were given a small breathing space when one hundred fifty ships appeared off Aegina, which Ptolemy sent to their aid. Then, when many ships came to Demetrius, some from the Peloponnese, some from Cyprus, so that in all three hundred were gathered together, Ptolemy's men set sail and fled, and Lachares the tyrant ran away, abandoning the city.

The Athenians, although they had voted death for anyone who mentioned peace and reconciliation with Demetrius, at once opened the nearest gates and sent ambassadors, expecting nothing good from him, but driven by the pressure of their want,

in which, as many hardships had befallen them together, it is said that even something of this kind happened: a father and son sitting together in a room, having given up hope for themselves, when a mouse, already dead, dropped from the ceiling, and both, on seeing it, sprang up and fought over it. At that time, too, they say, the philosopher Epicurus kept those close to him alive by distributing among them a counted number of the beans they were accustomed to share.

The city being in such a state, Demetrius entered it, and having ordered everyone to assemble in the theater, he blocked off the stage-building with armed men and surrounded the platform with spearmen, while he himself came down, like the tragic actors, through the upper entrances; and though the Athenians were even more terrified at the very beginning of his speech, he put an end to their fear.

For, sparing them any harsh tone or bitter language, and reproaching them gently and in a friendly manner, he was reconciled with them, and gave them a hundred thousand medimni of grain, and established magistracies that were especially agreeable to the people. And Dromocleides the orator, seeing that the people, out of joy, were shouting all kinds of things and vying to outdo the praises of the popular leaders from the platform, proposed a motion that the Piraeus and Munychia be handed over to King Demetrius.

When this had been voted, Demetrius, on his own initiative, threw in an additional garrison at the Museum, so that the people might not rear up again and cause him further trouble and business.

With Athens now in his grip, he immediately began plotting against Sparta. Near Mantinea he met King Archidamus, defeated him in battle, routed him, and invaded Laconia. Then, in a pitched battle right by Sparta itself, he took five hundred prisoners and killed two hundred more, so that it seemed the city — unconquered up to that time — was on the very verge of falling.

But fortune seems to have taken no king through such great and swift reversals, nor in any other man's affairs to have turned so many times from small to great again, from splendor to humiliation, and back from weakness to strength. That is why they say that in his worse turns of fortune he would cry out the line of Aeschylus: 'You it is who kindle me, and you, I think, who put me out.'

For indeed just then, while his affairs were flowing so favorably toward power and dominion, word came that Lysimachus had been the first to strip him of his cities in Asia, that Ptolemy had taken Cyprus except for the single city of Salamis, and that at Salamis he was besieging Demetrius's own children and mother, who were trapped there.

Yet fortune, like the woman in Archilochus who craftily carried water in one hand and fire in the other, having driven him from Laconia with such terrible and frightening reports, at once brought him fresh hopes of great new affairs, and from a source like this.

When Cassander died, his eldest son Philip, who had reigned over the Macedonians only a short time, also died, and the two remaining brothers fell into strife with one another. When one of them, Antipater, murdered their mother Thessalonice, the other called in allies — Pyrrhus from Epirus, and Demetrius from the Peloponnese.

Pyrrhus arrived first, and having cut off a large part of Macedonia as payment for his help, he was already a fearsome neighbor to Alexander. When Demetrius, upon receiving the letters, approached with his forces, the young man, fearing him still more because of his reputation and prestige, met him near Dium, greeting him warmly and in a friendly manner, but saying that his affairs no longer required Demetrius's presence.

From this, suspicions arose between them, and as Demetrius was walking to a dinner to which the young man had invited him, someone informed him of a plot, that they meant to kill him during the drinking itself. He, showing no alarm, but slowing his pace a little, ordered his officers to keep the army under arms, and his attendants and servants — who were far more numerous than Alexander's — to go in with him into the men's hall and stay there until he rose.

Alexander's men, fearing this, did not dare make their attempt. Demetrius, pretending that his body was not fit for drinking, left quickly; and the next day he set about breaking camp, saying that some fresh business had come up, and he begged Alexander's pardon if he departed rather hastily, promising to spend more time with him at leisure on another occasion. Alexander was pleased, thinking he was leaving the country not out of hostility but of his own will, and escorted him as far as Thessaly.

But when they reached Larissa, they again began inviting each other to banquets while plotting against one another; and this above all put Alexander into Demetrius's power. For being reluctant to take precautions, lest he teach the other man to be on his guard as well, he suffered what he was about to do to the other — Demetrius struck first, so that the man could not escape what he was contriving. Invited to dinner, Alexander went to Demetrius. But when Demetrius rose up in the middle of dinner, Alexander, alarmed, rose with him and followed close behind him toward the doors.

When Demetrius reached the doors, he came upon his own bodyguards, and saying only this — 'Strike the man following' — he himself slipped away, while the guards cut Alexander down together with several friends who had rushed to help him; one of these men, as he was being killed, is said to have shouted that Demetrius had beaten them to it by a single day.

That night, as one would expect, was full of turmoil. But at daybreak, while the Macedonians were in confusion and fearful of Demetrius's power, since no one fearsome came against them, and Demetrius sent word wishing to meet them and give an account of what had been done, they took courage and resolved to receive him kindly.

When he came, he needed no long speeches; for out of hatred for Antipater, the murderer of his mother, and having no better man to turn to, they proclaimed him king of the Macedonians, and taking him at once they brought him down into Macedonia. Nor was the change unwelcome to the Macedonians at home, who still remembered and hated the lawless things Cassander had done against Alexander after his death.

And if any memory still remained of the moderation of the elder Antipater, Demetrius reaped the benefit of that too, being married to Phila and having by her a son as successor to the throne, already by that time a young man and campaigning alongside his father.

Enjoying such brilliant good fortune, he learned about his children and mother — that they had been released, Ptolemy having even added gifts and honors for them — and he learned about the daughter who had married Seleucus, that she was now living with Antiochus, Seleucus's son, and had been proclaimed queen of the upper barbarian lands.

For it happened, it seems, that Antiochus had fallen in love with Stratonice, who was young and already had a child by Seleucus, and was in a bad way over it, struggling hard to resist the feeling; yet in the end he blamed himself severely for craving something so monstrous, and, sick beyond cure though his reason still held sway, he sought a way to be rid of life, and gradually let himself waste away, neglecting treatment and refusing food, pretending to be suffering from some illness.

The physician Erasistratus had no difficulty in perceiving that he was in love, but since it was hard to discover who it was he loved, he spent the whole day in the young man's room, and whenever any of the beautiful young men or women came in, he would watch Antiochus's face closely and observe those parts and movements of the body that are naturally affected in sympathy with a soul so moved.

So when the others who came in produced no such effect, but whenever Stratonice came, whether alone or with Seleucus, all those symptoms that Sappho describes would occur in him — a checking of the voice, a fiery blush, a dimming of the eyes, sudden sweats, disorder and turmoil in the pulse, and at last, his soul utterly overpowered, helplessness, confusion, and pallor —

reasoning further from this that, in all likelihood, a king's son in love with any other woman would not have persisted in silence to the point of death, Erasistratus, though he considered it a difficult thing to tell and denounce, nevertheless, trusting in Seleucus's goodwill toward his son, ventured at last to speak, and said that the young man's affliction was love, and a love impossible and incurable.

When Seleucus, astonished, asked how it was incurable, Erasistratus said, 'Because, by Zeus, he is in love with my wife.' 'Then would you not,' said Seleucus, 'grant the marriage to my son, Erasistratus, since you are his friend, especially seeing that we are tossed about on this one thing alone?' 'Not even you,' he replied, 'though you are his father, would have done this, if Antiochus had desired Stratonice.'

And Seleucus said, 'Would that some god or man, my friend, might quickly turn and change this passion toward that, since it would be a fine thing for me even to give up my kingdom, so that I might keep hold of Antiochus.' When Seleucus said this with great emotion and many tears, Erasistratus, taking his right hand, said that he had no need of Erasistratus at all; for being father and husband and king, he was himself, all at once, the best physician for his own household.

After this Seleucus, gathering the whole assembly of the people, said that he wished and had resolved to appoint Antiochus king of all the upper regions, and Stratonice queen, joined to one another in marriage; he thought his son, accustomed to obey in everything and being dutiful, would raise no objection to the marriage.

And if his wife should be reluctant at what was unprecedented, he called on his friends to instruct and persuade her to consider what seemed good and just to the king as bound up with the common advantage. In this way, they say, the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonice came about.

Demetrius, after Macedonia and Thessaly, had also taken most of the Peloponnese, and, outside the Isthmus, Megara and Athens, and marched against the Boeotians. At first there was a moderate agreement of friendship reached with him; but then, when Cleonymus the Spartan came to Thebes with an army, the Boeotians, emboldened, and with Pisis of Thespiae — who was then foremost in reputation and power — urging them on together, revolted.

When Demetrius brought up his siege engines against Thebes and laid siege to it, and Cleonymus, afraid, slipped away, the Boeotians, terrified, surrendered themselves. He, having installed a garrison in the cities and exacted large sums of money, and having left Hieronymus the historian behind as overseer and governor, was thought to have treated them gently, especially because of Pisis; for having captured him, he did him no harm, but greeted him kindly and appointed him polemarch at Thespiae.

Not long after, Lysimachus was captured by Dromichaetes; and when Demetrius set out quickly for Thrace on this account, as if to seize territory now left empty, the Boeotians revolted again, and word came that Lysimachus had meanwhile been released. Demetrius, therefore, turning back swiftly and in anger, discovered that his son Antigonus had already beaten the Boeotians in battle, and once more he besieged Thebes.

While Pyrrhus was overrunning Thessaly and had appeared as far as Thermopylae, Demetrius, leaving Antigonus in charge of the siege, set out himself against him. Pyrrhus fled swiftly; and having stationed ten thousand hoplites and a thousand cavalry in Thessaly, Demetrius again pressed the siege of Thebes and brought up the so-called Helepolis, laboriously and slowly moved by its own weight and size, so that it barely advanced two stadia in two months.

While the Boeotians defended themselves vigorously and Demetrius often forced his soldiers to fight and risk their lives more out of stubborn rivalry than necessity, Antigonus, seeing not a few falling and deeply moved, said, 'Father, why do we look on while these men are being needlessly spent?' But Demetrius, provoked, said, 'And why does it trouble you? Do you owe rations to the dead?'

Yet, not wishing to seem to spare others while keeping himself free of danger, he exposed himself to the fighting and took a dart in the neck. He suffered terribly, but did not give up, and took Thebes again. And entering the city, he caused dread and fear as if they were to suffer the worst; but after putting thirteen men to death and banishing some others, he let the rest go free.

So it happened that within less than ten years of being resettled, Thebes was captured twice. When the time of the Pythian games came round, Demetrius allowed himself to do something quite unprecedented: since the Aetolians held the narrow passes around Delphi, he himself conducted the contest and festival at Athens, on the ground that it was most fitting for the god to be honored there, since he is also the ancestral god and is said to be the founder of Demetrius's own line.

From there he returned to Macedonia, and being by nature unable to remain at rest himself, and seeing that the others paid him more attention on campaigns, while at home they were turbulent and meddlesome, he marched against the Aetolians; and having ravaged their country and left Pantauchus behind with no small part of his forces, he himself advanced against Pyrrhus, and Pyrrhus against him.

Missing each other, one of them ravaged Epirus, while the other fell in with Pantauchus and joined battle, routing him in hand-to-hand combat after it came to blows given and taken, and killed many of the rest, but took five thousand prisoners.

This above all hurt Demetrius: the Macedonians felt less hatred toward Pyrrhus for his actions than admiration for what he had achieved with his own hands, and he won a great and shining name among the Macedonians from that battle; and many of the Macedonians came to say that in this one man alone of the kings could be seen an image of Alexander's daring, while the others, and especially Demetrius, merely acted out, as on a stage, the weightiness and grandeur of that man.

And indeed there really was a great tragedy playing out around Demetrius, who not only dressed and adorned himself extravagantly with double-mitred caps and purple robes shot through with gold, but also had made for his feet boots of pure purple felted together and dyed with gold. There was also a cloak being woven for him over a long time, a work of overweening pride, an image of the cosmos and of the things visible in the heavens,

which was left half-finished amid the upheaval of his affairs, and no one afterward dared to wear it, though not a few haughty kings later arose in Macedonia.

He grieved people not only with these spectacles, since they were unaccustomed to them, but they were also weighed down by his luxury and manner of life, and above all by his being hard to approach and difficult to meet with. For either he gave no opportunity to meet him, or he was harsh and rough with those who did meet him. The Athenians, for instance, toward whom he had been most eager of all the Greeks, he kept an embassy waiting for two years; and when a single envoy came from Lacedaemon, feeling himself slighted, he grew angry.

That man, however, replied wittily and in true Laconic style when Demetrius said, "What do you mean? The Lacedaemonians sent one envoy?" "Yes," he said, "O king, to one man." Once, when he seemed to be riding out in a more approachable, popular manner, and not unwilling to receive petitions, some people ran up to him and handed him written petitions. He received them all and gathered them in the fold of his cloak, and the people were delighted and followed along; but once he reached the bridge spanning the Axius, he shook out his cloak and cast the whole lot into the water.

And this grievously vexed the Macedonians, who felt themselves insulted rather than ruled as subjects, and who remembered Philip, or heard of him from those who remembered him, how moderate and accessible he had been in such matters. And once, when an old woman kept accosting him along some road and begging repeatedly to be heard, he said he had no time; and when she cried out and said, "Then don't be king,"

he was stung to the quick, and being moved by this above all, he turned back to his house, and having put everything else aside, he gave audience for many days to all who wished to meet him, beginning with that old woman.

For no task suits a king better than the exercise of justice. Ares, says Timotheus, is a tyrant; yet, in Pindar's phrase, it is law that rules over all things; and Homer holds that kings are given by Zeus, to watch over and preserve, not siege-machines that crush cities, nor beaked ships of bronze, but the ordinances of justice — and he names the most just among kings, not the fiercest fighter nor the most murderous and lawless one, as the companion and disciple of Zeus.

But Demetrius took delight in claiming for himself a surname most unlike that of the king of the gods: for the one was called Guardian of the City and Protector of the City, while the other was surnamed the Besieger. In this way, wickedness, coming upon the domain of the beautiful through ignorant power, made injustice at home with fame.

Demetrius, then, having fallen most dangerously ill at Pella, very nearly lost Macedonia at that time, since Pyrrhus swept down swiftly and advanced as far as Edessa. But as soon as he grew somewhat lighter, he drove him out quite easily and made certain agreements with him, since he did not wish, while constantly stumbling against him and fighting over territory, to be less able to pursue the greater designs he had in mind.

And his designs were no small ones, but nothing less than to recover the entire empire that had been his father's. His preparations were not lacking to match this hope and undertaking: he had already assembled an infantry force just short of a hundred and eighty thousand men, and, besides these, cavalry a little short of twelve thousand.

And laying down a fleet of five hundred ships together, he set some keels in the Piraeus, some in Corinth, some in Chalcis, and some around Pella, going himself to each place and instructing the workers in what was needed and joining in the designing, so that everyone was astonished not only at the numbers but also at the scale of the works.

Never before had anyone laid eyes on a vessel with fifteen or sixteen banks of oars, though later Ptolemy Philopator built one of forty banks, measuring two hundred eighty cubits from stem to stern and rising forty-eight cubits to the top of the stern-ornament, fitted out with four hundred sailors apart from the rowers, and four thousand rowers, and capable of holding, besides these, close to three thousand marines on the gangways and deck.

But that ship provided only a spectacle, and differing little from a fixed building, made for display rather than for use, it was moved with difficulty and danger. Demetrius's ships, however, were not deprived of beauty for the sake of usefulness, nor was their usefulness taken away by the elaborateness of their construction, but their speed and performance made them more worth seeing than their size.

So then, as so great a force was being raised against Asia — greater than any man had possessed since Alexander — the three combined against Demetrius: Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus; and then they jointly sent to Pyrrhus, urging him to seize upon Macedonia and not to consider himself bound by the truce, since Demetrius had not granted Pyrrhus immunity from being warred upon, but had merely reserved for himself the right to make war on whomever he wished first.

Pyrrhus having agreed, a great war rose up around Demetrius even while he was still preparing. For at the same time Ptolemy sailed with a great fleet and caused Greece to revolt, while Lysimachus invaded from Thrace, and Pyrrhus from the neighboring territory, and they ravaged the land. Demetrius put his son in command over Greek affairs and himself set out first to help Macedonia against Lysimachus. But word reached him that Pyrrhus had taken the city of Beroea.

And when this report quickly fell upon the Macedonians, nothing any longer went well for Demetrius, but the camp was full of lamentation and tears and anger and abuse directed at him, and the men were unwilling to stay together but wished to disperse — nominally to their homes, but in truth to Lysimachus.

Demetrius therefore decided to keep as far away as possible from Lysimachus and turn instead against Pyrrhus, reasoning that the one was a kinsman and familiar to many because of Alexander, while the Macedonians would never prefer Pyrrhus, a foreigner and a newcomer, over himself. In this calculation, however, he was greatly deceived.

For when he came near and encamped alongside Pyrrhus, the Macedonians, who had always admired the splendor Pyrrhus showed in arms, and who from oldest custom were accustomed to consider the man most powerful in arms as most kingly, and who now also learned that he had treated his captives gently, and who in any case were seeking any way at all, whether toward this man or another, to be rid of Demetrius, began to slip away secretly and in small numbers at first, and then openly the whole camp was full of movement and disorder,

until at last some of them worked up the nerve to approach Demetrius and urge him to flee and preserve his own life, since, as they put it, the Macedonians were weary of fighting merely to sustain his extravagance. These words seemed to Demetrius the most moderate of all, compared to the harshness of the others; and going to his tent, like an actor rather than a king, he changed into a plain gray cloak instead of that tragic costume, and slipped away unnoticed.

And when most of the men at once rushed to plunder, fighting each other and tearing apart the royal tent, Pyrrhus appeared and took the camp without a blow, gaining control of it. And thus all of Macedonia, which Demetrius had ruled securely for seven years, was divided between him and Lysimachus.

When Demetrius had thus fallen from power and had taken refuge in Cassandreia, his wife Phila, overcome with grief, could not bear to look again upon Demetrius, most wretched of kings, now a private citizen and a fugitive; and abandoning all hope, and hating his fortune as being more constant in misfortune than in success, she drank poison and died. Demetrius, still intent on clinging to what remained of the wreck, sailed off to Greece and gathered together the generals and friends he had there.

The image, then, that the Menelaus of Sophocles applies to his own fortunes — "but my fate forever turns upon the crowded wheel of god and changes its nature, just as the face of the moon could never for two nights stand in one shape, but first it comes forth new from obscurity, growing more beautiful and being filled out, and when it appears at its noblest, again it flows away and comes to nothing" —

this image one might rather apply to the affairs of Demetrius, and to the increases and decreases and refillings and abasements that surrounded him, since even then, when his power seemed altogether to be failing and being extinguished, it flared up again, and certain forces flowing in little by little kept filling out his hope once more. And at first he went about the cities as a private citizen, stripped of all royal adornment, and someone who saw him in that state at Thebes applied to him, not without wit, the lines of Euripides: "Having exchanged his divine form for a mortal one, he stands here beside the streams of Dirce and the water of Ismenus."

But once his hope had been set, as it were, upon a royal road, and a body and shape of power was again forming around him, he restored their constitution to the Thebans, while the Athenians revolted from him. And they struck Diphilus, who had been recorded as priest of the Saviors, from the list of eponymous officials, and voted to choose archons again as had been their ancestral custom, and they sent for Pyrrhus to come from Macedonia, seeing Demetrius stronger than they had expected.

He came against them in anger and set up a fierce siege around the city; but when Crates the philosopher, a man of renown and influence, was sent to him by the people, Demetrius, partly persuaded by what he asked on behalf of the Athenians, and partly, from what Crates taught him, coming to understand what was to his own advantage, lifted the siege, and gathering together all the ships he had, and putting aboard eleven thousand soldiers along with cavalry, sailed for Asia, intending to detach Caria and Lydia from Lysimachus.

Eurydice received him near Miletus — the sister of Phila — bringing with her Ptolemais, one of her own and Ptolemy's daughters, who had earlier been betrothed to Demetrius through Seleucus. This woman Demetrius married, with Eurydice giving her away. And immediately after the marriage he turned to the cities, many of which joined him willingly, but many he took by force.

He also took Sardis, and several of Lysimachus's generals defected to his side, contributing funds and soldiers. But when Agathocles, Lysimachus's son, marched against him with an army, he went up into Phrygia, having decided that, if he could seize Armenia, he would set Media in motion and lay hold of the upper regions, since there he would have many refuges and places to retreat to if pressed hard.

As Agathocles followed, he prevailed in the skirmishes, but being cut off from provisioning and foraging, he fell into difficulty, and his soldiers grew suspicious of him, thinking he was leading them off toward Armenia and Media. At the same time famine pressed harder, and a mistake made in crossing the Lycus swept away a great number of men in the current and destroyed them. Yet even so they did not refrain from mockery: someone wrote up before his tent, with a slight alteration, the opening of the Oedipus: "Child of blind old Antigonus, to what regions have we come?"

Finally, as sickness joined itself to famine—as usually happens when men are driven to eat what necessity forces on them—he lost no fewer than eight thousand men in all, and led the rest back. Coming down to Tarsus, he wished to keep clear of the territory, since it then belonged to Seleucus, and to give him no pretext for complaint,

but since this proved impossible, his soldiers being in the utmost want, and Agathocles having walled off the passes of the Taurus, he wrote a letter to Seleucus—a long lament over his own fortune, followed by much supplication and entreaty that a kinsman take pity on him, having suffered things that would move even enemies to sympathy. Seleucus, somewhat softened, wrote to the generals there to supply Demetrius himself with a royal allowance and his forces with abundant provisions,

but Patrocles, a man reputed sensible and a loyal friend of Seleucus, came forward and said that the greatest part of the expense was not in feeding Demetrius's soldiers, but that it was not safe for him to overlook Demetrius lingering in the country—a man who, being always the most violent and most ambitious of kings, had now fallen into circumstances such as drive even naturally moderate men to dare and to do wrong.

Provoked by this, Seleucus set out for Cilicia with a large force. Demetrius, astonished and frightened by this sudden reversal in Seleucus, withdrew to the strongest positions of the Taurus, and sent envoys asking, above all, that Seleucus permit him to carve out some domain among the unconquered native tribes, in which he could spend his remaining days without further wandering and flight; failing that, that he be allowed to feed his army there through the winter, and not be driven out destitute and exposed, naked before his enemies.

But when Seleucus, suspecting all this, ordered him, if he wished, to winter two months in Cataonia, giving the chief of his friends as hostages, while at the same time walling off the passes into Syria, Demetrius, hemmed in and encircled on every side like a wild beast, was forced by necessity to turn to fighting. He overran the country, and in every clash with Seleucus's advancing forces he always had the better of it.

Once, when scythed chariots were sent against him, he withstood them and put them to flight, and he drove off those who were walling the passes into Syria and gained control of them. Altogether he grew confident in his judgment, and seeing his soldiers with their spirits restored, he prepared to fight a decisive battle against Seleucus for the highest stakes, Seleucus himself now being in difficulties.

For Seleucus had turned away the help offered by Lysimachus, distrusting and fearing him, yet he himself hesitated to engage Demetrius on his own, fearing his desperation and the way his fortune always turned, bringing the greatest successes out of the direst straits. But a severe illness then seized Demetrius, which terribly wrecked his body and utterly ruined his cause. A number of his troops crossed over to join the opposing side, while others merely abandoned him and drifted away.

After barely recovering in forty days, and gathering the survivors, he set out, so far as could be seen and supposed by the enemy, toward Cilicia, then by night, without trumpet-signal, marched off in the opposite direction, crossed the Amanus, and ravaged the lower country as far as Cyrrhestica.

When Seleucus appeared and made his camp nearby, Demetrius roused his army by night and marched against him while he was still unaware and asleep. But some deserters came over and reported the danger, and Seleucus, alarmed, sprang up and ordered the trumpets sounded, pulling on his boots at the same moment and shouting to his companions that he was entangled with a terrible beast. Demetrius, perceiving from the enemy's uproar that he had been betrayed, led his men back in haste.

At daybreak, with Seleucus pressing upon him, he dispatched one of his commanders to attack the enemy's opposite flank, throwing the forces there into disorder. But then Seleucus himself, dismounting from his horse and setting aside his helmet, took up a light shield and went to meet the mercenaries, showing himself to them and calling on them to change sides, since they had at last come to realize that it was for their sake, not Demetrius's, that he had held back so long.

At this every one of them saluted him, proclaimed him king, and defected to his side. Demetrius, perceiving that of the many reversals he had suffered this was the final one to come upon him, turned aside and fled to the Amanic Gates, and having gone down into a densely wooded spot with a few friends and attendants—altogether very few—waited there for night, wishing, if he could, to seize the road to Caunus and break through to the sea, where he hoped to find his fleet.

But when he learned that his men did not even have provisions for that one day, he turned to other plans. Then Sosigenes, a companion of his, came up, having four hundred gold pieces girded about him; and hoping to hold out to the sea with this money, they made their way toward the passes in the dark. But seeing enemy fires burning near the passes, they abandoned that route and withdrew again to the same place, neither all of them (for some had already run off) nor were those who remained equally eager to stay;

and when someone ventured to say that Demetrius ought to surrender his person to Seleucus, he drew his sword and made to kill himself, but his friends gathered round and pleaded with him, and persuaded him to do it. So he sent to Seleucus, putting himself entirely in his hands.

When Seleucus heard this, he said that it was not by Demetrius's fortune that Demetrius was to be saved, but by his own, which, along with its other blessings, now gave him the chance to display kindness and generosity. He summoned his stewards and ordered a royal tent pitched, and everything else done and prepared for a magnificent reception and hospitality.

There was a certain Apollonides at Seleucus's court who had once been an intimate of Demetrius; this man he at once sent to him, so that Demetrius might be more at ease and approach him confidently, as one would a kinsman and connection by marriage. Once his intention became known, at first a few, then most of his friends hurried to Demetrius's side, competing and rushing to be the earliest to reach him, since it was assumed that whichever of them arrived first would quickly rise to favor with Seleucus.

This turned Seleucus's pity into jealousy, and gave the malicious and envious an opening to turn him aside and spoil the king's kindness, by frightening him with the claim that the moment the man was seen, without delay, there would be great upheaval in the camp.

Just as Apollonides had come back to Demetrius overjoyed, and others were arriving and reporting wonderful things about Seleucus, and Demetrius—after so great a misfortune and disaster—though he had earlier thought the surrender of his person a shameful act, had now, through this new confidence and trust in his hopes, changed his mind, Pausanias arrived with about a thousand soldiers, both foot and horse, together.

Surrounding Demetrius suddenly with these and driving off all the others, he did not bring him into Seleucus's presence, but led him away to the Syrian Chersonese, where thereafter, under strong guard, he was provided adequately by Seleucus with attendants, money, and a daily manner of living that was not to be complained of; and royal running-tracks and walks and game-parks stocked with animals for hunting were set aside for him.

Any of the friends who had shared his flight and wished to stay with him were permitted to do so, and some even came to visit him from Seleucus, bringing reasonable words and urging him to take heart, saying that once Antiochus arrived together with Stratonice, his situation would be settled.

Demetrius, now in such a plight, sent instructions to his son and to his commanders and friends at Athens and Corinth to trust neither his letters nor his seal, but to preserve the cities and the rest of his affairs for Antigonus, as though he himself were dead.

Antigonus, learning of his father's capture, bore it heavily, and putting on mourning dress, wrote to the other kings and to Seleucus himself, pleading with him, offering to hand over whatever remained to them, and above all offering himself as a hostage on his father's behalf. Many cities and rulers joined in these entreaties, except Lysimachus.

Lysimachus, for his part, sent much money and promised more to Seleucus if he would kill Demetrius. Seleucus, who already held him in low regard on other grounds, thought him all the more vile and barbarous for this; but as for Antiochus his son and Stratonice, he kept Demetrius alive in order that the favor might come from them, and let time pass.

Demetrius, as he had at first borne his misfortune when it fell upon him, and now grew accustomed to bear his present circumstances more easily, at first exercised his body somehow or other, taking up hunting, as far as was possible, and running, but little by little he became filled with reluctance and sluggishness toward these, and gave himself over to drinking and dice, spending most of his time at them,

whether fleeing the sober reckonings of his present state and veiling his mind in drunkenness, or having come to admit to himself that this was the life he had long desired and pursued, wandering in vain through folly and empty ambition, causing much trouble both to himself and to others, seeking in arms and fleets and armies the good that he now found, unexpectedly, in inactivity, leisure, and rest.

For what other end do wars and dangers have for poor and foolishly disposed kings, not merely because they pursue luxury and pleasure instead of virtue and honor, but because they do not even truly know how to enjoy pleasure or luxury? Demetrius, then, having been shut up in the Chersonese for the third year, fell ill from idleness, overindulgence, and wine, and died, having lived fifty-four years.

And Seleucus was ill spoken of for this, and repented not a little for having then held Demetrius in suspicion, since he had not even imitated Dromichaetes, a barbarian Thracian, who had treated the captured Lysimachus with such kindness and royal generosity.

Even the circumstances of his funeral had something of a tragic and theatrical arrangement to them. For his son Antigonus, upon hearing that the ashes were on their way home, sailed out with his whole naval force and encountered them among the islands; and receiving the urn, which was of beaten gold, he placed it aboard his largest flagship.

The cities to which they put in brought crowns to lay upon the urn, and sent men in mourning attire to join in the funeral procession and escort. As the fleet sailed into Corinth, the urn could be seen plainly from the stern, adorned with royal purple and a diadem, and young men stood by it under arms as a guard of honor. Xenophantus, the most celebrated flute-player of that time, sat close by and played the most solemn of melodies;

and to this, as the oarsmen rowed in a certain rhythm, there answered a sound like that of mourners beating their breasts, timed to the phrases of the flute-music. But the greatest pity and lamentation was stirred among those gathered on the shore by the sight of Antigonus himself, humbled and in tears. After honors and crowns had been offered at Corinth, he carried the remains to Demetrias and laid them there, a city named after him, formed by the union of the small towns around Iolcus.

Demetrius left behind him as offspring: Antigonus and Stratonice by Phila; two sons named Demetrius, one called the Fair, by an Illyrian woman, the other, who ruled Cyrene, by Ptolemais; and by Deidameia, Alexander, who lived out his life in Egypt. It is also said that a son named Corrhagus was born to him by Eurydice. His line descended through successive kings down to Perseus, the last of them, under whom the Romans brought Macedonia under their rule. Now that the Macedonian drama has been played out, it is time to bring on the Roman one.

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