Part 19

XXXIII. Demetrius on this occasion showed no want of spirit. He declared that not if he had lost ten thousand fields like Ipsus would he consent to buy Seleukus for his son-in-law. He strengthened the garrisons of the cities,[311] and hearing that Lachares, taking advantage of the factions into which the Athenians were divided, had made himself despot of that city, he thought that if he only were to show himself before Athens he might easily obtain possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety with a large fleet, but when off the coast of Attica he encountered a violent storm, in which he lost most of his ships and a great number of his men. He himself escaped unhurt, and at once began to make war against the Athenians. As, however, he could not effect anything, he sent his lieutenants to collect another fleet, and meanwhile proceeded to Peloponnesus. Here he laid siege to Messene, and during an assault nearly lost his life, for he was struck full in the face by a dart from a catapult, which pierced through his jaw into his mouth. He recovered from his wound, received the submission of several insurgent cities, and returned to Attica, where he made himself master of Eleusis and Rhamnus, and ravaged the country. He captured a ship loaded with wheat bound for Athens, and hanged the captain and pilot, which measure terrified the other merchants so much that they avoided Athens, and a terrible famine took place there, and the want of food brought about a scarcity of everything else. A medimnus[312] of salt was sold for forty drachmas, and a modius[313] of corn sold for three hundred drachmas.

The Athenians gained a short respite from their sufferings by the appearance near Ægina of a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, which was sent by Ptolemy to aid them. Soon, however, Demetrius collected from Peloponnesus and Cyprus a fleet of three hundred ships, before which those of Ptolemy were forced to retire. Upon this the despot Lachares made his escape and abandoned the city to its fate.

XXXIV. The Athenians, although they had decreed that anyone who proposed to make peace and come to terms with Demetrius should be put to death, now at once opened their nearest gates and sent an embassy to him; not that they expected to be well treated by him, but acting under the pressure of starvation. It was said that, among other painful incidents, it happened that a father and a son were sitting in the same room, without any hopes of surviving, when a dead mouse fell from the roof, upon which they both started up and began to fight for it. We are told that during this time the philosopher Epikurus kept his disciples alive by counting out to them a fixed allowance of beans every day. This was the condition of the city when Demetrius made his entry into it. He ordered all the Athenians to assemble in the theatre, occupied the stage with armed men, placing his own bodyguard round the part usually reserved for the actors, and made his appearance, like a tragic actor, through the entrance at the back.[314] The Athenians were greatly terrified at these proceedings, but the first words of his address put an end to their fears. He spoke in a mild and conciliatory tone, briefly and gently, complained of their conduct towards him, and announced his forgiveness of them. He distributed among them one hundred thousand medimni of wheat, and appointed the most popular men in the city to the vacant magistracies. Dromokleides the orator, seeing that the people could scarcely find enough means to express their delight, and that they were eager to outdo the panegyrics which were being lavished upon Demetrius from the bema, proposed that the ports of Peiræus and Munychia should be handed over to King Demetrius. When this was agreed to, Demetrius himself placed a garrison in the Museum, by which he intended to curb the people in case they should grow restive and take off his attention from his other enterprises.

XXXV. Being now master of Athens, Demetrius at once began to attack Lacedæmon. He met the King of Sparta, Archidamus, near Mantinea, defeated him, and invaded Laconia, driving the beaten army before him. He fought a second battle before the walls of Sparta itself, in which he killed two hundred Spartans, and took five hundred prisoners; and he very nearly took the city itself, which up to that time had never been taken. Fortune, however, seems to have introduced greater and more sudden vicissitudes into the life of Demetrius than into that of any other prince, for he was constantly rising from the most abject poverty to the highest pinnacles of wealth and power, and then being as suddenly cast down again. He himself is said, when his fortunes were at their lowest, to have quoted the verse of Æschylus,

"Thou raisest up, and thou dost bring me down."

So at this time, when everything seemed to be succeeding, and his empire and power constantly increasing, Demetrius received the news that Lysimachus had taken all the cities in Asia which had belonged to him, and that Ptolemy had made himself master of Cyprus with the exception of Salamis, which he was besieging, in which city was the mother and the children of Demetrius. Yet, like the woman spoken of by the poet Archilochus, who deceitfully offers water in one hand, while she holds a firebrand in the other, the fortune of Demetrius, after soaring him away from the conquest of Sparta by these terrifying pieces of intelligence, at once offered him hopes of accomplishing a new and mighty enterprise, in the following manner.

XXXVI. After the death of Kassander, his eldest son Philip ascended the throne, but not long afterwards died. Upon this Kassander's two younger sons each aspired to the crown. One of them, Antipater, murdered his mother Thessalonike, upon which the other[315] invited Pyrrhus to come from Epirus, and Demetrius from Peloponnesus, to support his claims. Pyrrhus was the first to arrive, and demanded so large a portion of the kingdom of Macedonia as the price of his assistance, that he soon became an object of terror to Alexander. When Demetrius, in answer to the appeal of Alexander, arrived with his army, Alexander was even more terrified, because of his great renown. He met Demetrius near Dium, and welcomed him as an honoured guest, but gave him to understand that he no longer stood in need of his services. Upon this each began to suspect the other, and Demetrius, when he was proceeding to a banquet to which he had been invited by the young prince, was warned that his host intended to assassinate him while they were drinking after dinner. Demetrius was not in the least disturbed at this intelligence, but merely delayed going to the banquet for a short time, while he ordered his officers to keep their men under arms, and bade his personal followers and pages, who far out-numbered the retinue of Alexander, to enter the banqueting hall with him, and to remain there until he left the table. Alarmed by these precautions, Alexander did not venture to offer him any violence; and Demetrius soon left the room, excusing himself on the ground that his health would not permit him to drink wine. On the following day Demetrius made preparations for departure, announcing that he had received news which made this necessary. He begged Alexander to pardon him for so sudden a retreat, and promised that when he was more at leisure he would pay him another visit. Alexander was delighted at this, thinking that Demetrius was leaving the country of his own free-will, and not as an enemy; and he escorted him as far as the borders of Thessaly. When they reached Larissa, each again invited the other to a banquet, each intending to murder the other. This decided the fall of Alexander, who fell into his own trap, being loth to show any distrust of Demetrius, lest Demetrius should distrust him. He accepted Demetrius's invitation to a banquet, during which Demetrius suddenly rose. Alexander in alarm also started to his feet, and followed Demetrius towards the door. Demetrius as he passed the door said to his bodyguard, "Kill the man who follows me," and walked on. Alexander, who followed him, was cut down by the guard, as were his friends, who rushed to his assistance. One of these men when dying is said to have remarked that Demetrius had got the start of them by one day.

XXXVII. The night was spent in tumult and alarm. At daybreak the Macedonians, who had feared an attack from the army of Demetrius, became reassured, as nothing of the kind took place; and when Demetrius intimated to them his wish to address them and to explain his conduct, they received him in a friendly manner. When he appeared, he had no need to make a long speech, for the Macedonians, who hated Antipater for having murdered his mother, and who knew not where to look for a better sovereign, saluted Demetrius as King of the Macedonians, and at once conducted him into Macedonia. The new reign was not displeasing to the remainder of the Macedonians, who had never forgotten the disgraceful conduct of Kassander after the death of Alexander. If any remembrance of the moderation of their old governor Antipater still remained amongst them, Demetrius reaped the benefit of it, as his wife Phila was the daughter of Antipater, and his son,[316] by her, who was nearly grown up, and accompanied his father on this campaign, was now the heir to the throne.

XXXVIII. After this brilliant piece of good fortune, Demetrius received the news that his mother and children had been set at liberty by Ptolemy, who had given them presents and treated them with respect; while he also heard that his daughter, who had been given in marriage to Seleukus, was living with his son Antiochus, with the title of "queen of the native tribes of the interior." It appears that Antiochus fell violently in love with Stratonike, who was quite a young girl, though she had already borne a child to Seleukus. After making many fruitless efforts to resist his passion, he reflected upon the wickedness of indulging a love which he was unable to restrain, and decided that he would put an end to his life. Under pretence of illness he refused to take nourishment, neglected his person, and was quietly sinking. Erasistratus, his physician, had without much difficulty perceived that he was in love, but could not guess with whom. He consequently spent the entire day in the same room with Antiochus, and whenever any young persons came to visit him, narrowly watched his countenance and those parts by which emotion is especially betrayed. He found that his condition was unaltered except when Stratonike came to see him, either alone or with her husband, Seleukus, and that then all the symptoms mentioned by Sappho were visible in him, such as stammering, fiery blushes, failure of eyesight, violent perspiration, disturbed and quickened pulse, and at length, as his passions gained the mastery over him, pallor and bewilderment. Erasistratus, after making these observations, reflected that it was not probable that the king's son would starve himself to death in silence for love of any other woman than his mother-in-law. He judged it to be a perilous enterprise to explain the real state of the case, but, nevertheless, trusting to the love of Seleukus for his son, he one day ventured to tell him that love was really the disorder from which young Antiochus was suffering, and that it was a hopeless and incurable passion. "How incurable?" inquired Seleukus. "Because," answered Erasistratus, "he is in love with my wife." "Well, then," said Seleukus, "will you not give her up, Erasistratus, and marry her to my son, who is your friend, especially as that is the only way out of this trouble for us?" "No," said Erasistratus, "I will not. Why, you yourself, although you are his father, would not do this, if Antiochus were enamoured of Stratonike." To this Seleukus replied, "My friend, I would that by any means, human or divine, his passion could be directed to her; for I would willingly even give up my crown if I could thereby save Antiochus."

When Seleukus, in a tone of deep feeling and with tears in his eyes, made this avowal, Erasistratus took him by the hand, in token of good faith, and declared that his own services were quite useless, for that Seleukus himself was best able to heal the disorders which had arisen in his household. After this Seleukus convoked a general assembly of his people, and declared to them that he had determined to nominate Antiochus king, and Stratonike queen of all the nations of the interior, and that they were to be married. He believed, he said, that his son, who had always been accustomed to obey him, would raise no objection to the marriage; and that if his wife was discontented with it on the ground of its illegality, he begged his friends to argue with her and persuade her to regard everything as legal and honourable which the king decided upon as expedient. In this manner it is said to have come to pass that Antiochus was married to Stratonike.

XXXIX. After obtaining Macedonia, Demetrius made himself master of Thessaly also. As he possessed the greater part of Peloponnesus, besides Megara and Athens, he now marched against Boeotia. At first the Boeotians came to terms, and formed an alliance with him, but afterwards, when Kleonymus of Sparta came to Thebes with an army, and Pisis, the most influential citizen of Thespiæ, encouraged them to recover their liberty, they revolted from Demetrius. Upon this, Demetrius brought up his famous siege train to attack their cities.[317] Kleonymus was so terrified that he secretly withdrew, and the Boeotians were scared into submission. Demetrius, though he garrisoned all their cities with his own troops, levied a large sum of money, and left Hieronymus[318] the historian as governor of the province, was thought to have dealt very mildly with the Boeotians, especially because of his treatment of Pisis; for he not only dismissed him unharmed when brought before him as a prisoner, but conversed with him in a friendly manner, and nominated him polemarch of Thespiæ.

Not long after these events, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by Dromichætus. Upon this, Demetrius at once hurriedly marched towards Thrace, hoping to find it unguarded. The Boeotians seized the opportunity of his absence to revolt, while news was brought to Demetrius that Lysimachus had been dismissed by his captors. Enraged at this, he speedily returned, and finding that the Boeotians had been defeated in a pitched battle by his son Antigonus, he a second time laid siege to Thebes.

XL. However, as Pyrrhus was now overrunning Thessaly, and had pushed even as far as Thermopylæ, Demetrius left Antigonus to prosecute the siege, and himself marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus beat a hasty retreat, and Demetrius, leaving ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry in Thessaly, returned to press the siege of Thebes. He now brought up his great machine, called the "City-taker," which was moved by levers with great difficulty on account of its enormous weight; so that it is said that in two months it hardly moved two furlongs, The Boeotians made a vigorous defence, and Demetrius frequently forced his soldiers to engage in battle with them, more out of arrogance than through any real necessity for fighting. After one of these battles, Antigonus, grieved at the number of men who had fallen, said, "My father, why do we allow all these men to perish, when there is no occasion for it?" Demetrius sharply answered, "Why do you take offence at this? Do you have to pay the dead?" Yet Demetrius, not wishing it to be thought that he was lavish of other men's blood and not of his own, but being anxious to fight among the foremost, was wounded by a dart thrown from a catapult, which pierced through his neck. He suffered much from this wound, but still continued the siege, and at length took Thebes for the second time. When he entered the city, he inspired the citizens with the most intense terror, as they expected to be treated with the greatest severity. He was satisfied, however, with putting to death thirteen of the citizens, and banishing a few others. Thus was Thebes taken twice within less than ten years since it was first rebuilt.

As the time for the Pythian games had now come round, Demetrius took upon himself to make a most startling innovation. As the passes leading to Delphi were held by the Ætolians, he celebrated the games in Athens, declaring that it was right that especial honour should be paid there to Apollo, who is the tutelary god of the Athenians, and is said to have been the founder of their race.

XLI. Demetrius now returned to Macedonia. As he could not bear a life of repose, and found that his subjects were more easily governed on a campaign, since they were troublesome and turbulent when at home, he marched against the Ætolians. After laying waste their country he left Pantauchus there with a large portion of his army, and with the rest marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was equally eager to meet him, but they missed each other, so that Demetrius invaded and ravaged Epirus, while Pyrrhus[319] fell in with Pantauchus and fought with him. He himself exchanged blows with Pantauchus and put him to flight, killing many of his followers, and taking five thousand prisoners. This did more damage to the cause of Demetrius than anything else; for Pyrrhus was not so much disliked for the harm which he had done them, as he was admired for his personal prowess. His fame became great in Macedonia after this battle, and many Macedonians were heard to say that he alone, of all the princes of the time, revived the image of Alexander's daring courage, while the rest, and especially Demetrius, only imitated his demeanour by their theatrical pomp and trappings of royalty. Indeed, Demetrius gave himself the most extravagant airs, wearing magnificent purple robes and hats with a double crown, and even wore shoes of purple felt embroidered with gold. There was a cloak which was for a long time being embroidered for his use, a most extravagantly showy piece of work, upon which was depicted a figure of the world and of the heavenly bodies. This cloak was left unfinished when Demetrius lost his crown, and none of his successors on the throne of Macedonia ever presumed to wear it, although some of them were very ostentatious princes.

XLII. The spectacle of this unusual pomp irritated the Macedonians, who were not accustomed to see their kings thus attired, while the luxury and extravagance of Demetrius's mode of life also gave offence to them. They were especially enraged at his haughty reserve, and the difficulty of obtaining access to him; for he either refused to grant an interview, or else treated those who were admitted to his presence with harshness and insolence. He kept an embassy of the Athenians, whom he respected beyond all other Greeks, waiting for two years for an audience; and when one ambassador arrived from Lacedæmon, he construed it as a mark of disrespect, and was angry. But when Demetrius said to the ambassador:--"What is this that you tell me? the Lacedæmonians have sent one ambassador!" "Yes," answered he cleverly and laconically, "one ambassador to one king."

One day when Demetrius came out of his palace he appeared to be in a more affable humour than usual, and willing to converse with his subjects. Upon this, many persons ran to present him with written statements of their grievances. As he received them all and placed them in the folds of his cloak, the petitioners were greatly delighted, and accompanied him; but when he came to the bridge over the Axius, he emptied them all out of his cloak into the river. This conduct greatly exasperated the Macedonians, who declared that they were insulted instead of being governed by him, and who remembered or were told by older men how gentle and easy of access Philip was always wont to be.

Once an old woman met him when he was walking, and begged repeatedly for a hearing. When he replied that he had no leisure to attend to her, she loudly cried out, "Then be king no more." Stung by this taunt he returned to his palace, and gave audiences to all who wished it, beginning with the old woman, and so continued for many days. Indeed nothing becomes a king so much as to do justice to his subjects. As Timotheus the poet has it, Ares is a despot, but Pindar tells us that law is lord of all. Homer also says that kings have been entrusted by Zeus, not with City-takers or brazen-bound ships, but with justice, which they must keep and respect; and that Zeus does not love the most warlike or the most unjust of kings, but the most righteous, and calls him his friend and disciple. Demetrius however rejoiced in being called by a name most unlike that of the Lord of Heaven, for his title is "The Preserver of Cities," while Demetrius was known as "The Besieger." Thus through the worship of mere brute force, the bad gradually overcame the good side of his character, and his fame became sullied by the unworthy acts with which it was associated.

XLIII. While Demetrius lay dangerously ill at Pella, he very nearly lost his kingdom, as Pyrrhus invaded the country and briskly overran it as far as Edessa. However, on his recovery, Demetrius easily drove Pyrrhus out of Macedonia, and then made terms with him, because he did not wish to be entangled in a border warfare, which would interfere with the realisation of his more important projects. He meditated a colossal enterprise indeed, nothing less than the recovery of the whole of his father's empire. His preparations were on a commensurate scale, for he had collected a force of ninety-eight thousand foot soldiers and nearly twelve thousand horse, while at Peiræus, Corinth, Chalkis, and the ports near Pella he was engaged in the construction of a fleet of five hundred ships. He himself personally superintended the works, visiting each dockyard and giving directions to the artificers; and all men were astounded not only at the number, but at the size of the vessels which were being built. Before his time no one had ever seen a ship of fifteen or sixteen banks of oars, although in later times Ptolemy Philopator built a ship of forty banks of oars, which measured two hundred and eighty cubits in length, and forty-eight cubits in height. This ship was navigated by four hundred sailors, four thousand rowers, and, besides all these, had room upon its decks for nearly three thousand soldiers. But this ship was merely for show, and differed little from a fixed building, being totally useless, and only moved with great risk and labour; whereas the beauty of the ships of Demetrius did not render them less serviceable, nor was their equipment so elaborate as to interfere with their use, but they were no less admirable for speed and strength as for greatness of size.