Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Greece when they pleased. But Antigonus would not hear of it;
he did not want a better or a steadier gangway than people's
good-will; and from Athens, the beacon of the world, the news of
their conduct would soon be handed on to all the world's
inhabitants. So Demetrius, with a sum of five thousand talents,
and a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, set sail for Athens,
where Demetrius the Phalerian was governing the city for
Cassander, with a garrison lodged in the port of Munychia. By
good fortune and skillful management he appeared before Piraeus,
on the twenty-sixth of Thargelion, before anything had been
heard of him. Indeed, when his ships were seen, they were taken
for Ptolemy's, and preparations were commenced for receiving
them; till at last, the generals discovering their mistake,
hurried down, and all was alarm and confusion, and attempts to
push forward preparations to oppose the landing of this hostile
force. For Demetrius, having found the entrances of the port
undefended, stood in directly, and was by this time safely
inside, before the eyes of everybody, and made signals from his
ship, requesting a peaceable hearing. And on leave being given,
he caused a herald with a loud voice to make proclamation that
he was come thither by the command of his father, with no other
design than what he prayed the gods to prosper with success, to
give the Athenians their liberty, to expel the garrison, and to
restore the ancient laws and constitution of the country.
The people, hearing this, at once threw down their shields, and,
clapping their hands, with loud acclamations entreated Demetrius
to land, calling him their deliverer and benefactor. And the
Phalerian and his party, who saw that there was nothing for it
but to receive the conqueror, whether he should perform his
promises or not, sent, however, messengers to beg for his
protection; to whom Demetrius gave a kind reception, and sent
back with them Aristodemus of Miletus, one of his father's
friends. The Phalerian, under the change of government, was
more afraid of his fellow-citizens than of the enemy; but
Demetrius took precautions for him, and, out of respect for his
reputation and character, sent him with a safe conduct to
Thebes, whither he desired to go. For himself, he declared he
would not, in spite of all his curiosity, put his foot in the
city, till he had completed its deliverance by driving out the
garrison. So, blockading Munychia with a palisade and trench,
he sailed off to attack Megara, where also there was one of
Cassander's garrisons. But, hearing that Cratesipolis, the wife
of Alexander son of Polysperchon, who was famous for her beauty,
was well disposed to see him, he left his troops near Megara,
and set out with a few light-armed attendants for Patrae, where
she was now staying. And, quitting these also, he pitched his
tent apart from everybody, that the woman might pay her visit
without being seen. This some of the enemy perceived, and
suddenly attacked him; and, in his alarm, he was obliged to
disguise himself in a shabby cloak, and run for it, narrowly
escaping the shame of being made a prisoner, in reward for his
foolish passion. And as it was, his tent and money were taken.
Megara, however, surrendered, and would have been pillaged by
the soldiers, but for the urgent intercession of the Athenians.
The garrison was driven out, and the city restored to
independence. While he was occupied in this, he remembered that
Stilpo, the philosopher, famous for his choice of a life of
tranquillity, was residing here. He, therefore, sent for him,
and begged to know whether anything belonging to him had been
taken. "No," replied Stilpo, "I have not met with anyone to
take away knowledge." Pretty nearly all the servants in the
city had been stolen away; and so, when Demetrius, renewing his
courtesies to Stilpo, on taking leave of him, said, "I leave
your city, Stilpo, a city of freemen," "certainly," replied
Stilpo, "there is not one serving man left among us all."
Returning from Megara, he sat down before the citadel of
Munychia, which in a few days he took by assault, and caused the
fortifications to be demolished; and thus having accomplished
his design, upon the request and invitation of the Athenians he
made his entrance into the upper city, where, causing the people
to be summoned, he publicly announced to them that their ancient
constitution was restored, and that they should receive from his
father, Antigonus, a present of one hundred and fifty thousand
measures of wheat, and such a supply of timber as would enable
them to build a hundred galleys. In this manner did the
Athenians recover their popular institutions, after the space of
fifteen years from the time of the war of Lamia and the battle
before Cranon, during which interval of time the government had
been administered nominally as an oligarchy, but really by a
single man, Demetrius the Phalerian being so powerful. But the
excessive honors which the Athenians bestowed, for these noble
and generous acts, upon Demetrius, created offense and disgust.
The Athenians were the first who gave Antigonus and Demetrius
the title of kings, which hitherto they had made it a point of
piety to decline, as the one remaining royal honor still
reserved for the lineal descendants of Philip and Alexander, in
which none but they could venture to participate. Another name
which they received from no people but the Athenians was that of
the Tutelar Deities and Deliverers. And to enhance this
flattery, by a common vote it was decreed to change the style of
the city, and not to have the years named any longer from the
annual archon; a priest of the two Tutelary Divinities, who was
to be yearly chosen, was to have this honor, and all public acts
and instruments were to bear their date by his name. They
decreed, also, that the figures of Antigonus and Demetrius
should be woven, with those of the gods, into the pattern of the
great robe. They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first
alighted from his chariot, and built an altar there, with the
name of the Altar of the Descent of Demetrius. They created two
new tribes, calling them after the names of these princes, the
Antigonid and the Demetriad; and to the Council, which consisted
of five hundred persons, fifty being chosen out of every tribe,
they added one hundred more to represent these new tribes. But
the wildest proposal was one made by Stratocles, the great
inventor of all these ingenious and exquisite compliments,
enacting that the members of any deputation that the city should
send to Demetrius or Antigonus should have the same title as
those sent to Delphi or Olympia for the performance of the
national sacrifices in behalf of the state, at the great Greek
festivals. This Stratocles was, in all respects, an audacious
and abandoned character, and seemed to have made it his object
to copy, by his buffoonery and impertinence, Cleon's old
familiarity with the people. His mistress, Phylacion, one day
bringing him a dish of brains and neckbones for his dinner,
"Oh," said he, "I am to dine upon the things which we statesmen
play at ball with." At another time, when the Athenians
received their naval defeat near Amorgos, he hastened home
before the news could reach the city, and, having a chaplet on
his head, came riding through the Ceramicus, announcing that
they had won a victory, and moved a vote for thanksgivings to
the gods, and a distribution of meat among the people in their
tribes. Presently after came those who brought home the wrecks
from the battle; and when the people exclaimed at what he had
done, he came boldly to face the outcry, and asked what harm
there had been in giving them two days' pleasure.
Such was Stratocles. And, "adding flame to fire," as
Aristophanes says, there was one who, to outdo Stratocles,
proposed, that it should be decreed, that whensoever Demetrius
should honor their city with his presence, they should treat him
with the same show of hospitable entertainment, with which Ceres
and Bacchus are received; and the citizen who exceeded the rest
in the splendor and costliness of his reception should have a
sum of money granted him from the public purse to make a sacred
offering. Finally, they changed the name of the month of
Munychion, and called it Demetrion; they gave the name of the
Demetrian to the odd day between the end of the old and the
beginning of the new month; and turned the feast of Bacchus, the
Dionysia, into the Demetria, or feast of Demetrius. Most of
these changes were marked by the divine displeasure. The sacred
robe, in which, according to their decree, the figures of
Demetrius and Antigonus had been woven with those of Jupiter and
Minerva, was caught by a violent gust of wind, while the
procession was conveying it through the Ceramicus, and was torn
from the top to the bottom. A crop of hemlock, a plant which
scarcely grew anywhere, even in the country thereabout, sprang
up in abundance round the altars which they had erected to these
new divinities. They had to omit the solemn procession at the
feast of Bacchus, as upon the very day of its celebration there
was such a severe and rigorous frost, coming quite out of its
time, that not only the vines and fig-trees were killed, but
almost all the wheat was destroyed in the blade. Accordingly,
Philippides, an enemy to Stratocles, attacked him in a comedy,
in the following verses: --
He for whom frosts that nipped your vines were sent,
And for whose sins the holy robe was rent,
Who grants to men the gods' own honors, he,
Not the poor stage, is now the people's enemy.
Philippides was a great favorite with king Lysimachus, from whom
the Athenians received, for his sake, a variety of kindnesses.
Lysimachus went so far as to think it a happy omen to meet or
see Philippides at the outset of any enterprise or expedition.
And, in general, he was well thought of for his own character,
as a plain, uninterfering person, with none of the officious,
self-important habits of a court. Once, when Lysimachus was
solicitous to show him kindness, and asked what he had that he
could make him a present of, "Anything," replied Philippides,
"but your state secrets." The stage-player, we thought,
deserved a place in our narrative quite as well as the public
speaker.
But that which exceeded all the former follies and flatteries,
was the proposal of Dromoclides of Sphettus; who, when there was
a debate about sending to the Delphic Oracle to inquire the
proper course for the consecration of certain bucklers, moved in
the assembly that they should rather send to receive an oracle
from Demetrius. I will transcribe the very words of the order,
which was in these terms: "May it be happy and propitious. The
people of Athens have decreed, that a fit person shall be
chosen among the Athenian citizens, who shall be deputed to be
sent to the Deliverer; and after he hath duly performed the
sacrifices, shall inquire of the Deliverer, in what most
religious and decent manner he will please to direct, at the
earliest possible time, the consecration of the bucklers; and
according to the answer the people shall act." With this
befooling they completed the perversion of a mind which even
before was not so strong or sound as it should have been.
During his present leisure in Athens, he took to wife Eurydice,
a descendant of the ancient Miltiades, who had been married to
Opheltas, the ruler of Cyrene, and after his death had come back
to Athens. The Athenians took the marriage as a compliment and
favor to the city. But Demetrius was very free in these
matters, and was the husband of several wives at once; the
highest place and honor among all being retained by Phila, who