Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
was Antipater's daughter, and had been the wife of Craterus, the
one of all the successors of Alexander who left behind him the
strongest feelings of attachment among the Macedonians. And for
these reasons Antigonus had obliged him to marry her,
notwithstanding the disparity of their years, Demetrius being
quite a youth, and she much older; and when upon that account he
made some difficulty in complying, Antigonus whispered in his
ear the maxim from Euripides, broadly substituting a new word
for the original, serve, --
Natural or not,
A man must wed where profit will be got.
Any respect, however, which he showed either to Phila or to his
other wives did not go so far as to prevent him from consorting
with any number of mistresses, and bearing, in this respect,
the worst character of all the princes of his time.
A summons now arrived from his father, ordering him to go and
fight with Ptolemy in Cyprus, which he was obliged to obey,
sorry as he was to abandon Greece. And in quitting this nobler
and more glorious enterprise, he sent to Cleonides, Ptolemy's
general, who was holding garrisons in Sicyon and Corinth,
offering him money to let the cities be independent. But on his
refusal, he set sail hastily, taking additional forces with him,
and made for Cyprus; where, immediately upon his arrival, he
fell upon Menelaus, the brother of Ptolemy, and gave him a
defeat. But when Ptolemy himself came in person, with large
forces both on land and sea, for some little time nothing took
place beyond an interchange of menaces and lofty talk. Ptolemy
bade Demetrius sail off before the whole armament came up, if he
did not wish to be trampled under foot; and Demetrius offered to
let him retire, on condition of his withdrawing his garrisons
from Sicyon and Corinth. And not they alone, but all the other
potentates and princes of the time, were in anxiety for the
uncertain impending issue of the conflict; as it seemed evident,
that the conqueror's prize would be, not Cyprus or Syria, but
the absolute supremacy.
Ptolemy had brought a hundred and fifty galleys with him, and
gave orders to Menelaus to sally, in the heat of the battle, out
of the harbor of Salamis, and attack with sixty ships the rear
of Demetrius. Demetrius, however, opposing to these sixty ten
of his galleys, which were a sufficient number to block up the
narrow entrance of the harbor, and drawing out his land forces
along all the headlands running out into the sea, went into
action with a hundred and eighty galleys, and, attacking with
the utmost boldness and impetuosity, utterly routed Ptolemy, who
fled with eight ships, the sole remnant of his fleet, seventy
having been taken with all their men, and the rest destroyed in
the battle; while the whole multitude of attendants, friends,
and women, that had followed in the ships of burden, all the
arms, treasure, and military engines fell, without exception,
into the hands of Demetrius, and were by him collected and
brought into the camp. Among the prisoners was the celebrated
Lamia, famed at one time for her skill on the flute, and
afterwards renowned as a mistress. And although now upon the
wane of her youthful beauty, and though Demetrius was much her
junior, she exercised over him so great a charm, that all other
women seemed to be amorous of Demetrius, but Demetrius amorous
only of Lamia. After this signal victory, Demetrius came before
Salamis; and Menelaus, unable to make any resistance,
surrendered himself and all his fleet, twelve hundred horse, and
twelve thousand foot, together with the place. But that which
added more than all to the glory and splendor of the success was
the humane and generous conduct of Demetrius to the vanquished.
For, after he had given honorable funerals to the dead, he
bestowed liberty upon the living; and that he might not forget
the Athenians, he sent them, as a present, complete arms for
twelve hundred men.
To carry this happy news, Aristodemus of Miletus, the most
perfect flatterer belonging to the court, was dispatched to
Antigonus; and he, to enhance the welcome message, was resolved,
it would appear, to make his most successful effort. When he
crossed from Cyprus, he bade the galley which conveyed him come
to anchor off the land; and, having ordered all the ship's crew
to remain aboard, he took the boat, and was set ashore alone.
Thus he proceeded to Antigonus, who, one may well imagine, was
in suspense enough about the issue, and suffered all the
anxieties natural to men engaged in so perilous a struggle. And
when he heard that Aristodemus was coming alone, it put him into
yet greater trouble; he could scarcely forbear from going out to
meet him himself; he sent messenger on messenger, and friend
after friend, to inquire what news. But Aristodemus, walking
gravely and with a settled countenance, without making any
answer, still proceeded quietly onward; until Antigonus, quite
alarmed and no longer able to refrain, got up and met him at the
gate, whither he came with a crowd of anxious followers now
collected and running after him. As soon as he saw Antigonus
within hearing, stretching out his hands, he accosted him with
the loud exclamation, "Hail, king Antigonus! we have defeated
Ptolemy by sea, and have taken Cyprus and sixteen thousand eight
hundred prisoners." "Welcome, Aristodemus," replied Antigonus,
"but, as you chose to torture us so long for your good news, you
may wait awhile for the reward of it."
Upon this the people around gave Antigonus and Demetrius, for
the first time, the title of kings. His friends at once set a
diadem on the head of Antigonus; and he sent one presently to
his son, with a letter addressed to him as King Demetrius. And
when this news was told in Egypt, that they might not seem to be
dejected with the late defeat, Ptolemy's followers also took
occasion to bestow the style of king upon him; and the rest of
the successors of Alexander were quick to follow the example.
Lysimachus began to wear the diadem; and Seleucus, who had
before received the name in all addresses from the barbarians,
now also took it upon him in all business with the Greeks.
Cassander still retained his usual superscription in his
letters, but others, both in writing and speaking, gave him the
royal title. Nor was this the mere accession of a name, or
introduction of a new fashion. The men's own sentiments about
themselves were disturbed, and their feelings elevated; a spirit
of pomp and arrogance passed into their habits of life and
conversation, as a tragic actor on the stage modifies, with a
change of dress, his step, his voice, his motions in sitting
down, his manner in addressing another. The punishments they
inflicted were more violent after they had thus laid aside that
modest style under which they formerly dissembled their power,
and the influence of which had often made them gentler and less
exacting to their subjects. A single pattering voice effected a
revolution in the world.
Antigonus, extremely elevated with the success of his arms in
Cyprus under the conduct of Demetrius, resolved to push on his
good fortune, and to lead his forces in person against Ptolemy
by land, whilst Demetrius should coast with a great fleet along
the shore, to assist him by sea. The issue of the contest was
intimated in a dream which Medius, a friend to Antigonus, had at
this time in his sleep. He thought he saw Antigonus and his
whole army running, as if it had been a race; that, in the first
part of the course, he went off showing great strength and
speed; gradually, however, his pace slackened; and at the end he
saw him come lagging up, tired and almost breathless and quite
spent. Antigonus himself met with many difficulties by land;
and Demetrius, encountering a great storm at sea, was driven,
with the loss of many or his ships, upon a dangerous coast
without a harbor. So the expedition returned without effecting
anything. Antigonus, now nearly eighty years old, was no
longer well able to go through the fatigues of a marching
campaign, though rather on account of his great size and
corpulence than from loss of strength; and for this reason he
left things to his son, whose fortune and experience appeared
sufficient for all undertakings, and whose luxury and expense
and revelry gave him no concern. For though in peace he vented
himself in his pleasures, and, when there was nothing to do, ran
headlong into any excesses, in war he was as sober and
abstemious as the most temperate character. The story is told,
that once, after Lamia had gained open supremacy over him, the
old man, when Demetrius coming home from abroad began to kiss
him with unusual warmth, asked him if he took him for Lamia. At
another time, Demetrius, after spending several days in a
debauch, excused himself for his absence, by saying he had had a
violent flux. "So I heard," replied Antigonus; "was it of
Thasian wine, or Chian?" Once he was told his son was ill, and
went to see him. At the door he met some young beauty. Going
in, he sat down by the bed and took his pulse. "The fever,"
said Demetrius, "has just left me." "O yes," replied the
father, "I met it going out at the door." Demetrius's great
actions made Antigonus treat him thus easily. The Scythians in
their drinking-bouts twang their bows, to keep their courage
awake amidst the dreams of indulgence; but he would resign his
whole being, now, to pleasure, and now to action; and though he
never let thoughts of the one intrude upon the pursuit of the
other, yet, when the time came for preparing for war, he showed
as much capacity as any man.
And indeed his ability displayed itself even more in preparing
for, than in conducting a war. He thought he could never be too
well supplied for every possible occasion, and took a pleasure,
not to be satiated, in great improvements in ship-building and
machines. He did not waste his natural genius and power of
mechanical research on toys and idle fancies, turning, painting,
and playing on the flute, like some kings, Aeropus, for example,
king of Macedon, who spent his days in making small lamps and
tables; or Attalus Philometor, whose amusement was to cultivate
poisons, henbane and hellebore, and even hemlock, aconite, and
dorycnium, which he used to sow himself in the royal gardens,
and made it his business to gather the fruits and collect the
juices in their season. The Parthian kings took a pride in
whetting and sharpening with their own hands the points of their
arrows and javelins. But when Demetrius played the workman, it
was like a king, and there was magnificence in his handicraft.
The articles he produced bore marks upon the face of them not of
ingenuity only, but of a great mind and a lofty purpose. They
were such as a king might not only design and pay for, but use
his own hands to make; and while friends might be terrified with
their greatness, enemies could be charmed with their beauty; a
phrase which is not so pretty to the ear as it is true to the
fact. The very people against whom they were to be employed
could not forbear running to gaze with admiration upon his
galleys of five and six ranges of oars, as they passed along
their coasts; and the inhabitants of besieged cities came on
their walls to see the spectacle of his famous City-takers.
Even Lysimachus, of all the kings of his time the greatest enemy
of Demetrius, coming to raise the siege of Soli in Cilicia, sent
first to desire permission to see his galleys and engines, and,
having had his curiosity gratified by a view of them, expressed
his admiration and quitted the place. The Rhodians, also, whom
he long besieged, begged him, when they concluded a peace, to
let them have some of his engines, which they might preserve as