Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
received him in the ship of thirteen banks of oars. Meetings
for amusements, conferences, and long visits for general
intercourse succeeded, all without attendants or arms; until at
length Seleucus took his leave, and in great state conducted
Stratonice to Antioch. Demetrius meantime possessed himself of
Cilicia, and sent Phila to her brother Cassander, to answer the
complaints of Plistarchus. And here his wife Deidamia came by
sea out of Greece to meet him, but not long after contracted an
illness, of which she died. After her death, Demetrius, by the
mediation of Seleucus, became reconciled to Ptolemy, and an
agreement was made that he should marry his daughter Ptolemais.
Thus far all was handsomely done on the part of Seleucus. But,
shortly after, desiring to have the province of Cilicia from
Demetrius for a sum of money, and being refused it, he then
angrily demanded of him the cities of Tyre and Sidon, which
seemed a mere piece of arbitrary dealing, and, indeed, an
outrageous thing, that he, who was possessed of all the vast
provinces between India and the Syrian sea, should think himself
so poorly off as for the sake of two cities, which he coveted,
to disturb the peace of his near connection, already a sufferer
under a severe reverse of fortune. However, he did but justify
the saying of Plato, that the only certain way to be truly rich
is not to have more property, but fewer desires. For whoever is
always grasping at more avows that he is still in want, and must
be poor in the midst of affluence.
But Demetrius, whose courage did not sink, resolutely sent him
answer, that, though he were to lose ten thousand battles like
that of Ipsus, he would pay no price for the good-will of such a
son-in-law as Seleucus. He reinforced these cities with
sufficient garrisons to enable them to make a defense against
Seleucus; and, receiving information that Lachares, taking the
opportunity of their civil dissensions, had set up himself as an
usurper over the Athenians, he imagined that if he made a sudden
attempt upon the city, he might now without difficulty get
possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety, with a large
fleet; but, passing along the coast of Attica, was met by a
violent storm, and lost the greater number of his ships, and a
very considerable body of men on board of them. As for him, he
escaped, and began to make war in a petty manner with the
Athenians, but finding himself unable to effect his design, he
sent back orders for raising another fleet, and, with the troops
which he had, marched into Peloponnesus, and laid siege to the
city of Messena. In attacking which place, he was in danger of
death; for a missile from an engine struck him in the face, and
passed through the cheek into his mouth. He recovered, however,
and, as soon as he was in a condition to take the field, won
over divers cities which had revolted from him, and made an
incursion into Attica, where he took Eleusis and Rhamnus and
wasted the country thereabout. And that he might straighten the
Athenians by cutting off all manner of provision, a vessel laden
with corn bound thither falling into his hands, he ordered the
master and the supercargo to be immediately hanged, thereby to
strike a terror into others, that so they might not venture to
supply the city with provisions. By which means they were
reduced to such extremities, that a bushel of salt sold for
forty drachmas, and a peck of wheat for three hundred. Ptolemy
had sent to their relief a hundred and fifty galleys, which came
so near as to be seen off Aegina; but this brief hope was soon
extinguished by the arrival of three hundred ships, which came
to reinforce Demetrius from Cyprus, Peloponnesus, and other
places; upon which Ptolemy's fleet took to flight, and Lachares,
the tyrant, ran away, leaving the city to its fate.
And now the Athenians, who before had made it capital for any
person to propose a treaty or accommodation with Demetrius,
immediately opened the nearest gates to send ambassadors to him,
not so much out of hopes of obtaining any honorable conditions
from his clemency as out of necessity, to avoid death by famine.
For among many frightful instances of the distress they were
reduced to, it is said that a father and son were sitting in a
room together, having abandoned every hope, when a dead mouse
fell from the ceiling; and for this prize they leaped up and
came to blows. In this famine, it is also related, the
philosopher Epicurus saved his own life, and the lives of his
scholars, by a small quantity of beans, which he distributed to
them daily by number.
In this condition was the city when Demetrius made his entrance
and issued a proclamation that all the inhabitants should
assemble in the theater; which being done, he drew up his
soldiers at the back of the stage, occupied the stage itself
with his guards, and, presently coming in himself by the actor's
passages, when the people's consternation had risen to its
height, with his first words he put an end to it. Without any
harshness of tone or bitterness of words, he reprehended them in
a gentle and friendly way, and declared himself reconciled,
adding a present of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat, and
appointing as magistrates persons acceptable to the people. So
Dromoclides the orator, seeing the people at a loss how to
express their gratitude by any words or acclamations, and ready
for anything that would outdo the verbal encomiums of the
public speakers, came forward, and moved a decree for delivering
Piraeus and Munychia into the hands of king Demetrius. This was
passed accordingly, and Demetrius, of his own motion, added a
third garrison, which he placed in the Museum, as a precaution
against any new restiveness on the part of the people, which
might give him the trouble of quitting his other enterprises.
He had not long been master of Athens before he had formed
designs against Lacedaemon; of which Archidamus, the king, being
advertised, came out and met him, but he was overthrown in a
battle near Mantinea; after which Demetrius entered Laconia,
and, in a second battle near Sparta itself, defeated him again
with the loss of two hundred Lacedaemonians slain, and five
hundred taken prisoners. And now it was almost impossible for
the city, which hitherto had never been captured, to escape his
arms. But certainly there never was any king upon whom fortune
made such short turns, nor any other life or story so filled
with her swift and surprising changes, over and over again, from
small things to great, from splendor back to humiliation, and
from utter weakness once more to power and might. They say in
his sadder vicissitudes he used sometimes to apostrophize
fortune in the words of Aeschylus --
Thou liftest up, to cast us down again.
And so at this moment, when all things seemed to conspire
together to give him his heart's desire of dominion and power,
news arrived that Lysimachus had taken all his cities in Asia,
that Ptolemy had reduced all Cyprus with the exception of
Salamis, and that in Salamis his mother and children were shut
up and close besieged: and yet like the woman in Archilochus,
Water in one deceitful hand she shows,
While burning fire within her other glows.
The same fortune that drew him off with these disastrous tidings
from Sparta, in a moment after opened upon him a new and
wonderful prospect, of the following kind. Cassander, king of
Macedon, dying, and his eldest son, Philip, who succeeded him,
not long surviving his father, the two younger brothers fell at
variance concerning the succession. And Antipater having
murdered his mother Thessalonica, Alexander, the younger
brother, called in to his assistance Pyrrhus out of Epirus, and
Demetrius out of the Peloponnese. Pyrrhus arrived first, and,
taking in recompense for his succor a large slice of Macedonia,
had made Alexander begin to be aware that he had brought upon
himself a dangerous neighbor. And, that he might not run a yet
worse hazard from Demetrius, whose power and reputation were so
great, the young man hurried away to meet him at Dium, whither
he, who on receiving his letter had set out on his march, was
now come. And, offering his greetings and grateful
acknowledgments, he at the same time informed him that his
affairs no longer required the presence of his ally, and
thereupon he invited him to supper. There were not wanting some
feelings of suspicion on either side already; and when Demetrius
was now on his way to the banquet, someone came and told him
that in the midst of the drinking he would be killed. Demetrius
showed little concern, but, making only a little less haste, he
sent to the principal officers of his army, commanding them to
draw out the soldiers, and make them stand to their arms, and
ordered his retinue (more numerous a good deal than that of
Alexander) to attend him into the very room of the entertainment,
and not to stir from thence till they saw him rise from the table.
Thus Alexander's servants, finding themselves overpowered,
had not courage to attempt anything. And,
indeed, Demetrius gave them no opportunity, for he made a very
short visit, and, pretending to Alexander that he was not at
present in health for drinking wine, left early. And the next
day he occupied himself in preparations for departing, telling
Alexander he had received intelligence that obliged him to
leave, and begging him to excuse so sudden a parting; he would
hope to see him further when his affairs allowed him leisure.
Alexander was only too glad, not only that he was going, but
that he was doing so of his own motion, without any offense, and
proposed to accompany him into Thessaly. But when they came to
Larissa, new invitations passed between them, new professions of
good-will, covering new conspiracies; by which Alexander put
himself into the power of Demetrius. For as he did not like to
use precautions on his own part, for fear Demetrius should take
the hint to use them on his, the very thing he meant to do was
first done to him. He accepted an invitation, and came to
Demetrius's quarters; and when Demetrius, while they were still
supping, rose from the table and went forth, the young man rose
also, and followed him to the door, where Demetrius, as he
passed through, only said to the guards, "Kill him that follows
me," and went on; and Alexander was at once dispatched by them,
together with such of his friends as endeavored to come to his
rescue, one of whom, before he died, said, "You have been one
day too quick for us."
The night following was one, as may be supposed, of disorder and
confusion. And with the morning, the Macedonians, still in
alarm, and fearful of the forces of Demetrius, on finding no
violence offered, but only a message sent from Demetrius
desiring an interview and opportunity for explanation of his
actions, at last began to feel pretty confident again, and
prepared to receive him favorably. And when he came, there was
no need of much being said; their hatred of Antipater for his
murder of his mother, and the absence of anyone better to
govern them, soon decided them to proclaim Demetrius king of
Macedon. And into Macedonia they at once started and took him.
And the Macedonians at home, who had not forgotten or forgiven
the wicked deeds committed by Cassander on the family of
Alexander, were far from sorry at the change. Any kind
recollections that still might subsist, of the plain and simple
rule of the first Antipater, went also to the benefit of
Demetrius, whose wife was Phila, his daughter, and his son by
her, a boy already old enough to be serving in the army with his
father, was the natural successor to the government.
To add to this unexpected good fortune, news arrived that