Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Ptolemy had dismissed his mother and children, bestowing upon
them presents and honors; and also that his daughter Stratonice,
whom he had married to Seleucus, was remarried to Antiochus, the
son of Seleucus, and proclaimed queen of Upper Asia.
For Antiochus, it appears, had fallen passionately in love with
Stratonice, the young queen, who had already made Seleucus the
father of a son. He struggled very hard with the beginnings of
this passion, and at last, resolving with himself that his
desires were wholly unlawful, his malady past all cure, and his
powers of reason too feeble to act, he determined on death, and
thought to bring his life slowly to extinction by neglecting his
person and refusing nourishment, under the pretense of being
ill. Erasistratus, the physician who attended him, quickly
perceived that love was his distemper, but the difficulty was to
discover the object. He therefore waited continually in his
chamber, and when any of the beauties of the court made their
visits to the sick prince, he observed the emotions and
alterations in the countenance of Antiochus, and watched for the
changes which he knew to be indicative of the inward passions
and inclinations of the soul. He took notice that the presence
of other women produced no effect upon him; but when Stratonice
came, as she often did, alone, or in company with Seleucus, to
see him, he observed in him all Sappho's famous symptoms, his
voice faltered, his face flushed up, his eyes glanced
stealthily, a sudden sweat broke out on his skin, the beatings
of his heart were irregular and violent, and, unable to support
the excess of his passion, he would sink into a state of
faintness, prostration, and pallor.
Erasistratus, reasoning upon these symptoms, and, upon the
probability of things, considering that the king's son would
hardly, if the object of his passion had been any other, have
persisted to death rather than reveal it, felt, however, the
difficulty of making a discovery of this nature to Seleucus.
But, trusting to the tenderness of Seleucus for the young man,
he put on all the assurance he could, and at last, on some
opportunity, spoke out, and told him the malady was love, a love
impossible to gratify or relieve. The king was extremely
surprised, and asked, "Why impossible to relieve?" "The fact
is," replied Erasistratus, "he is in love with my wife."
"How!" said Seleucus, "and will our friend Erasistratus refuse to
bestow his wife upon my son and only successor, when there is no
other way to save his life?" "You," replied Erasistratus, "who
are his father, would not do so, if he were in love with
Stratonice." "Ah, my friend," answered Seleucus, "would to
heaven any means, human or divine, could but convert his present
passion to that; it would be well for me to part not only with
Stratonice, but with my empire, to save Antiochus." This he
said with the greatest passion, shedding tears as he spoke; upon
which Erasistratus, taking him by the hand, replied, "In that
case, you have no need of Erasistratus; for you, who are the
husband, the father, and the king, are the proper physician for
your own family." Seleucus, accordingly, summoning a general
assembly of his people, declared to them, that he had resolved
to make Antiochus king, and Stratonice queen, of all the
provinces of Upper Asia, uniting them in marriage; telling them,
that he thought he had sufficient power over the prince's will,
that he should find in him no repugnance to obey his commands;
and for Stratonice, he hoped all his friends would endeavor to
make her sensible, if she should manifest any reluctance to such
a marriage, that she ought to esteem those things just and
honorable which had been determined upon by the king as
necessary to the general good. In this manner, we are told, was
brought about the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonice.
To return to the affairs of Demetrius. Having obtained the
crown of Macedon, he presently became master of Thessaly also.
And, holding the greatest part of Peloponnesus, and, on this
side the Isthmus, the cities of Megara and Athens, he now turned
his arms against the Boeotians. They at first made overtures
for an accommodation; but Cleonymus of Sparta having ventured
with some troops to their assistance, and having made his way
into Thebes, and Pisis, the Thespian, who was their first man in
power and reputation, animating them to make a brave resistance,
they broke off the treaty. No sooner, however, had Demetrius
begun to approach the walls with his engines, but Cleonymus in
affright secretly withdrew; and the Boeotians, finding
themselves abandoned, made their submission. Demetrius placed a
garrison in charge of their towns, and, having raised a large
sum of money from them, he placed Hieronymus, the historian, in
the office of governor and military commander over them, and was
thought on the whole to have shown great clemency, more
particularly to Pisis, to whom he did no hurt, but spoke with
him courteously and kindly, and made him chief magistrate of
Thespiae. Not long after, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by
Dromichaetes, and Demetrius went off instantly in the hopes of
possessing himself of Thrace, thus left without a king. Upon
this, the Boeotians revolted again, and news also came that
Lysimachus had regained his liberty. So Demetrius, turning back
quickly and in anger, found on coming up that his son Antigonus
had already defeated the Boeotians in battle, and therefore
proceeded to lay siege again to Thebes.
But, understanding that Pyrrhus had made an incursion into
Thessaly, and that he was advanced as far as Thermopylae,
leaving Antigonus to continue the siege, he marched with the
rest of his army to oppose this enemy. Pyrrhus, however, made a
quick retreat. So, leaving ten thousand foot and a thousand
horse for the protection of Thessaly, he returned to the siege
of Thebes, and there brought up his famous City-taker to the
attack, which, however, was so laboriously and so slowly moved
on account of its bulk and heaviness, that in two months it did
not advance two furlongs. In the meantime the citizens made a
stout defense, and Demetrius, out of heat and contentiousness
very often, more than upon any necessity, sent his soldiers into
danger; until at last Antigonus, observing how many men were
losing their lives, said to him, "Why, my father, do we go on
letting the men be wasted in this way, without any need of it?"
But Demetrius, in a great passion, interrupted him: "And you,
good sir, why do you afflict yourself for the matter? will dead
men come to you for rations?" But that the soldiers might see
he valued his own life at no dearer rate than theirs, he exposed
himself freely, and was wounded with a javelin through his neck,
which put him into great hazard of his life. But,
notwithstanding, he continued the siege, and in conclusion took
the town again. And after his entrance, when the citizens were
in fear and trembling, and expected all the severities which an
incensed conqueror could indict, he only put to death thirteen,
and banished some few others, pardoning all the rest. Thus the
city of Thebes, which had not yet been ten years restored, in
that short space was twice besieged and taken.
Shortly after, the festival of the Pythian Apollo was to be
celebrated, and the Aetolians having blocked up all the passages
to Delphi, Demetrius held the games and celebrated the feast at
Athens, alleging it was great reason those honors should be paid
in that place, Apollo being the paternal god of the Athenian
people, and the reputed first founder of their race.
From thence Demetrius returned to Macedon, and as he not only
was of a restless temper himself, but saw also that the
Macedonians were ever the best subjects when employed in
military expeditions, but turbulent and desirous of change in
the idleness of peace, he led them against the Aetolians, and,
having wasted their country, he left Pantauchus with a great
part of his army to complete the conquest, and with the rest he
marched in person to find out Pyrrhus, who in like manner was
advancing to encounter him. But so it fell out, that by taking
different ways the two armies did not meet; but whilst Demetrius
entered Epirus, and laid all waste before him, Pyrrhus fell upon
Pantauchus, and, in a battle in which the two commanders met in
person and wounded each other, he gained the victory, and took
five thousand prisoners, besides great numbers slain on the
field. The worst thing, however, for Demetrius was that Pyrrhus
had excited less animosity as an enemy than admiration as a
brave man. His taking so large a part with his own hand in the
battle had gained him the greatest name and glory among the
Macedonians. Many among them began to say that this was the
only king in whom there was any likeness to be seen of the great
Alexander's courage; the other kings, and particularly
Demetrius, did nothing but personate him, like actors on a
stage, in his pomp and outward majesty. And Demetrius truly was
a perfect play and pageant, with his robes and diadems, his
gold-edged purple and his hats with double streamers, his very
shoes being of the richest purple felt, embroidered over in
gold. One robe in particular, a most superb piece of work, was
long in the loom in preparation for him, in which was to be
wrought the representation of the universe and the celestial
bodies. This, left unfinished when his reverses overtook him,
not any one of the kings of Macedon, his successors, though
divers of them haughty enough, ever presumed to use.
But it was not this theatric pomp alone which disgusted the
Macedonians, but his profuse and luxurious way of living; and,
above all, the difficulty of speaking with him or of obtaining
access to his presence. For either he would not be seen at all,
or, if he did give audience, he was violent and overbearing.
Thus he made the envoys of the Athenians, to whom yet he was
more attentive than to all the other Grecians, wait two whole
years before they could obtain a hearing. And when the
Lacedaemonians sent a single person on an embassy to him, he
held himself insulted, and asked angrily whether it was the fact
that the Lacedaemonians had sent but one ambassador. "Yes," was
the happy reply he received, "one ambassador to one king."
Once when in some apparent fit of a more popular and acceptable
temper he was riding abroad, a number of people came up and
presented their written petitions. He courteously received all
these, and put them up in the skirt of his cloak, while the poor
people were overjoyed, and followed him close. But when he came
upon the bridge of the river Axius, shaking out his cloak, he
threw all into the river. This excited very bitter resentment
among the Macedonians, who felt themselves to be not governed,
but insulted. They called to mind what some of them had seen,
and others had heard related of King Philip's unambitious and
open, accessible manners. One day when an old woman had
assailed him several times in the road and importuned him to
hear her, after he had told her he had no time, "If so," cried
she, "you have no time to be a king." And this reprimand so
stung the king that after thinking of it a while he went back
into the house, and, setting all other matters apart, for
several days together he did nothing else but receive, beginning
with the old woman, the complaints of all that would come. And
to do justice, truly enough, might well be called a king's first
business. "Mars," as says Timotheus, "is the tyrant;" but Law,
in Pindar's words, the king of all. Homer does not say that
kings received at the hands of Jove besieging engines or ships
of war, but sentences of justice, to keep and observe; nor is it