Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
the most warlike, unjust, and murderous, but the most righteous
of kings, that has from him the name of Jupiter's "familiar
friend" and scholar. Demetrius's delight was the title most
unlike the choices of the king of gods. The divine names were
those of the Defender and Keeper, his was that of the Besieger
of Cities. The place of virtue was given by him to that which,
had he not been as ignorant as he was powerful, he would have
known to be vice, and honor by his act was associated with
crime. While he lay dangerously ill at Pella, Pyrrhus pretty
nearly overran all Macedon, and advanced as far as the city of
Edessa. On recovering his health, he quickly drove him out, and
came to terms with him, being desirous not to employ his time in
a string of petty local conflicts with a neighbor, when all his
thoughts were fixed upon another design. This was no less than
to endeavor the recovery of the whole empire which his father
had possessed; and his preparations were suitable to his hopes,
and the greatness of the enterprise. He had arranged for the
levying of ninety-eight thousand foot, and nearly twelve
thousand horse; and he had a fleet of five hundred galleys on
the stocks, some building at Athens, others at Corinth and
Chalcis, and in the neighborhood of Pella. And he himself was
passing evermore from one to another of these places, to give
his directions and his assistance to the plans, while all that
saw were amazed, not so much at the number, as at the magnitude
of the works. Hitherto, there had never been seen a galley with
fifteen or sixteen ranges of oars. At a later time, Ptolemy
Philopator built one of forty rows, which was two hundred and
eighty cubits in length, and the height of her to the top of her
stern forty eight cubits; she had four hundred sailors and four
thousand rowers, and afforded room besides for very near three
thousand soldiers to fight on her decks. But this, after all,
was for show, and not for service, scarcely differing from a
fixed edifice ashore, and was not to be moved without extreme
toil and peril; whereas these galleys of Demetrius were meant
quite as much for fighting as for looking at, were not the less
serviceable for their magnificence, and were as wonderful for
their speed and general performance as for their size.
These mighty preparations against Asia, the like of which had
not been made since Alexander first invaded it, united Seleucus,
Ptolemy, and Lysimachus in a confederacy for their defense.
They also dispatched ambassadors to Pyrrhus, to persuade him to
make a diversion by attacking Macedonia; he need not think there
was any validity in a treaty which Demetrius had concluded, not
as an engagement to be at peace with him, but as a means for
enabling himself to make war first upon the enemy of his choice.
So when Pyrrhus accepted their proposals, Demetrius, still in
the midst of his preparations, was encompassed with war on all
sides. Ptolemy, with a mighty navy, invaded Greece; Lysimachus
entered Macedonia upon the side of Thrace, and Pyrrhus, from the
Epirot border, both of them spoiling and wasting the country.
Demetrius, leaving his son to look after Greece, marched to the
relief of Macedon, and first of all to oppose Lysimachus. On
his way, he received the news that Pyrrhus had taken the city
Beroea; and the report quickly getting out among the soldiers,
all discipline at once was lost, and the camp was filled with
lamentations and tears, anger and execrations on Demetrius; they
would stay no longer, they would march off, as they said, to
take care of their country, friends, and families; but in
reality the intention was to revolt to Lysimachus. Demetrius,
therefore, thought it his business to keep them as far away as
he could from Lysimachus, who was their own countryman, and for
Alexander's sake kindly looked upon by many; they would be ready
to fight with Pyrrhus, a new-comer and a foreigner, whom they
could hardly prefer to himself. But he found himself under a
great mistake in these conjectures. For when he advanced and
pitched his camp near, the old admiration for Pyrrhus's
gallantry in arms revived again; and as they had been used from
time immemorial to suppose that the best king was he that was
the bravest soldier, so now they were also told of his generous
usage of his prisoners, and, in short, they were eager to have
anyone in the place of Demetrius, and well pleased that the man
should be Pyrrhus. At first, some straggling parties only
deserted, but in a little time the whole army broke out into an
universal mutiny, insomuch that at last some of them went up,
and told him openly that if he consulted his own safety he were
best to make haste to be gone, for that the Macedonians were
resolved no longer to hazard their lives for the satisfaction of
his luxury and pleasure. And this was thought fair and moderate
language, compared with the fierceness of the rest. So,
withdrawing into his tent, and, like an actor rather than a real
king, laying aside his stage-robes of royalty, he put on some
common clothes and stole away. He was no sooner gone but the
mutinous army were fighting and quarreling for the plunder of
his tent, but Pyrrhus, coming immediately, took possession of
the camp without a blow, after which he, with Lysimachus, parted
the realm of Macedon betwixt them, after Demetrius had securely
held it just seven years.
As for Demetrius, being thus suddenly despoiled of everything,
he retired to Cassandrea. His wife Phila, in the passion of her
grief, could not endure to see her hapless husband reduced to
the condition of a private and banished man. She refused to
entertain any further hope, and, resolving to quit a fortune
which was never permanent except for calamity, took poison and
died. Demetrius, determining still to hold on by the wreck,
went off to Greece, and collected his friends and officers
there. Menelaus, in the play of Sophocles, to give an image of
his vicissitudes of estate, says, --
For me, my destiny, alas, is found
Whirling upon the gods' swift wheel around,
And changing still, and as the moon's fair frame
Cannot continue for two nights the same,
But out of shadow first a crescent shows,
Thence into beauty and perfection grows,
And when the form of plenitude it wears,
Dwindles again, and wholly disappears.
The simile is yet truer of Demetrius and the phases of his
fortunes, now on the increase, presently on the wane, now
filling up and now falling away. And so, at this time of
apparent entire obscuration and extinction, his light again
shone out, and accessions of strength, little by little, came in
to fulfill once more the measure of his hope. At first he
showed himself in the garb of a private man, and went about the
cities without any of the badges of a king. One who saw him
thus at Thebes applied to him not inaptly, the lines of
Euripides,
Humbled to man, laid by the godhead's pride,
He comes to Dirce and Ismenus' side.
But erelong his expectations had reentered the royal track, and
he began once more to have about him the body and form of
empire. The Thebans received back, as his gift, their ancient
constitution. The Athenians had deserted him. They displaced
Diphilus, who was that year the priest of the two Tutelar
Deities, and restored the archons, as of old, to mark the year;
and on hearing that Demetrius was not so weak as they had
expected, they sent into Macedonia to beg the protection of
Pyrrhus. Demetrius, in anger, marched to Athens, and laid close
siege to the city. In this distress, they sent out to him
Crates the philosopher, a person of authority and reputation,
who succeeded so far, that what with his entreaties and the
solid reasons which he offered, Demetrius was persuaded to raise
the siege; and, collecting all his ships, he embarked a force of
eleven thousand men with cavalry, and sailed away to Asia, to
Caria and Lydia, to take those provinces from Lysimachus.
Arriving at Miletus, he was met there by Eurydice, the sister of
Phila, who brought along with her Ptolemais, one of her
daughters by king Ptolemy, who had before been affianced to
Demetrius, and with whom he now consummated his marriage.
Immediately after, he proceeded to carry out his project, and
was so fortunate in the beginning, that many cities revolted to
him; others, as particularly Sardis, he took by force; and some
generals of Lysimachus, also, came over to him with troops and
money. But when Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus, arrived with
an army, he retreated into Phrygia, with an intention to pass
into Armenia, believing that, if he could once plant his foot in
Armenia, he might set Media in revolt, and gain a position in
Upper Asia, where a fugitive commander might find a hundred ways
of evasion and escape. Agathocles pressed hard upon him, and
many skirmishes and conflicts occurred, in which Demetrius had
still the advantage; but Agathocles straitened him much in his
forage, and his men showed a great dislike to his purpose, which
they suspected, of carrying them far away into Armenia and
Media. Famine also pressed upon them, and some mistake occurred
in their passage of the river Lycus, in consequence of which a
large number were swept away and drowned. Still, however, they
could pass their jests, and one of them fixed upon Demetrius's
tent-door a paper with the first verse, slightly altered of the
Oedipus; --
Child of the blind old man, Antigonus,
Into what country are you bringing us?
But at last, pestilence, as is usual, when armies are driven to
such necessities as to subsist upon any food they can get, began
to assail them as well as famine. So that, having lost eight
thousand of his men, with the rest he retreated and came to
Tarsus, and because that city was within the dominions of
Seleucus, he was anxious to prevent any plundering, and wished
to give no sort of offense to Seleucus. But when he perceived
it was impossible to restrain the soldiers in their extreme
necessity, Agathocles also having blocked up all the avenues of
Mount Taurus, he wrote a letter to Seleucus, bewailing first all
his own sad fortunes, and proceeding with entreaties and
supplications for some compassion on his part towards one
nearly connected with him, who was fallen into such calamities
as might extort tenderness and
pity from his very enemies.
These letters so far moved Seleucus, that he gave orders to the
governors of those provinces that they should furnish Demetrius
with all things suitable to his royal rank, and with sufficient
provisions for his troops. But Patrocles, a person whose
judgment was greatly valued, and who was a friend highly trusted
by Seleucus, pointed out to him, that the expense of maintaining
such a body of soldiers was the least important consideration,
but that it was contrary to all policy to let Demetrius stay in
the country, since he, of all the kings of his time, was the
most violent, and most addicted to daring enterprises; and he
was now in a condition which might tempt persons of the greatest
temper and moderation to unlawful and desperate attempts.
Seleucus, excited by this advice, moved with a powerful army
towards Cilicia; and Demetrius, astonished at this sudden
alteration, betook himself for safety to the most inaccessible
places of Mount Taurus; from whence he sent envoys to Seleucus,
to request from him that he would permit him the liberty to
settle with his army somewhere among the independent barbarian
tribes, where he might be able to make himself a petty king, and
end his life without further travel and hardship; or, if he
refused him this, at any rate to give his troops food during the
winter, and not expose him in this distressed and naked
condition to the fury of his enemies.