Chapter XCVI (3)

[880] Plutarch, Vit. X. Oratt. p. 842-852. Lykurgus at his death
(about 324 B. C.) left three sons, who are said, shortly
after his death, to have been prosecuted by Menesæchmus, and
put in prison (“handed over to the Eleven”). But Thrasykles,
supported by Demokles, stood forward on their behalf; and
Demosthenes, then in banishment at Trœzen, wrote emphatic
remonstrances to the Athenians against such unworthy treatment of
the sons of a distinguished patriot. Accordingly the Athenians
soon repented and released them.

This is what we find stated in Plutarch, Vit. X. Oratt. p. 842.
The third of the so-called Demosthenic Epistles purports to be
the letter written on this subject by Demosthenes.

The harsh treatment of the sons of Lykurgus (whatever it may have
amounted to, and whatever may have been its ground) certainly did
not last long; for in the next page of the very same Plutarchian
life (p. 843), an account is given of the family of Lykurgus,
which was ancient and sacerdotal; and it is there stated that his
sons after his death fully sustained the dignified position of
the family.

On what ground they were accused, we cannot make out. According
to the Demosthenic epistle (which epistles I have before stated
that I do not believe to be authentic), it was upon some
allegation, which, if valid at all, ought to have been urged
against Lykurgus himself during his life (p. 1477, 1478); but
Lykurgus had been always honorably acquitted, and always held
thoroughly estimable, up to the day of his death (p. 1475).

The friendship of this obnoxious Phalerean, and of Kassander also, towards the philosopher Theophrastus, seems to have been one main cause which occasioned the enactment of a restrictive law against the liberty of philosophizing. It was decreed, on the proposition of a citizen named Sophokles, that no philosopher should be allowed to open a school or teach, except under special sanction obtained from a vote of the Senate and people. Such was the disgust and apprehension occasioned by the new restriction, that all the philosophers with one accord left Athens. This spirited protest, against authoritative restriction on the liberty of philosophy and teaching, found responsive sympathy among the Athenians. The celebrity of the schools and professors was in fact the only characteristic mark of dignity still remaining to them—when their power had become extinct, and when even their independence and free constitution had degenerated into a mere name. It was moreover the great temptation for young men, coming from all parts of Greece, to visit Athens. Accordingly, a year had hardly passed, when Philon, impeaching Sophokles the author of the law, under the Graphê Paranomôn, prevailed on the Dikastery to find him guilty, and condemn him to a fine of five talents. The restrictive law being thus repealed, the philosophers returned.[881] It is remarkable that Demochares stood forward as one of its advocates; defending Sophokles against the accuser Philon. From scanty notices remaining of the speech of Demochares, we gather that, while censuring the opinions no less than the characters of Plato and Aristotle, he denounced yet more bitterly their pupils, as being for the most part ambitious, violent, and treacherous men. He cited by name several among them, who had subverted the freedom of their respective cities, and committed gross outrages against their fellow-citizens.[882]

[881] Diogen. Laert. v. 38. It is probably to this return of the
philosophers that the φυγάδων κάθοδος mentioned by Philochorus,
as foreshadowed by the omen in the Acropolis, alludes
(Philochorus, Frag. 145, ed. Didot, ap Dionys. Hal. p. 637).

[882] See the few fragments of Demochares collected in Fragmenta
Historicorum Græcorum, ed. Didot, vol. ii. p. 445, with the notes
of Carl Müller.

See likewise Athenæus, xiii. 610, with the fragment from the
comic writer Alexis. It is there stated that Lysimachus also,
king of Thrace, had banished the philosophers from his dominions.

Demochares might find (besides the persons named in Athenæ. v.
21, xi. 508) other authentic examples of pupils of Plato and
Isokrates who had been atrocious and sanguinary tyrants in their
native cities—see the case of Klearchus of Herakleia, Memnon ap.
Photium, Cod. 224. cap. 1. Chion and Leonides, the two young
citizens who slew Klearchus, and who perished in endeavoring to
liberate their country—were also pupils of Plato (Justin, xvi.
5). In fact, aspiring youths, of all varieties of purpose, were
likely to seek this mode of improvement. (Alexander the Great,
too, the very impersonation of subduing force, had been the pupil
of Aristotle).

Athenian envoys were despatched to Antigonus in Asia, to testify the gratitude of the people, and communicate the recent complimentary votes. Antigonus not only received them graciously, but sent to Athens, according to the promise made by his son, a large present of 150,000 medimni of wheat, with timber sufficient for 100 ships. He at the same time directed Demetrius to convene at Athens a synod of deputies from the allied Grecian cities, where resolutions might be taken for the common interests of Greece.[883] It was his interest at this moment to raise up a temporary self-sustaining authority in Greece, for the purpose of upholding the alliance with himself, during the absence of Demetrius; whom he was compelled to summon into Asia with his army—requiring his services for the war against Ptolemy in Syria and Cyprus.

[883] Diodor. xx. 46.

The following three years were spent by Demetrius—1. In victorious operations near Cyprus, defeating Ptolemy and making himself master of that island; after which Antigonus and Demetrius assumed the title of kings, and the example was followed by Ptolemy, in Egypt—by Lysimachus, in Thrace—and by Seleukus in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Syria[884]—thus abolishing even the titular remembrance of Alexander’s family. 2. In an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt by land and sea, repulsed with great loss. 3. In the siege of Rhodes. The brave and intelligent citizens of this island resisted for more than a year the most strenuous attacks and the most formidable siege-equipments of Demetrius Poliorketes. All their efforts however would have been vain had they not been assisted by large reinforcements and supplies from Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Kassander. Such are the conditions under which alone even the most resolute and intelligent Greeks can now retain their circumscribed sphere of autonomy. The siege was at length terminated by a compromise; the Rhodians submitted to enrol themselves as allies of Demetrius, yet under proviso not to act against Ptolemy.[885] Towards the latter they carried their grateful devotion so far, as to erect a temple to him, called the Ptolemæum, and to worship him (under the sanction of the oracle of Ammon) as a god.[886] Amidst the rocks and shoals through which Grecian cities were now condemned to steer, menaced on every side by kings more powerful than themselves, and afterwards by the giant-republic of Rome—the Rhodians conducted their political affairs with greater prudence and dignity than any other Grecian city.

[884] Diodor. xx. 53; Plutarch, Demetr. 18.

[885] Diodor. xx. 99. Probably this proviso extended also to
Lysimachus and Kassander (both of whom had assisted Rhodes) as
well as to Ptolemy—though Diodorus does not expressly say so.

[886] Diodor. xx. 100.

Shortly after the departure of Demetrius from Greece to Cyprus, Kassander and Polysperchon renewed the war in Peloponnesus and its neighborhood.[887] We make out no particulars respecting this war. The Ætolians were in hostility with Athens, and committed annoying depredations.[888] The fleet of Athens, repaired or increased by the timber received from Antigonus, was made to furnish thirty quadriremes to assist Demetrius in Cyprus, and was employed in certain operations near the island of Amorgos, wherein it suffered defeat.[889] But we can discover little respecting the course of the war, except that Kassander gained ground upon the Athenians, and that about the beginning of 303 B. C., he was blockading or threatening to blockade, Athens. The Athenians invoked the aid of Demetrius Poliorketes, who, having recently concluded an accommodation with the Rhodians, came again across from Asia, with a powerful fleet and army, to Aulis in Bœotia.[890] He was received at Athens with demonstrations of honor equal or superior to those which had marked his previous visit. He seems to have passed a year and a half, partly at Athens, partly in military operations carried successfully over many parts of Greece. He compelled the Bœotians to evacuate the Eubœan city of Chalkis, and to relinquish their alliance with Kassander. He drove that prince out of Attica—expelled his garrisons from the two frontier fortresses of Attica,—Phylê and Panaktum—and pursued him as far as Thermopylæ. He captured, or obtained by bribing the garrisons, the important towns of Corinth, Argos, and Sikyon; mastering also Ægium, Bura, all the Arcadian towns (except Mantineia), and various other towns in Peloponnesus.[891] He celebrated, as president, the great festival of the Heræa at Argos; on which occasion he married Deidameia, sister of Pyrrhus, the young king of Epirus. He prevailed on the Sikyonians to transfer to a short distance the site of their city, conferring upon the new city the name of Demetrias.[892] At a Grecian synod, convened in Corinth under his own letters of invitation, he received by acclamation the appointment of leader or Emperor of the Greeks, as it had been conferred on Philip and Alexander. He even extended his attacks as far as Leukas and Korkyra. The greater part of Greece seems to have been either occupied by his garrisons, or enlisted among his subordinates.

[887] Diodor. xx. 100.

[888] That the Ætolians were just now most vexatious enemies to
Athens, may be seen by the Ithyphallic ode addressed to Demetrius
Poliorketes (Athenæus, vi. p. 253).

[889] Diodor. xx. 50; Plutarch, Demetr. 11. In reference to this
defeat near Amorgos, Stratokles (the complaisant orator who
moved the votes of flattery towards Demetrius and Antigonus) is
said to have announced it first as a victory, to the great joy
of the people. Presently evidences of the defeat arrived, and
the people were angry with Stratokles. “What harm has happened
to you? (replied he)—have you not had two days of pleasure and
satisfaction?” This is at any rate a very good story.

[890] Diodor. xx. 100; Plutarch, Demetr. 23.

[891] Diodor. xx. 102, 103; Plutarch, Demetr. 23-25.

[892] Diodor. xx. 102; Plutarch, Demetr. 25; Pausanias, ii. 7, 1.
The city was withdrawn partially from the sea, and approximated
closely to the acropolis. The new city remained permanently: but
the new name Demetrias gave place to the old name Sikyon.

So much was Kassander intimidated by these successes, that he sent envoys to Asia, soliciting peace from Antigonus; who, however, elate and full of arrogance, refused to listen to any terms short of surrender at discretion. Kassander, thus driven to despair, renewed his applications to Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleukus. All these princes felt equally menaced by the power and dispositions of Antigonus—and all resolved upon an energetic combination to put him down.[893]

[893] Diodor. xx. 106

After uninterrupted prosperity in Greece, throughout the summer
of 302 B. C., Demetrius returned from Leukas to Athens,
about the month of September, near the time of the Eleusinian
mysteries.[894] He was welcomed by festive processions,
hymns, pæans, choric dances, and bacchanalian odes of joyous
congratulation. One of these hymns is preserved, sung by a
chorus of Ithyphalli—masked revellers, with their heads and arms
encircled by wreaths,—clothed in white tunics, and in feminine
garments reaching almost to the feet.[895]

[894] That he returned from Leukas about the time of these
mysteries, is attested both by Demochares and by the Ithyphallic
ode in Athenæus, vi. p. 253. See also Duris ap. Athenæ, xii. p.
535.

[895] Semus ap. Athenæum, xiv. p. 622.

This song is curious, as indicating the hopes and fears prevalent among Athenians of that day, and as affording a measure of their self-appreciation. It is moreover among the latest Grecian documents that we possess, bearing on actual and present reality. The poet, addressing Demetrius as a god, boasts that two of the greatest and best-beloved of all divine beings are visiting Attica at the same moment—Demeter (coming for the season of her mysteries), and Demetrius, son of Poseidon and Aphroditê. “To thee we pray (the hymn proceeds); for other gods are either afar off—or have no ears—or do not exist—or care nothing about us; but _thee_ we see before us, not in wood or marble, but in real presence. First of all things, establish peace; for thou hast the power—and chastise that Sphinx who domineers, not merely over Thebes, but over all Greece—the Ætolian, who, (like the old Sphinx) rushes from his station on the rock to snatch and carry away our persons, and against whom we cannot fight. At all times, the Ætolians robbed their neighbors; but now, they rob far as well as near.[896]”

[896] Athenæus, vi. p. 253.

Ἄλλοι μὲν ἢ μακρὰν γὰρ ἀπέχουσιν θεοὶ,
ἢ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὦτα,
ἢ οὐκ εἰσὶν, ἢ οὐ προσέχουσιν ἡμῖν οὐδὲ ἕν·
σὲ δὲ παρόνθ᾽ ὁρῶμεν,
οὐ ξύλινον, οὐδὲ λίθινον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθινόν.
Εὐχόμεσθα δὴ σοί·
πρῶτον μὲν εἰρήνην ποιῆσον, φίλτατε,
κύριος γὰρ εἶ σύ.
Τὴν δ᾽ οὐχὶ Θηβῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅλης τῆς Ἑλλάδος,
Σφίγγα περικρατοῦσαν,
Αἰτωλὸς ὅστις ἐπὶ πέτρας καθήμενος,
ὥσπερ ἡ παλαιὰ,
τὰ σώμαθ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντ᾽ ἀναρπάσας φέρει,
~κοὐκ ἔχω μάχεσθαι~·
Αἰτωλικὸν γὰρ ἁρπάσαι τὰ τῶν πέλας,
νυνὶ δὲ καὶ τὰ πόῤῥω—
μάλιστα μὲν δὴ κόλασον αὐτὸς· εἰ δὲ μὴ,
Οἰδίπουν τιν᾽ εὗρε,
τὴν Σφίγγα ταύτην ὅστις ἢ κατακρημνιεῖ,
ἢ σπίνον ποιήσει.

Effusions such as these, while displaying unmeasured idolatry and subservience towards Demetrius, are yet more remarkable, as betraying a loss of force, a senility, and a consciousness of defenceless and degraded position, such as we are astonished to find publicly proclaimed at Athens. It is not only against the foreign potentates that the Athenians avow themselves incapable of self-defence, but even against the incursions of the Ætolians.—Greeks like themselves, though warlike, rude, and restless.[897] When such were the feelings of a people, once the most daring, confident, and organizing—and still the most intelligent—in Greece, we may see that the history of the Greeks as a separate nation or race is reaching its close—and that from henceforward they must become merged in one or other of the stronger currents that surround them.

[897] Compare Pausanias, vii. 7, 4.

After his past successes, Demetrius passed some months in enjoyment and luxury at Athens. He was lodged in the Parthenon, being considered as the guest of the goddess Athênê. But his dissolute habits provoked the louder comments, from being indulged in such a domicile; while the violences which he offered to beautiful youths of good family led to various scenes truly tragical. The subservient manifestations of the Athenians towards him, however, continued unabated. It is even affirmed, that, in order to compensate for something which he had taken amiss, they passed a formal decree, on the proposition of Stratokles, declaring that every thing which Demetrius might command was holy in regard to the gods, and just in regard to men.[898] The banishment of Demochares is said to have been brought on by his sarcastic comments upon this decree.[899] In the month Munychion (April) Demetrius mustered his forces and his Grecian allies for a march into Thessaly against Kassander; but before his departure, he was anxious to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. It was however not the regular time for this ceremony; the Lesser Mysteries being celebrated in February, the Greater in September. The Athenians overruled the difficulty by passing a special vote, enabling him to be initiated at once, and to receive in immediate succession, the preparatory and the final initiation, between which ceremonies a year of interval was habitually required. Accordingly, he placed himself disarmed in the hands of the priests, and received both first and second initiation in the month of April, immediately before his departure from Athens.[900]

[898] Plutarch, Demetr. 24.

[899] Such is the statement of Plutarch (Demetr. 24); but it
seems not in harmony with the recital of the honorary decree,
passed in 272 B. C., after the death of Demochares,
commemorating his merits by a statue, etc. (Plutarch, Vit. X.
Oratt. p. 850). It is there recited that Demochares rendered
services to Athens (fortifying and arming the city, concluding
peace and alliance with the Bœotians, etc.) ἐπὶ τοῦ τετραετοῦς
πολέμου, ἀνθ᾽ ὧν ἐξέπεσεν ὑπὸ τῶν καταλυσάντων τὸν δῆμον. Οἱ
καταλύσαντες τὸν δῆμον cannot mean either Demetrius Poliorketes,
or Stratokles. Moreover, we cannot determine when the “four
years’ war”, or the alliance with the Bœotians, occurred. Neither
the discussion of Mr. Clinton (Fast. H. 302 B. C., and
Append. p. 380), nor the different hypothesis of Droysen, are
satisfactory on this point—see Carl Müller’s discussion on the
fragments of Demochares, Fragm. Hist. Gr. v. ii. p. 446.

[900] Diodor. xx. 110. παραδοὺς οὖν αὑτὸν ἄνοπλον τοῖς ἱερεῦσι,
καὶ πρὸ τῆς ὡρισμένης ἡμέρας μυηθεὶς, ἀνέζευξεν ἐκ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν.

The account of this transaction in the text is taken from
Diodorus, and is a simple one; a vote was passed granting special
license to Demetrius, to receive the mysteries at once, though it
was not the appointed season.

Plutarch (Demetr. 26) superadds other circumstances, several of
which have the appearance of jest rather than reality. Pythodôrus
the Daduch or Torch-bearer of the Mysteries stood alone in his
protest against any celebration of the ceremony out of time:
this is doubtless very credible. Then (according to Plutarch)
the Athenians passed decrees, on the proposition of Stratokles,
that the month Munychion should be called Anthesterion. This
having been done, the Lesser Mysteries were celebrated, in which
Demetrius was initiated. Next, the Athenians passed another
decree, to the effect, that the month Munychion should be called
Boêdromion—after which, the Greater Mysteries (which belonged to
the latter month) were forthwith celebrated. The comic writer
Philippides said of Stratokles, that he had compressed the whole
year into a single month.

This statement of Plutarch has very much the air of a caricature,
by Philippides or some other witty man, of the simple decree
mentioned by Diodorus—a special license to Demetrius to be
initiated out of season. Compare another passage of Philippides
against Stratokles (Plutarch, Demetr. 12).

Demetrius conducted into Thessaly an army of 56,000 men; of whom 25,000 were Grecian allies—so extensive was his sway at this moment over the Grecian cities.[901] But after two or three months of hostilities, partially successful, against Kassander, he was summoned into Asia by Antigonus to assist in meeting the formidable army of the allies—Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lysimachus, and Kassander. Before retiring from Greece, Demetrius concluded a truce with Kassander, whereby it was stipulated that the Grecian cities, both in Europe and Asia, should be permanently autonomous and free from garrison or control. This stipulation served only as an honorable pretext for leaving Greece; Demetrius had little expectation that it would be observed.[902] In the ensuing spring was fought the decisive battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (B. C. 300), by Antigonus and Demetrius, against Ptolemy, Seleukus, and Lysimachus; with a large army and many elephants on both sides. Antigonus was completely defeated and slain, at the age of more than eighty years. His Asiatic dominion was broken up, chiefly to the profit of Seleukus, whose dynasty became from henceforward ascendent, from the coast of Syria eastward to the Caspian Gates and Parthia; sometimes, though imperfectly, farther eastward, nearly to the Indus.[903]

[901] Diodor. xx. 110.

[902] Diodor. xx. 111. It must have been probably during this
campaign that Demetrius began or projected the foundation of
the important city of Demetrias on the Gulf of Magnesia, which
afterwards became one of the great strongholds of the Macedonian
ascendency in Greece (Strabo, ix. p. 436-443, in which latter
passage, the reference to Hieronymus of Kardia seems to prove
that that historian gave a full description of Demetrias and its
foundation). See about Demetrias, Mannert, Geogr. v. Griech. vii.
p. 591.

[903] Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hell. B. C. 301) places
the battle of Ipsus in August 301 B. C.; which appears
to me some months earlier than the reality. It is clear from
Diodorus, (and indeed from Mr. Clinton’s own admission) that
winter-quarters in Asia intervened between the departure of
Demetrius from Athens in or soon after April 301 B. C.,
and the battle of Ipsus. Moreover Demetrius, immediately after
leaving Athens, carried on many operations against Kassander in
Thessaly, before crossing over to Asia to join Antigonus (Diodor.
xx. 110, 111).

The effects of the battle of Ipsus were speedily felt in Greece. The Athenians passed a decree proclaiming themselves neutral, and excluding both the belligerent parties from Attica. Demetrius, retiring with the remnant of his defeated army, and embarking at Ephesus to sail to Athens, was met on the voyage by Athenian envoys, who respectfully acquainted him that he would not be admitted. At the same time, his wife Deidameia, whom he had left at Athens, was sent away by the Athenians under an honorable escort to Megara, while some ships of war which he had left in the Peiræus were also restored to him. Demetrius, indignant at this unexpected defection of a city which had recently heaped upon him such fulsome adulation, was still farther mortified by the loss of most of his other possessions in Greece.[904] His garrisons were for the most part expelled, and the cities passed into Kassandrian keeping or dominion. His fortunes were indeed partially restored by concluding a peace with Seleukus, who married his daughter. This alliance withdrew Demetrius to Syria, while Greece appears to have fallen more and more under the Kassandrian parties. It was one of these partisans, Lachares, who, seconded by Kassander’s soldiers, acquired a despotism at Athens such as had been possessed by the Phalerean Demetrius, but employed in a manner far more cruel and oppressive. Various exiles driven out by his tyranny invited Demetrius Poliorketes, who passed over again from Asia into Greece, recovered portions of Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Athens. He blocked up the city by sea and land, so that the pressure of famine presently became intolerable. Lachares having made his escape, the people opened their gates to Demetrius, not without great fear of the treatment awaiting them. But he behaved with forbearance, and even with generosity. He spared them all, supplied them with a large donation of corn, and contented himself with taking military occupation of the city, naming his own friends as magistrates. He put garrisons, however, not only into Peiræus and Munychia, but also into the hill called Museum, a part of the walled circle of Athens itself[905] (B. C. 298).

[904] Plutarch, Demetr. 31.

[905] Plutarch, Demetr. 34, 35; Pausan. i. 25, 5. Pausanias
states (i. 26, 2) that a gallant Athenian named Olympiodorus (we
do not know when) encouraged his fellow-citizens to attack the
Museum, Munychia, and Peiræus; and expelled the Macedonians from
all of them. If this be correct, Munychia and Peiræus must have
been afterwards reconquered by the Macedonians: for they were
garrisoned (as well as Salamis and Sunium) by Antigonus Gonatas
(Pausanias, ii. 8, 5; Plutarch, Aratus, 34).

While Demetrius was thus strengthening himself in Greece, he lost all his footing both in Cyprus, Syria, and Kilikia, which passed into the hands of Ptolemy and Seleukus. New prospects however were opened to him in Macedonia by the death of Kassander (his brother-in-law, brother of his wife Phila) and the family feuds supervening thereupon. Philippus, eldest son of Kassander, succeeded his father, but died of sickness after something more than a year. Between the two remaining sons, Antipater and Alexander, a sanguinary hostility broke out. Antipater slew his mother Thessalonikê, and threatened the life of his brother, who in his turn invited aid both from Demetrius, and from the Epirotic king Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus being ready first, marched into Macedonia, and expelled Antipater; receiving as his recompense the territory called Tymphæa (between Epirus and Macedonia), together with Akarnania, Amphilochia, and the town of Ambrakia, which became henceforward his chief city and residence.[906] Antipater sought shelter in Thrace with his father-in-law Lysimachus; by whose order, however, he was presently slain. Demetrius, occupied with other matters, was more tardy in obeying the summons; but, on entering into Macedonia, he found himself strong enough to dispossess and kill Alexander (who had indeed invited him, but is said to have laid a train for assassinating him), and seized the Macedonian crown; not without the assent of a considerable party, to whom the name and the deeds of Kassander and his sons were alike odious.[907]

[906] Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 6.

[907] Plutarch, Demetr. 36; Dexippus ap. Syncell. p. 264 _seq._;
Pausan. 7, 3; Justin, xvi. 1, 2.

Demetrius became thus master of Macedonia, together with the greater part of Greece, including Athens, Megara, and much of Peloponnesus. He undertook an expedition into Bœotia, for the purpose of conquering Thebes; in which attempt he succeeded, not without a double siege of that city, which made an obstinate resistance. He left as viceroy in Bœotia the historian, Hieronymus of Kardia,[908] once the attached friend and fellow-citizen of Eumenes. But Greece as a whole was managed by Antigonus (afterwards called Antigonus Gonatas) son of Demetrius, who maintained his supremacy unshaken during all his father’s lifetime; even though Demetrius was deprived of Macedonia by the temporary combination of Lysimachus with Pyrrhus, and afterwards remained (until his death in 283 B. C.) a captive in the hands of Seleukus. After a brief possession of the crown of Macedonia successively by Seleukus, Ptolemy, Keraunus, Meleager, Antipater, and Sosthenes—Antigonus Gonatas regained it in 277 B. C. His descendants the Antigonid kings maintained it until the battle of Pydna in 168 B. C.; when Perseus, the last of them, was overthrown, and his kingdom incorporated with the Roman conquests.[909]

[908] Plutarch, Demetr. 39.

[909] See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, Append. 4. p. 236-239.

Of Greece during this period we can give no account, except that the greater number of its cities were in dependence upon Demetrius and his son Antigonus; either under occupation by Macedonian garrisons, or ruled by local despots who leaned on foreign mercenaries and Macedonian support. The spirit of the Greeks was broken, and their habits of combined sentiment and action had disappeared. The invasion of the Gauls indeed awakened them into a temporary union for the defence of Thermopylæ in 279 B. C. So intolerable was the cruelty and spoliation of those barbarian invaders, that the cities as well as Antigonus were driven by fear to the efforts necessary for repelling them.[910] A gallant army of Hellenic confederates was mustered. In the mountains of Ætolia and in the neighborhood of Delphi, most of the Gallic horde with their king Brennus perished. But this burst of spirit did not interrupt the continuance of the Macedonian dominion in Greece, which Antigonus Gonatas continued to hold throughout most of a long reign. He greatly extended the system begun by his predecessors, of isolating each Grecian city from alliances with other cities in its neighborhood—planting in most of them local despots—and compressing the most important by means of garrisons.[911] Among all Greeks, the Spartans and the Ætolians stood most free from foreign occupation, and were the least crippled in their power of self-action. The Achæan league too developed itself afterwards as a renovated sprout from the ruined tree of Grecian liberty,[912] though never attaining to anything better than a feeble and puny life, nor capable of sustaining itself without foreign aid.[913]

[910] Pausanias, i. 4, 1; x. 20, 1. Τοῖς δέ γε Ἕλλησι
κατεπεπτώκει μὲν ἐς ἅπαν τὰ φρονήματα, τὸ δὲ ἰσχυρὸν τοῦ δείματος
προῆγεν ἐς ἀνάγκην τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀμύνειν· ἑώρων δὲ τόν τε ἐν τῷ
παρόντι ἀγῶνα, οὐκ ὑπὲρ ἐλευθερίας γενησόμενον, καθὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ
Μήδου πότε ... ὡς οὖν ἀπολωλέναι δέον ἢ ἐπικρατεστέρους εἶναι,
κατ᾽ ἄνδρα τε ἰδίᾳ καὶ αἱ πόλεις διέκειντο ἐν κοινῷ. (On the
approach of the invading Gauls.)

[911] Polyb. ii. 40, 41. πλείστους γὰρ δὴ μονάρχους οὗτος
(Antigonus Gonatas) ἐμφυτεῦσαι δοκεῖ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν. Justin, xxvi.
1.

[912] Pausanias, vii. 17, 1. Ἅτε ἐκ δένδρου λελωβημένου,
ἀνεβλάστησεν ἐκ τῆς Ἑλλάδος τὸ Ἀχαϊκόν.

[913] Plutarch, Aratus, 47. ἐθισθέντες γὰρ ἀλλοτρίαις σώζεσθαι
χερσὶν, καὶ τοῖς Μακεδόνων ὅπλοις αὑτοὺς ὑπεσταλκότες (the
Achæans), etc. Compare also c. 12, 13, 15, in reference to the
earlier applications to Ptolemy king of Egypt.

With this after-growth, or half-revival, I shall not meddle. It forms the Greece of Polybius, which that author treats, in my opinion justly, as having no history of its own,[914] but as an appendage attached to some foreign centre and principal among its neighbors—Macedonia, Egypt, Syria, Rome. Each of these neighbors acted upon the destinies of Greece more powerfully than the Greeks themselves. The Greeks to whom these volumes have been devoted—those of Homer, Archilochus, Solon, Æschylus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes—present as their most marked characteristic a loose aggregation of autonomous tribes or communities, acting and reacting freely among themselves, with little or no pressure from foreigners. The main interest of the narrative has consisted in the spontaneous grouping of the different Hellenic fractions—in the self-prompted cooperations and conflicts—the abortive attempts to bring about something like an effective federal organization, or to maintain two permanent rival confederacies—the energetic ambition, and heroic endurance, of men to whom Hellas was the entire political world. The freedom of Hellas, the life and soul of this history from its commencement, disappeared completely during the first years of Alexander’s reign. After following to their tombs the generation of Greeks contemporary with him, men like Demosthenes and Phokion, born in a state of freedom—I have pursued the history into that gulf of Grecian nullity which marks the succeeding century; exhibiting sad evidence of the degrading servility, and suppliant king-worship, into which the countrymen of Aristeides and Perikles had been driven, by their own conscious weakness under overwhelming pressure from without.

[914] Polybius, i. 3, 4; ii. 37.

I cannot better complete that picture than by showing what the leading democratical citizen became, under the altered atmosphere which now bedimmed his city. Demochares, the nephew of Demosthenes, has been mentioned as one of the few distinguished Athenians in this last generation. He was more than once chosen to the highest public offices;[915] he was conspicuous for his free speech, both as an orator and as an historian, in the face of powerful enemies; he remained throughout a long life faithfully attached to the democratical constitution, and was banished for a time by its opponents. In the year 280 B. C., he prevailed on the Athenians to erect a public monument, with a commemorative inscription, to his uncle Demosthenes. Seven or eight years afterwards, Demochares himself died, aged nearly eighty. His son Laches proposed and obtained a public decree, that a statue should be erected, with an annexed inscription, to his honor. We read in the decree a recital of the distinguished public services, whereby Demochares merited this compliment from his countrymen. All that the proposer of the decree, his son and fellow-citizen, can find to recite, as ennobling the last half of the father’s public life (since his return from exile), is as follows:—1. He contracted the public expenses, and introduced a more frugal management. 2. He undertook an embassy to King Lysimachus, from whom he obtained two presents for the people, one of thirty talents, the other of one hundred talents. 3. He proposed the vote for sending envoys to King Ptolemy in Egypt, from whom fifty talents were obtained for the people. 4. He went as envoy to Antipater, received from him twenty talents, and delivered them to the people at the Eleusinian festival.[916]

[915] Polybius, xii. 13.

[916] See the decree in Plutarch, Vit. X. Oratt. p. 850. The
Antipater here mentioned is the son of Kassander, not the father.
There is no necessity for admitting the conjecture of Mr. Clinton
(Fast. Hell. App. p. 380) that the name ought to be _Antigonus_,
and not _Antipater_; although it may perhaps be true that
Demochares was on favorable terms with Antigonus Gonatas (Diog.
Laert. vii, 14).

Compare Carl Müller ad Democharis Fragm. apud Fragm. Hist. Græc.
vol. ii. p. 446, ed. Didot.

When such begging missions are the deeds, for which Athens both employed and recompensed her most eminent citizens, an historian accustomed to the Grecian world as described by Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, feels that the life has departed from his subject, and with sadness and humiliation brings his narrative to a close.