Demetrius
by Plutarch
INGENIOUS men have long observed a resemblance between the arts
and the bodily senses. And they were first led to do so, I think,
by noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with our
senses, we examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the use to
which we put it differs in the two cases. Our senses are not
meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet to
bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects; all
they have to do is to receive impressions as they occur, and
report to the understanding the impressions as received. The
arts, on the other hand, which reason institutes expressly to
choose and obtain some suitable, and to refuse and get rid of
some unsuitable object, have their proper concern in the
consideration of the former; though, in a casual and contingent
way, they must also, for the very rejection of them, pay
attention to the latter. Medicine, to produce health, has to
examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must investigate
discord; and the supreme arts, of temperance, of justice, and of
wisdom, as they are acts of judgment and selection, exercised not
on good and just and expedient only, but also on wicked, unjust,
and inexpedient objects, do not give their commendations to the
mere innocence whose boast is its inexperience of evil, and whose
truer name is, by their award, simpleness and ignorance of what
all men who live aright should know. The ancient Spartans, at
their festivals, used to force their Helots to swallow large
quantities of raw wine, and then expose them at the public
tables, to let the young men see what it is to be drunk. And,
though I do not think it consistent with humanity or with civil
justice to correct one man's morals by corrupting those of
another, yet we may, I think, avail ourselves of the cases of
those who have fallen into indiscretions, and have, in high
stations, made themselves conspicuous for misconduct; and I shall
not do ill to introduce a pair or two of such examples among
these biographies, not, assuredly, to amuse and divert my
readers, or give variety to my theme, but as Ismenias, the
Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad performers on the
flute, and to tell them, "You should play like this man," and,
"You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas used to say,
Young people would take greater pleasure in hearing good playing,
if first they were set to hear bad, so, in the same manner, it
seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the more zealous
and more emulous to read, observe, and imitate the better lives,
if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy and the bad.
For this reason, the following book contains the lives of
Demetrius Poliorcetes and Antonius the Triumvir; two persons who
have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great natures
produce great vices as well as virtues. Both alike were amorous
and intemperate, warlike and munificent, sumptuous in their way
of living and overbearing in their manners. And the likeness of
their fortunes carried out the resemblance in their characters.
Not only were their lives each a series of great successes and
great disasters, mighty acquisitions and tremendous losses of
power, sudden overthrows followed by unexpected recoveries, but
they died, also, Demetrius in actual captivity to his enemies and
Antony on the verge of it.
Antigonus had by his wife, Stratonice, the daughter of Corrhaeus,
two sons; the one of whom, after the name of his uncle, he called
Demetrius, the other had that of his grandfather Philip, and died
young. This is the most general account, although some have
related that Demetrius was not the son of Antigonus, but of his
brother; and that his own father dying young, and his mother
being afterwards married to Antigonus, he was accounted to be his
son.
Demetrius had not the height of his father Antigonus, though he
was a tall man. But his countenance was one of such singular
beauty and expression that no painter or sculptor ever produced a
good likeness of him. It combined grace and strength, dignity
with boyish bloom, and, in the midst of youthful heat and
passion, what was hardest of all to represent was a certain
heroic look and air of kingly greatness. Nor did his character
belie his looks, as no one was better able to render himself both
loved and feared. For as he was the most easy and agreeable of
companions, and the most luxurious and delicate of princes in his
drinking and banqueting and daily pleasures, so in action there
was never any one that showed a more vehement persistence, or a
more passionate energy. Bacchus, skilled in the conduct of war,
and after war in giving peace its pleasures and joys, seems to
have been his pattern among the gods.
He was wonderfully fond of his father Antigonus; and the
tenderness he had for his mother led him, for her sake, to
redouble attentions, which it was evident were not so much owing
to fear or duty as to the more powerful motives of inclination.
It is reported that, returning one day from hunting, he went
immediately into the apartment of Antigonus, who was conversing
with some ambassadors, and after stepping up and kissing his
father, he sat down by him, just as he was, still holding in his
hand the javelins which he had brought with him. Whereupon
Antigonus, who had just dismissed the ambassadors with their
answer, called out in a loud voice to them, as they were going,
"Mention, also, that this is the way in which we two live
together;" as if to imply to them that it was no slender mark of
the power and security of his government that there was so
perfect good understanding between himself and his son. Such an
unsociable, solitary thing is power, and so much of jealousy and
distrust in it, that the first and greatest of the successors of
Alexander could make it a thing of glory in that he was not so
afraid of his son as to forbid his standing beside him with a
weapon in his hand. And, in fact, among all the successors of
Alexander, that of Antigonus was the only house which, for many
descents, was exempted from crime of this kind; or to state it
exactly, Philip was the only one of this family who was guilty of
a son's death. All the other families, we may fairly say,
afforded frequent examples of fathers who brought their children,
husbands their wives, children their mothers, to untimely ends;
and that brothers should put brothers to death was assumed, like
the postulate of mathematicians as the common and recognized
royal first principle of safety.
Let us here record an example in the early life of Demetrius,
showing his natural humane and kindly disposition. It was an
adventure which passed betwixt him and Mithridates, the son of
Ariobarzanes, who was about the same age with Demetrius, and
lived with him, in attendance on Antigonus; and although nothing
was said or could be said to his reproach, he fell under
suspicion, in consequence of a dream which Antigonus had.
Antigonus thought himself in a fair and spacious field, where he
sowed golden seed, and saw presently a golden crop come up; of
which, however, looking presently again, he saw nothing remain
but the stubble, without the ears. And as he stood by in anger
and vexation, he heard some voices saying Mithridates had cut the
golden harvest and carried it off into Pontus. Antigonus, much
discomposed with his dream, first bound his son, by an oath not
to speak, and then related it to him, adding that he had
resolved, in consequence, to lose no time in ridding himself of
Mithridates, and making away with him. Demetrius was extremely
distressed; and when the young man came, as usual, to pass his
time with him, to keep his oath he forbore from saying a word,
but, drawing him aside little by little from the company, as soon
as they were by themselves, without opening his lips, with the
point of his javelin he traced before him the words "Fly,
Mithridates." Mithridates took the hint, and fled by night into
Cappadocia, where Antigonus's dream about him was quickly brought
to its due fulfillment; for he got possession of a large and
fertile territory; and from him descended the line of the kings
of Pontus, which, in the eighth generation, was reduced by the
Romans. This may serve for a specimen of the early goodness and
love of justice that was part of Demetrius's natural character.
But as in the elements of the world, Empedocles tells us, out of
liking and dislike, there springs up contention and warfare, and
all the more, the closer the contact, or ...
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