Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/981

Rh DEMETRIUS. with many disasters, both father ntid son were compelled to retreat. (Diod. xx. 73 — 76; Phit. Demetr. 19.) In the following year (b. c. 305) Demetrius determined to punish the Rhodians for having refused to support his father and himself ngsiinst Ptolemy, and proceeded to besiege their city both by sea and land. The siege which fol- lowed is rendered one of the most memorable in ancient history, both by the vigorous and able re- sistance of the besieged, and by the extraordinary eiforts made by Demetrius, who displayed on this occasion in their full extent that fertility of re- source and ingenuity in devising new methods of attack, which earned for him the surname of Po- liorcetes. The gigantic machines with which he assailed the walls, the largest of which was called the llelepnlis or city-taker, were objects of admira- tion in succeeding ages. But all his exertions were unavailing, and after the siege had lasted above a year, he was at length induced to conclude a treaty, by which the Rhodians engaged to sup- port Antigonus and Demetrius in all cases, except against Ptolemy, b. c. 304. (Diod. xx. 81 — 88, 91—100; Pint. Demetr. 21, 22.) This treaty was brought about by the interven- tion of envoys from Athens; and thither Deme- trius immediately hastened, to relieve the Athe- nians, who were at this time hard pressed by Cas- sander. Landing at Aulis, he quickly made him- self master of Chalcis, and compelled Cassander not only to raise the siege of Athens, but to eva- cuate all Greece south of Thermopylae. He now again took up his winter-quarters at Athens, where he was received as before with the most extrava- gant flatteries, and again gave himself up to the most unbounded licentiousness. With the spring of 303 he hastened to resume the work of the liberation of Greece. Sicyon, Corinth, Argos, and all the smaller towns of Arcadia and Achaia, which were held by garrisons for Ptoleraj' or Cassander, successively fell into his hands ; and it seems pro- bable that he even extended his expeditions as far as Leucadia and Corcyra. (See Droysen, Gcsch. d. Nachfolg. p. 511; Thirlwall's Greece, vii. p. 353.) The liberty of all the separate states was proclaim- ed ; but, at a general assembly held at Corinth, Demetrius received the title of commander-in-chief of all Greece {-nye/jLcuu rijs 'EXAaSos), the same which had been formerly bestowed upon Philip and Alexander. At Argos, where he made a con- siderable stay, he married a third wife — Deida- meia, sister of Pyrrhus, king of Epeirus — though both Phila and Eurj'dice were still living. The debaucheries in which he indulged during his stay at Athens, where he again spent the following winter, and even within the sacred precincts of the Parthenon, where he was lodged, were such as to excite general indignation ; but nothing could exceed the meanness and servility of the Athenians towards him, which was such as to provoke at once his wonder and contempt. A curious monument of their abject flattery remains to us in the Ithy- phallic hymn preserved by Athenaeus (vi. p. 253). All the laws were, at the same time, violated in order to allow him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. (Plut. Demetr. 23 — 27; Diod. xx. 100, 102, 103 ; Polyaen. iv. 7. §§ 3, 8 ; Athen. vi. p. 253, XV. p. 697.) The next year (b. c. 302) he was opposed to Cassander in Thessaly, but, though greatly supe- rior in force, etfected "little beyond the reduction of DEMETRIUS. 963 Pherae. This inactivity came at a critical time : Cassjinder had .already concluded a league with Lysimachus, who invaded Asia, while Seleucus .idvanced from the East to co-operate with him. Antigonus was obliged to summon Demetrius to his support, who concluded a hasty treaty with Cassander, and crossed over into Asia. The fol- lowing year their combined forces were totally defeated by those of Lysimachus and Seleucus in the great battle of Ipsus, and Antigonus himself slain, B. c. 301. (Diod. xx. 106—113; Plut. De- metr. 28, 29.) Demetrius, to whose impetuosity the loss of the battle would seem to be in great measure owing, fled to Ephesus, and from thence set s<iil for Athens : but the Athenians, on whose devotion he had confidently reckoned, declined to re- ceive him into their city, though they gave him up his fleet, with which he withdrew to the Isthmus. His fortunes were still by no means hopeless : he was at the head of a powerful fleet, and still mas- ter of Cyprus, as well as of Tyre and Sidon ; but the jealousies of his enemies soon changed the face of his affairs ; and Ptolemy having entered into a closer union with Lysimachus, Seleucus was in- duced to ask the hand of Stratonice, daughter of Demetrius by his first wife, Phila. By this al- liance Demetrius obtained the possession of Cilicia, which he was allowed to wrest from the hands of Pleistarchus, brother of Cassander ; but his refusal to cede the important towns of Tyre and Sidon, disturbed the harmony between him and Seleucus, though it did not at the time lead to an open breach. (Plut. Demetr. 30—33.) We know nothing of the negotiations which led to the conclusion of a treaty between Demetrius and Ptolemy almost immediately after the alliance between the former and Seleucus, but the effect of these several treaties was the maintenance of peace for a space of near four years. During this interval Cassander was continually gaining ground in Greece, where Demetrius had lost all his pos- sessions; but in B. c. 297 he determined to re- assert his supremacy there, and appeared with a fleet on the coast of Attica. His efforts were at first unsuccessful ; his fleet was wrecked, and he himself badly wounded in an attempt upon Mes- sene. But the death of Cassander gave a new turn to affairs. Demetrius made himself master of Aegina, Salamis, and other points around Athens, and finally of that city itself, after a long blockade which had reduced the inhabitants to the last extremities of famine, (b. c. 295. Concerning the chronology of these events compare Clinton, F. H. ii. p. 178, with Droysen, Gesch. d. Nach- folger, pp. 563 — 569, and Thirlwall's Greece., viii. p. 5, not.) Lachares, who from a demagogue had made himself tyrant of Athens, escaped to Thebes, and Demetrius had the generosity to spare all the other inhabitants. He, however, retained posses- sion of Munychia and the Peiraeeus, and subse- quently fortified and garrisoned the hill of the Museum. (Plut. Demetr. 33, 34; Pans. i. 25. §$ 7, 8.) His arms were next directed against the Spartans, whom he defeated, and laid siege to their city, which seemed on the point of falling into his hands, when he was suddenly called away by the state of affairs in Macedonia. Here the dissensions between Antipater and Alexander, the two sons of Cassander, had led the latter to call in foreign aid to his support ; and he sent embassies at once to Demetrius and to Pyrrhus, who had 3q2