Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/415

 SUCCESS OF DEMETRIUS IN GREECE. 383 tineia), and various other towns in Peloponnesus.* He cele- brated, as president, the great festival of the Heraea at Argos ; on which occasion he married Deidameia, sister of Pyrrhus, the young king of Epirus. He prevailed on the Sikyonians to trans- fer to a short distance the site of their city, conferring upon the new city the name of Demetrias.^ At a Grecian synod, con- vened 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. So much was Kassander intimidated by these successes, that he sent envoys to Asia, soliciting peace from Antigonus ; who, however, elate and fuU 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 ener- getic combination to put him down.3 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.* He was welcomed by festive processions, hymns, paeans, choric dances, and bacchanalian odes of joyous congratu- lation. One of these hymns is preserved, sung by a chorus of Ithyphalli — masked revellers, with their heads and arms en- circled by wreaths, — clothed in white tunics, and in feminine garments reaching almost to the feet.^ ' Diodor. xx. 102, 103 : Plutarch, Demetr. 23-25. was withdrawn partially from the sea, and approximated closely to tho acropolis. The new city remained permanently : but the new name Demc- trias gave place to the old name Sikyon. ' Diodor. xx. 106. tested both by Demochares and by the Ithyphallic ode in Athen'Eus, vi. p 253. See also Duris ap. Athenx. xii. p. 535. ' Semus ap. AtbenaBubi, xiv. p. 622.
 * Diodor. XX. 102 : Plutarch, Demetr. 25; Pausanias, ii. 7,1. The city
 * That he returned from Leui^as about the time of these mysteries, is at«