Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/113

 DEMETRIUS. 105 tliis manner did the Athenians recover their popular in- stitutions, after the space of fifteen years from the time of the war of Lamia and the battle before Cranon, during which interval of time the government had been administered nominally as an oligarchy, but really by a single man, Demetrius the Phalerian being so powerful. But the excessive honors which the Athenians bestowed, for these noble and generous acts, upon Demetrius, cre- ated oflfence and disgust. The Athenians were the first Avho ijave Antigonus and Demetrius the title of kinss, which hitherto they had made it a point of piety to de- cline, as the one remaining royal honor still reserved for the lineal descendants of Philip and Alexander, in which none but they could venture to participate. Another name which they received from no people but the Athe- nians was that of the Tutelar Deities and Deliverei'S. And to enhance this flattery, by a common vote it was decreed to change the style of the city, and not to have the years named an}^ longer from the annual archon ; a priest of the two Tutelary Divinities, who was to be year- ly chosen, was to have tliis honor, and all public acts and instruments were to bear their date by his name. They decreed, also, that the figures of Antigonus and Deme- trius should be woven, with those of the gods, into the pattern of the gi'eat robe.* They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first alighted from his chariot, and built an altar there, with the name of the Altar of the Descent of Demetrius. They created two new tribes, calling them after the names of these princes, the Antigonid and the Demetriad ; and to the Council, which consisted of ered robe or shawl, the presentation in procession through the city, and oi' which to Minerva was the most finally was placed on the ancient striking part of the great Pan- statue of the goddess in the Acro- athenaic festival. It was carried, polls. like a sail or banner, set up on the
 * The pephis, the large, enibroid- mast in a sacreJ ship, and so taken