Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/121

 DEMETRIUS. 113 his sleep. He thought he saw Antigonus and his whole army running, as if it had been a race ; that, in the first part of the course, he went off showing great strength and speed ; gradually, however, his pace slackened ; and at the end he saw him come lagging up, tired and almost breathless and quite spent. Antigonus himself met with many difficulties by land ; and Demetrius, encountering a great storm at sea, was driven, with the loss of many of his ships, upon a dangerous coast without a harbor. So the expedition retm-ned without effecting any thing. Antigonus, now nearly eighty years old, was no longer well able to go through the fatigues of a marching cam- paign, though rather on account of his great size and corpulence than from loss of strength ; and for thia reason he left things to his son, whose fortune and expe- rience appeared sufficient for all undertakings, and whose luxury and expense and revelry gave him no concern. For though in peace he vented himself in his pleasures, and, when there was nothing to do, ran headlong into any excesses, in war he was as sober and abstemious as the most temperate character. The story is told, that once, after Lamia had gained open supremacy over him, the old man, when Demetrius coming home from abroad be- gan to kiss him with unusual warmth, asked him if he took him for Lamia. At another time, Demetrius, after spending several days in a debauch, excused himself for his absence, by saying he had had a violent flux. " So I heard," replied Antigonus ; " was it of Thasian wine, or Chian ? " Once he was told his son was ill, and went to see him. At the door he met some yotmg beauty. Going in, he sat down by the bed and took his pulse. " The fever," said Demetrius, " has just left me." " yes," replied the father, " 1 met it going out at the door." Demetrius's great actions made Antigonus treat him thus easily. The Scythians in their drinking-bouts twang VOL. v. 8