Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/130

 122 DEMETRIUS. was guilty in this visit, one that particularly hurt the feelings of the Athenians was that, having given com- mand that they should forthwith raise for his service two hundred and fifty talents, and they to comply with his demands being forced to levy it upon the people with the utmost rigor and severity, when they presented him with the money, which they had with such difiiculty raised, as if it were a trifling sum, he ordered it to be given to Lamia and the rest of his women, to buy soap. The loss, which was bad enough, was less galling than the shame, and the words more intolerable than the act which they accompanied. Though, indeed, the story is variously reported ; and some say it was the Thessalians, and not the Athenians, who were thus treated. Lamia, however, ex- acted contributions herself to pay for an entertainment she gave to the king, and her banquet was so renowned for its sumptuosity, that a description of it was drawn up by the Samian writer, Lynceus. Upon this occasion, one of the comic writers gave Lamia the name of the real HelcpoUs ; and Demochares of Soli called Demetrius 31//- ihus, because the fable always has its Lamia, and so had he.* And, in truth, his passion for this woman and the pros- perity in which she lived were such as to draw upon him not only the envy and jealousy of all his wives, but the ani- mosity even of his friends. For example, on Lysimachus's showing to some ambassadors from Demetrius the scars of the wounds which he had received upon his thighs and arms b}^ the paws of the lion with which Alexander had name of the great engine. She that we are too often hke the alone was an engine sufficient to Lamia in the fable, — we sit at destroy a city. The Lamia is the home without our eyes, but as soon hag of Greek fable (or mythiis) ; as we go abroad we take them she murders little children, and out of the pot and put tiiem on can take out her eyes and keep again, to spy out our neighbor's them by her in a pot. Plutarch in misdoings.
 * Helepolis, the city-taker, is the his essay on Inquisitiveness says,