ATHENS PASSIVE AND SERVILE
[307-304 B.C.]
After these successes, Demetrius Poliorcetes made his triumphant entry into Athens. He announced to the people, in formal assembly, that they were now again a free democracy, liberated from all dominion either of soldiers from abroad or oligarchs at home. He also promised them a further boon from his father Antigonus and himself—150,000 medimni of corn for distribution, and ship-timber in quantity sufficient for constructing one hundred triremes. Both these announcements were received with grateful exultation. The feelings of the people were testified not merely in votes of thanks and admiration towards the young conqueror, but in effusions of unmeasured and exorbitant flattery. Stratocles (who has already been before us as one of the accusers of Demosthenes in the Harpalian affair) with others exhausted their invention in devising new varieties of compliment and adulation. Antigonus and Demetrius were proclaimed to be not only kings, but gods and saviours; a high priest of these saviours was to be annually chosen, after whom each successive year was to be named (instead of being named after the first of the nine archons, as had hitherto been the custom), and the dates of decrees and contracts commemorated; the month Munychion was re-named as Demetrion; two new tribes, to be called Antigonias and Demetrias, were constituted in addition to the preceding ten; the annual senate was appointed to consist of six hundred members instead of five hundred; the portraits and exploits of Antigonus and Demetrius were to be woven, along with those of Zeus and Athene, into the splendid and voluminous robe periodically carried in procession, as an offering at the Panathenaic festival; the spot of ground where Demetrius had alighted from his chariot, was consecrated with an altar erected in honour of Demetrius Catæbates or the Descender. Several other similar votes were passed, recognising, and worshipping as gods, the saviours Antigonus and Demetrius. Nay, we are told that temples or altars were voted to Phila-Aphrodite, in honour of Phila wife of Demetrius; and a like compliment was paid to his two mistresses, Leæna and Lamia. Altars are said to have been also dedicated to Adimantus and others, his convivial companions or flatterers. At the same time the numerous statues which had been erected in honour of the Phalerean Demetrius during his decennial government, were overthrown, and some of them even turned to ignoble purposes, in order to cast greater scorn upon the past ruler. The demonstrations of servile flattery at Athens, towards Demetrius Poliorcetes, were in fact so extravagantly overdone, that he himself is said to have been disgusted with them, and to have expressed contempt for these degenerate Athenians of his own time.
Greek Jug
The most fulsome votes of adulation proposed in honour of Demetrius Poliorcetes by his partisans, though perhaps disapproved by many, would hardly find a single pronounced opponent. One man, however, there was, who ventured to oppose several of the votes—the nephew of Demosthenes, Demochares; who deserves to be commemorated as the last known spokesman of free Athenian citizenship. We know only that such were his general politics, and that his opposition to the obsequious rhetor Stratocles ended in banishment, four years afterwards. He appears to have acted as a general during this period, and to have been active in strengthening the fortifications and military equipment of the city.
The altered politics of Athens were manifested by impeachment against Demetrius Phalereus and other leading partisans of the late Cassandrian government. He and many others had already gone into voluntary exile; when their trials came on, they were not forthcoming, and all were condemned to death. But all those who remained, and presented themselves for trial, were acquitted; so little was there of reactionary violence on this occasion.
The friendship of this obnoxious Phalerean, and of Cassander also, towards the philosopher Theophrastus, seems to have been one main cause which occasioned the enactment of a restrictive law against the liberty of philosophising. It was decreed, on the proposition of a citizen named Sophocles, that no philosopher should be allowed to open a school or teach, except under special sanction obtained from a vote of the senate and people. Such was the disgust and apprehension occasioned by the new restriction, that all the philosophers with one accord left Athens. This spirited protest, against authoritative restriction on the liberty of philosophy and teaching, found responsive sympathy among the Athenians. The celebrity of the schools and professors was in fact the only characteristic mark of dignity still remaining to them—then their power had become extinct, and when even their independence and free constitution had degenerated into a mere name.
Ceres
(From a vase)
Athenian envoys were despatched to Antigonus in Asia, to testify the gratitude of the people, and communicate the recent complimentary votes. Antigonus not only received them graciously, but sent to Athens, according to the promise made by his son, a large present of 150,000 medimni of wheat, with timber sufficient for one hundred ships. He at the same time directed Demetrius to convene at Athens a synod of deputies from the allied Grecian cities, where resolutions might be taken for the common interests of Greece. It was his interest at this moment to raise up a temporary self-sustaining authority in Greece, for the purpose of upholding the alliance with himself, during the absence of Demetrius—whom he was compelled to summon into Asia with his army, requiring his services for the war against Ptolemy in Syria and Cyprus.
The following three years were spent by Demetrius: (1) In victorious operations near Cyprus, defeating Ptolemy and making himself master of that island; after which Antigonus and Demetrius assumed the title of kings, and the example was followed by Ptolemy, in Egypt, by Lysimachus, in Thrace, and by Seleucus in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Syria; thus abolishing even the titular remembrance of Alexander’s family. (2) In an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt by land and sea, repulsed with great loss. (3) In the siege of Rhodes. The brave and intelligent citizens of this island resisted for more than a year the most strenuous attacks and the most formidable siege-equipments of Demetrius Poliorcetes. All their efforts however would have been vain had they not been assisted by large reinforcements and supplies from Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Such are the conditions under which alone even the most resolute and intelligent Greeks can now retain their circumscribed sphere of autonomy. The siege was at length terminated by a compromise; the Rhodians submitted to enrol themselves as allies of Demetrius, yet under proviso not to act against Ptolemy. Towards the latter they carried their grateful devotion so far as to erect a temple to him, called the Ptolemæum, and to worship him (under the sanction of the oracle of Ammon) as a god. Amidst the rocks and shoals through which Grecian cities were now condemned to steer, menaced on every side by kings more powerful than themselves, and afterwards by the giant republic of Rome—the Rhodians conducted their political affairs with greater prudence and dignity than any other Grecian city.
[304-302 B.C.]
Shortly after the departure of Demetrius from Greece to Cyprus, Cassander and Polysperchon renewed the war in Peloponnesus and its neighbourhood. We make out no particulars respecting this war. The Ætolians were in hostility with Athens, and committed annoying depredations. The fleet of Athens, repaired or increased by the timber received from Antigonus, was made to furnish thirty quadriremes to assist Demetrius in Cyprus, and was employed in certain operations near the island of Amorgos, wherein it suffered defeat. But we can discover little respecting the course of the war, except that Cassander gained ground upon the Athenians, and that about the beginning of 303 B.C., he was blockading or threatening to blockade Athens. The Athenians invoked the aid of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who, having recently concluded an accommodation with the Rhodians, came again across from Asia, with a powerful fleet and army, to Aulis in Bœotia. He was received at Athens with demonstrations of honour equal or superior to those which had marked his previous visit. He seems to have passed a year and a half, partly at Athens, partly in military operations carried successfully over many parts of Greece. He celebrated, as president, the great festival of the Heræa at Argos; on which occasion he married Didamia, sister of Pyrrhus, the young king of Epirus. He prevailed on the Sicyonians to transfer to a short distance the site of their city, conferring upon the new city the name of Demetrias. At a Grecian synod, convened 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 Leucas and Corcyra. The greater part of Greece seems to have been either occupied by his garrisons, or enlisted among his subordinates.
So much was Cassander intimidated by these successes, that he sent envoys to Asia, soliciting peace from Antigonus; who, however, elate and full of arrogance, refused to listen to any terms short of surrender at discretion. Cassander, thus driven to despair, renewed his applications to Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. All these princes felt equally menaced by the power and dispositions of Antigonus, and all resolved upon an energetic combination to put him down.