THE DEATHS OF ANTIPATER AND OF DEMADES
[319 B.C.]
Before the prolonged blockade of Nora had been brought to a close, Antipater, being of very advanced age, fell into sickness, and presently died. One of his latest acts was to put to death the Athenian orator Demades, who had been sent to Macedonia as envoy to solicit the removal of the Macedonian garrison at Munychia. Antipater had promised, or given hopes, that if the oligarchy which he had constituted at Athens maintained unshaken adherence to Macedonia, he would withdraw the garrison. The Athenians endeavoured to prevail on Phocion to go to Macedonia as solicitor for the fulfilment of this promise; but he steadily refused. Demades, who willingly undertook the mission, reached Macedonia at a moment very untoward for himself. The papers of the deceased Perdiccas had come into possession of his opponents; and among them had been found a letter written to him by Demades, inviting him to cross over and rescue Greece from her dependence “on an old and rotten warp”—meaning Antipater. This letter gave great offence to Antipater—the rather, as Demades is said to have been his habitual pensioner—and still greater offence to his son Cassander; who caused Demades with his son to be seized, first killed the son in the immediate presence and even embrace of the father, and then slew the father himself, with bitter invective against his ingratitude. All the accounts which we read depict Demades, in general terms, as a prodigal spendthrift and a venal and corrupt politician. We have no ground for questioning this statement; at the same time, we have no specific facts to prove it.