While Kassander was thus master of Macedonia—and while the imperial family were disappearing from the scene in that country—the defeat and death of Eumenes (which happened nearly at the same time as the capture of Olympias[848]) removed the last faithful partisan of that family in Asia. But at the same time, it left in the hands of Antigonus such overwhelming preponderance throughout Asia, that he aspired to become vicar and master of the entire Alexandrine empire, as well as to avenge upon Kassander the extirpation of the regal family. His power appeared indeed so formidable, that Kassander of Macedonia, Lysimachus of Thrace, Ptolemy of Egypt, and Seleukus of Babylonia, entered into a convention, which gradually ripened into an active alliance, against him.

During the struggles between these powerful princes, Greece appears simply as a group of subject cities, held, garrisoned, grasped at, or coveted, by all of them. Polysperchon, abandoning all hopes in Macedonia after the death of Olympias, had been forced to take refuge among the Ætolians, leaving his son Alexander to make the best struggle that he could in Peloponnesus; so that Kassander was now decidedly preponderant throughout the Hellenic regions. After fixing himself on the throne of Macedonia, he perpetuated his own name by founding, on the isthmus of the peninsula of Pallênê and near the site where Potidæa had stood, the new city of Kassandreia; into which he congregated a large number of inhabitants from the neighborhood, and especially the remnant of the citizens of Olynthus and Potidæa,—towns taken and destroyed by Philip more than thirty years before.[849] He next marched into Peloponnesus with his army against Alexander son of Polysperchon. Passing through Bœotia, he undertook the task of restoring the city of Thebes, which had been destroyed twenty years previously by Alexander the Great, and had ever since existed only as a military post on the ancient citadel called Kadmeia. The other Bœotian towns, to whom the old Theban territory had been assigned, were persuaded or constrained to relinquish it; and Kassander invited from all parts of Greece the Theban exiles or their descendants. From sympathy with these exiles, and also with the ancient celebrity of the city, many Greeks, even from Italy and Sicily, contributed to the restoration. The Athenians, now administered by Demetrius Phalereus under Kassander’s supremacy, were particularly forward in the work; the Messenians and Megalopolitans, whose ancestors had owed so much to the Theban Epaminondas, lent strenuous aid. Thebes was re-established in the original area which it had occupied before Alexander’s siege; and was held by a Kassandrian garrison in the Kadmeia, destined for the mastery of Bœotia and Greece.[850]

After some stay at Thebes, Kassander advanced toward Peloponnesus. Alexander (son of Polysperchon) having fortified the Isthmus, he was forced to embark his troops with his elephants at Megara, and cross over the Saronic Gulf to Epidaurus. He dispossessed Alexander of Argos, of Messenia, and even of his position on the Isthmus, where he left a powerful detachment, and then returned to Macedonia.[851] His increasing power raised both apprehension and hatred in the bosom of Antigonus, who endeavored to come to terms with him, but in vain.[852] Kassander preferred the alliance with Ptolemy, Seleukus, and Lysimachus—against Antigonus, who was now master of nearly the whole of Asia, inspiring common dread to all of them.[853] Accordingly, from Asia to Peloponnesus, with arms and money Antigonus despatched the Milesian Aristodemus to strengthen Alexander against Kassander; whom he further denounced as an enemy of the Macedonian name, because he had slain Olympias, imprisoned the other members of the regal family, and re-established the Olynthian exiles. He caused the absent Kassander to be condemned by what was called a Macedonian assembly, upon these and other charges.

Antigonus farther proclaimed, by the voice of this assembly, that all the Greeks should be free, self-governing, and exempt from garrisons or military occupation.[854] It was expected that these brilliant promises would enlist partisans in Greece against Kassander; accordingly Ptolemy ruler of Egypt, one of the enemies of Antigonus, thought fit to issue similar proclamations a few months afterwards, tendering to the Greeks the same boon from himself.[855] These promises, neither executed, not intended to be executed, by either of the kings, appear to have produced little or no effect upon the Greeks.

The arrival of Aristodemus in Peloponnesus had re-animated the party of Alexander, (son of Polysperchon), against whom Kassander was again obliged to bring his full forces from Macedonia. Though successful against Alexander at Argos, Orchomenus, and other places, Kassander was not able to crush him, and presently thought it prudent to gain him over. He offered to him the separate government of Peloponnesus, though in subordination to himself: Alexander accepted the offer, becoming Kassander’s ally[856]—and carried on war, jointly with him, against Aristodemus, with varying success, until he was presently assassinated by some private enemies. Nevertheless his widow Kratesipolis, a woman of courage and energy, still maintained herself in considerable force at Sikyon.[857] Kassander’s most obstinate enemies were the Ætolians, of whom we now first hear formal mention as a substantive confederacy.[858] These Ætolians became the allies of Antigonus as they had been before of Polysperchon, extending their predatory ravages even as far as Attica. Protected against foreign garrisons, partly by their rude and fierce habits, partly by their mountainous territory, they were almost the only Greeks who could still be called free. Kassander tried to keep them in check through their neighbors the Akarnanians, whom he induced to adopt a more concentrated habit of residence, consolidating their numerous petty townships into a few considerable towns,—Stratus, Sauria, and Agrinium—convenient posts for Macedonian garrisons. He also made himself master of Leukas, Apollonia, and Epidamnus, defeating the Illyrian king Glaukias, so that his dominion now extended across from the Thermaic to the Adriatic Gulf.[859] His general Philippus gained two important victories over the Ætolians and Epirots, forcing the former to relinquish some of their most accessible towns.[860]

The power of Antigonus in Asia underwent a material diminution, by the successful and permanent establishment which Seleukus now acquired in Babylonia; from which event the era of the succeeding Seleukidæ takes its origin. In Greece, however, Antigonus gained ground on Kassander. He sent thither his nephew Ptolemy with a large force to liberate the Greeks, or in other words, to expel the Kassandrian garrisons; while he at the same time distracted Kassander’s attention by threatening to cross the Hellespont and invade Macedonia. This Ptolemy (not the Egyptian) expelled the soldiers of Kassander from Eubœa, Bœotia, and Phokis. Chalkis in Eubœa was at this time the chief military station of Kassander; Thebes (which he had recently re-established) was in alliance with him; but the remaining Bœotian towns were hostile to him. Ptolemy, having taken Chalkis—the citizens of which he conciliated by leaving them without any garrison—together with Oropus, Eretria, and Karystus—entered Attica and presented himself before Athens. So much disposition to treat with him was manifested in the city, that Demetrius the Phalerean was obliged to gain time by pretending to open negotiations with Antigonus, while Ptolemy withdrew from Attica. Nearly at the same epoch, Apollonia, Epidamnus, and Leukas, found means, assisted by an armament from Korkyra, to drive out Kassander’s garrisons, and to escape from his dominion.[861] The affairs of Antigonus were now prospering in Greece, but they were much thrown back by the discontent and treachery of his admiral Telesphorus, who seized Elis and even plundered the sacred treasures of Olympia. Ptolemy presently put him down, and restored these treasures to the god.[862]

In the ensuing year, a convention was concluded between Antigonus, on one side—and Kassander, Ptolemy (the Egyptian) and Lysimachus, on the other, whereby the supreme command in Macedonia was guaranteed to Kassander, until the maturity of Alexander son of Roxana; Thrace being at the same time assured to Lysimachus, Egypt to Ptolemy, and the whole of Asia to Antigonus. It was at the same time covenanted by all, that the Hellenic cities should be free.[863] Towards the execution of this last clause, however, nothing was actually done. Nor does it appear that the treaty had any other effect, except to inspire Kassander with increased jealousy about Roxana and her child; both of whom (as has been already stated) he caused to be secretly assassinated soon afterwards, by the governor Glaukias, in the fortress of Amphipolis, where they had been confined.[864] The forces of Antigonus, under his general Ptolemy, still remained in Greece. But this general presently (310 B. C.) revolted from Antigonus, and placed them in co-operation with Kassander; while Ptolemy of Egypt, accusing Antigonus of having contravened the treaty by garrisoning various Grecian cities, renewed the war and the triple alliance against him.[865]

Polysperchon,—who had hitherto maintained a local dominion over various parts of Peloponnesus, with a military force distributed in Messênê and other towns[866]—was now encouraged by Antigonus to espouse the cause of Herakles (son of Alexander by Barsinê), and to place him on the throne of Macedonia in opposition to Kassander. This young prince Herakles, now seventeen years of age, was sent to Greece from Pergamus in Asia, and his pretensions to the throne were assisted not only by a considerable party in Macedonia itself, but also by the Ætolians. Polysperchon invaded Macedonia, with favorable prospects of establishing the young prince; yet he thought it advantageous to accept treacherous propositions from Kassander, who offered to him partnership in the sovereignty of Macedonia, with an independent army and dominion in Peloponnesus. Polysperchon, tempted by these offers, assassinated the young prince Herakles, and withdrew his army towards Peloponnesus. But he found such unexpected opposition, in his march through Bœotia, from Bœotians and Peloponnesians, that he was forced to take up his winter quarters in Lokris[867] (309 B. C.). From this time forward, as far as we can make out, he commanded in Southern Greece as subordinate ally or partner of Kassander;[868] whose Macedonian dominion, thus confirmed, seems to have included Akarnania and Amphilochia on the Ambrakian Gulf, together with the town of Ambrakia itself, and a supremacy over many of the Epirots.

The assassination of Herakles was speedily followed by that of Kleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great, and daughter of Philip and Olympias. She had been for some time at Sardis, nominally at liberty, yet under watch by the governor, who received his orders from Antigonus; she was now preparing to quit that place, for the purpose of joining Ptolemy in Egypt, and of becoming his wife. She had been invoked as auxiliary, or courted in marriage, by several of the great Macedonian chiefs, without any result. Now, however, Antigonus, afraid of the influence which her name might throw into the scale of his rival Ptolemy, caused her to be secretly murdered as she was preparing for her departure; throwing the blame of the deed on some of her women, whom he punished with death.[869] All the relatives of Alexander the Great (except Thessalonikê wife of Kassander, daughter of Philip by a Thessalian mistress) thus successively perished, and all by the orders of one or other among his principal officers. The imperial family, with the prestige of its name, thus came to an end.

Ptolemy of Egypt now set sail for Greece with a powerful armament. He acquired possession of the important cities—Sikyon and Corinth—which were handed over to him by Kratesipolis, widow of Alexander son of Polysperchon. He then made known by proclamation his purpose as a liberator, inviting aid from the Peloponnesian cities themselves against the garrisons of Kassander. From some he received encouraging answers and promises; but none of them made any movement, or seconded him by armed demonstrations. He thought it prudent therefore to conclude a truce with Kassander and retire from Greece, leaving however secure garrisons in Sikyon and Corinth.[870] The Grecian cities had now become tame and passive. Feeling their own incapacity of self-defence, and averse to auxiliary efforts, which brought upon them enmity without any prospect of advantage—they awaited only the turns of foreign interference and the behests of the potentates around them.

The Grecian ascendency of Kassander, however, was in the following year exposed to a graver shock than it had ever yet encountered—by the sudden invasion of Demetrius called Poliorketes, son of Antigonus. This young prince, sailing from Ephesus with a formidable armament, contrived to conceal his purposes so closely, that he actually entered the harbor of Peiræus (on the 26th of the month Thargelion—May) without expectation, or resistance from any one; his fleet being mistaken for the fleet of the Egyptian Ptolemy. The Phalerean Demetrius, taken unawares, and attempting too late to guard the harbor, found himself compelled to leave it in possession of the enemy, and to retire within the walls of Athens; while Dionysius, the Kassandrian governor, maintained himself with his garrison in Munychia, yet without any army competent to meet the invaders in the field. This accomplished Phalerean, who had administered for ten years as the viceroy and with the force of Kassander, now felt his position and influence at Athens overthrown, and even his personal safety endangered. He with other Athenians went as envoys on the ensuing day to ascertain what terms would be granted. The young prince ostentatiously proclaimed, that it was the intention of his father Antigonus and himself to restore and guarantee to the Athenians unqualified freedom and autonomy. Hence the Phalerean Demetrius foresaw that his internal opponents, condemned as they had been to compulsory silence during the last ten years, would now proclaim themselves with irresistible violence, so that there was no safety for him except in retreat. He accordingly asked and obtained permission from the invader to retire to Thebes, from whence he passed over soon after to Ptolemy in Egypt. The Athenians in the city declared in favor of Demetrius Poliorketes; who however refused to enter the walls until he should have besieged and captured Munychia, as well as Megara, with their Kassandrian garrisons. In a short time he accomplished both these objects. Indeed energy, skill, and effective use of engines, in besieging fortified places, were among the most conspicuous features in his character; procuring for him the surname whereby he is known to history. He proclaimed the Megarians free, levelling to the ground the fortifications of Munychia, as an earnest to the Athenians that they should be relieved for the future from all foreign garrison.[871]

After these successes, Demetrius Poliorketes 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 farther boon from his father Antigonus and himself—150,000 medimni of corn for distribution, and ship-timber in quantity sufficient for constructing 100 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. Stratokles (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 saviors: a high priest of these saviors 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 Antigonis and Demetrias, were constituted in addition to the preceding ten:—the annual senate was appointed to consist of 600 members instead of 500; the portraits and exploits of Antigonus and Demetrius were to be woven, along with those of Zeus and Athênê, 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 honor of Demetrius Katæbates or the Descender. Several other similar votes were passed, recognizing, and worshipping as gods, the saviors Antigonus and Demetrius. Nay, we are told that temples or altars were voted to Phila-Aphroditê, in honor 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 Adeimantus and others, his convivial companions or flatterers.[872] At the same time the numerous statues which had been erected in honor 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.[873] The demonstrations of servile flattery at Athens, towards Demetrius Poliorketes, 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.[874]

In reviewing such degrading proceedings, we must recollect that thirty-one years had now elapsed since the battle of Chæroneia, and that during all this time the Athenians had been under the practical ascendancy, and constantly augmenting pressure, of foreign potentates. The sentiment of this dependence on Macedonia had been continually strengthened by all the subsequent events—by the capture and destruction of Thebes, and the subsequent overwhelming conquests of Alexander—by the deplorable conclusion of the Lamian war, the slaughter of the free-spoken orators, the death of the energetic military leaders, and the deportation of Athenian citizens—lastly, by the continued presence of a Macedonian garrison in Peiræus or Munychia. By Phokion, Demetrius Phalereus, and the other leading statesmen of this long period, submission to Macedonia had been inculcated as a virtue, while the recollection of the dignity and grandeur of old autonomous Athens had been effaced or denounced as a mischievous dream. The fifteen years between the close of the Lamian war and the arrival of Demetrius Poliorketes (322-307 B. C.), had witnessed no free play, nor public discussion and expression, of conflicting opinions; the short period during which Phokion was condemned must be excepted, but that lasted only long enough to give room for the outburst of a preconceived but suppressed antipathy.

During this thirty years, of which the last half had been an aggravation of the first, a new generation of Athenians had grown up, accustomed to an altered phase of political existence. How few of those who received Demetrius Poliorketes, had taken part in the battle of Chæroneia, or listened to the stirring exhortations of Demosthenes in the war which preceded that disaster![875] Of the citizens who yet retained courage and patriotism to struggle again for their freedom after the death of Alexander, how many must have perished with Leosthenes in the Lamian war! The Athenians of 307 B. C. had come to conceive their own city, and Hellas generally, as dependent first on Kassander, next on the possible intervention of his equally overweening rivals, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Lysimachus, etc. If they shook off the yoke of one potentate, it could only be by the protectorate of another. The sentiment of political self-reliance and autonomy had fled; the conception of a citizen military force, furnished by confederate and co-operating cities, had been superseded by the spectacle of vast standing armies, organized by the heirs of Alexander and of his traditions.

Two centuries before (510 B. C.), when the Lacedæmonians expelled the despot Hippias and his mercenaries from Athens, there sprang up at once among the Athenian people a forward and devoted patriotism, which made them willing to brave, and competent to avert, all dangers in defence of their newly-acquired liberty.[876] At that time, the enemies by whom they were threatened were Lacedæmonians, Thebans, Æginetans, Chalkidians, and the like (for the Persian force did not present itself until after some interval, and attacked not Athens alone, but Greece collectively). These hostile forces, though superior in number and apparent value to those of Athens, were yet not so disproportionate as to engender hopelessness and despair. Very different were the facts in 307 B. C., when Demetrius Poliorketes removed the Kassandrian mercenaries with their fortress Munychia, and proclaimed Athens free. To maintain that freedom by their own strength—in opposition to the evident superiority of organized force residing in the potentates around, one or more of whom had nearly all Greece under military occupation,—was an enterprise too hopeless to have been attempted even by men such as the combatants of Marathon or the contemporaries of Perikles. “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!” but the Athenians had not force enough to strike it; and the liberty proclaimed by Demetrius Poliorketes was a boon dependent upon him for its extent and even for its continuance. The Athenian assembly of that day was held under his army as masters of Attica, as it had been held a few months before under the controlling force of the Phalerean Demetrius together with the Kassandrian governor of Munychia; and the most fulsome votes of adulation proposed in honor of Demetrius Poliorketes 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 Stratokles ended in banishment, four years afterwards.[877] He appears to have discharged the functions of general during this period—to have been active in strengthening the fortifications and military equipment of the city—and to have been employed in occasional missions.[878]

The altered politics of Athens were manifested by impeachment against Demetrius Phalereus and other leading partisans of the late Kassandrian 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;[879] so little was there of reactionary violence on this occasion. Stratokles also proposed a decree, commemorating the orator Lykurgus (who had been dead about seventeen years) by a statue, an honorary inscription, and a grant of maintenance in the Prytaneum to his eldest surviving descendant.[880] Among those who accompanied the Phalerean Demetrius into exile was the rhetor or logographer Deinarchus.

The friendship of this obnoxious Phalerean, and of Kassander also, towards the philosopher Theophrastus, seems to have been one main cause which occasioned the enactment of a restrictive law against the liberty of philosophizing. It was decreed, on the proposition of a citizen named Sophokles, 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—when their power had become extinct, and when even their independence and free constitution had degenerated into a mere name. It was moreover the great temptation for young men, coming from all parts of Greece, to visit Athens. Accordingly, a year had hardly passed, when Philon, impeaching Sophokles the author of the law, under the Graphê Paranomôn, prevailed on the Dikastery to find him guilty, and condemn him to a fine of five talents. The restrictive law being thus repealed, the philosophers returned.[881] It is remarkable that Demochares stood forward as one of its advocates; defending Sophokles against the accuser Philon. From scanty notices remaining of the speech of Demochares, we gather that, while censuring the opinions no less than the characters of Plato and Aristotle, he denounced yet more bitterly their pupils, as being for the most part ambitious, violent, and treacherous men. He cited by name several among them, who had subverted the freedom of their respective cities, and committed gross outrages against their fellow-citizens.[882]

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 100 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.[883] 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 Seleukus in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Syria[884]—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 Poliorketes. All their efforts however would have been vain had they not been assisted by large reinforcements and supplies from Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Kassander. 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.[885] 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.[886] 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.

Shortly after the departure of Demetrius from Greece to Cyprus, Kassander and Polysperchon renewed the war in Peloponnesus and its neighborhood.[887] We make out no particulars respecting this war. The Ætolians were in hostility with Athens, and committed annoying depredations.[888] 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.[889] But we can discover little respecting the course of the war, except that Kassander 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 Poliorketes, who, having recently concluded an accommodation with the Rhodians, came again across from Asia, with a powerful fleet and army, to Aulis in Bœotia.[890] He was received at Athens with demonstrations of honor 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 compelled the Bœotians to evacuate the Eubœan city of Chalkis, and to relinquish their alliance with Kassander. He drove that prince out of Attica—expelled his garrisons from the two frontier fortresses of Attica,—Phylê and Panaktum—and pursued him as far as Thermopylæ. He captured, or obtained by bribing the garrisons, the important towns of Corinth, Argos, and Sikyon; mastering also Ægium, Bura, all the Arcadian towns (except Mantineia), and various other towns in Peloponnesus.[891] He celebrated, as president, the great festival of the Heræa at Argos; on which occasion he married Deidameia, sister of Pyrrhus, the young king of Epirus. He prevailed on the Sikyonians to transfer to a short distance the site of their city, conferring upon the new city the name of Demetrias.[892] 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 Leukas and Korkyra. The greater part of Greece seems to have been either occupied by his garrisons, or enlisted among his subordinates.

So much was Kassander 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. Kassander, thus driven to despair, renewed his applications to Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleukus. All these princes felt equally menaced by the power and dispositions of Antigonus—and all resolved upon an energetic combination to put him down.[893]

After uninterrupted prosperity in Greece, throughout the summer of 302 B. C., Demetrius returned from Leukas to Athens, about the month of September, near the time of the Eleusinian mysteries.[894] He was welcomed by festive processions, hymns, pæans, choric dances, and bacchanalian odes of joyous congratulation. One of these hymns is preserved, sung by a chorus of Ithyphalli—masked revellers, with their heads and arms encircled by wreaths,—clothed in white tunics, and in feminine garments reaching almost to the feet.[895]

This song is curious, as indicating the hopes and fears prevalent among Athenians of that day, and as affording a measure of their self-appreciation. It is moreover among the latest Grecian documents that we possess, bearing on actual and present reality. The poet, addressing Demetrius as a god, boasts that two of the greatest and best-beloved of all divine beings are visiting Attica at the same moment—Demeter (coming for the season of her mysteries), and Demetrius, son of Poseidon and Aphroditê. “To thee we pray (the hymn proceeds); for other gods are either afar off—or have no ears—or do not exist—or care nothing about us; but thee we see before us, not in wood or marble, but in real presence. First of all things, establish peace; for thou hast the power—and chastise that Sphinx who domineers, not merely over Thebes, but over all Greece—the Ætolian, who, (like the old Sphinx) rushes from his station on the rock to snatch and carry away our persons, and against whom we cannot fight. At all times, the Ætolians robbed their neighbors; but now, they rob far as well as near.[896]”

Effusions such as these, while displaying unmeasured idolatry and subservience towards Demetrius, are yet more remarkable, as betraying a loss of force, a senility, and a consciousness of defenceless and degraded position, such as we are astonished to find publicly proclaimed at Athens. It is not only against the foreign potentates that the Athenians avow themselves incapable of self-defence, but even against the incursions of the Ætolians.—Greeks like themselves, though warlike, rude, and restless.[897] When such were the feelings of a people, once the most daring, confident, and organizing—and still the most intelligent—in Greece, we may see that the history of the Greeks as a separate nation or race is reaching its close—and that from henceforward they must become merged in one or other of the stronger currents that surround them.

After his past successes, Demetrius passed some months in enjoyment and luxury at Athens. He was lodged in the Parthenon, being considered as the guest of the goddess Athênê. But his dissolute habits provoked the louder comments, from being indulged in such a domicile; while the violences which he offered to beautiful youths of good family led to various scenes truly tragical. The subservient manifestations of the Athenians towards him, however, continued unabated. It is even affirmed, that, in order to compensate for something which he had taken amiss, they passed a formal decree, on the proposition of Stratokles, declaring that every thing which Demetrius might command was holy in regard to the gods, and just in regard to men.[898] The banishment of Demochares is said to have been brought on by his sarcastic comments upon this decree.[899] In the month Munychion (April) Demetrius mustered his forces and his Grecian allies for a march into Thessaly against Kassander; but before his departure, he was anxious to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. It was however not the regular time for this ceremony; the Lesser Mysteries being celebrated in February, the Greater in September. The Athenians overruled the difficulty by passing a special vote, enabling him to be initiated at once, and to receive in immediate succession, the preparatory and the final initiation, between which ceremonies a year of interval was habitually required. Accordingly, he placed himself disarmed in the hands of the priests, and received both first and second initiation in the month of April, immediately before his departure from Athens.[900]

Demetrius conducted into Thessaly an army of 56,000 men; of whom 25,000 were Grecian allies—so extensive was his sway at this moment over the Grecian cities.[901] But after two or three months of hostilities, partially successful, against Kassander, he was summoned into Asia by Antigonus to assist in meeting the formidable army of the allies—Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lysimachus, and Kassander. Before retiring from Greece, Demetrius concluded a truce with Kassander, whereby it was stipulated that the Grecian cities, both in Europe and Asia, should be permanently autonomous and free from garrison or control. This stipulation served only as an honorable pretext for leaving Greece; Demetrius had little expectation that it would be observed.[902] In the ensuing spring was fought the decisive battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (B. C. 300), by Antigonus and Demetrius, against Ptolemy, Seleukus, and Lysimachus; with a large army and many elephants on both sides. Antigonus was completely defeated and slain, at the age of more than eighty years. His Asiatic dominion was broken up, chiefly to the profit of Seleukus, whose dynasty became from henceforward ascendent, from the coast of Syria eastward to the Caspian Gates and Parthia; sometimes, though imperfectly, farther eastward, nearly to the Indus.[903]

The effects of the battle of Ipsus were speedily felt in Greece. The Athenians passed a decree proclaiming themselves neutral, and excluding both the belligerent parties from Attica. Demetrius, retiring with the remnant of his defeated army, and embarking at Ephesus to sail to Athens, was met on the voyage by Athenian envoys, who respectfully acquainted him that he would not be admitted. At the same time, his wife Deidameia, whom he had left at Athens, was sent away by the Athenians under an honorable escort to Megara, while some ships of war which he had left in the Peiræus were also restored to him. Demetrius, indignant at this unexpected defection of a city which had recently heaped upon him such fulsome adulation, was still farther mortified by the loss of most of his other possessions in Greece.[904] His garrisons were for the most part expelled, and the cities passed into Kassandrian keeping or dominion. His fortunes were indeed partially restored by concluding a peace with Seleukus, who married his daughter. This alliance withdrew Demetrius to Syria, while Greece appears to have fallen more and more under the Kassandrian parties. It was one of these partisans, Lachares, who, seconded by Kassander’s soldiers, acquired a despotism at Athens such as had been possessed by the Phalerean Demetrius, but employed in a manner far more cruel and oppressive. Various exiles driven out by his tyranny invited Demetrius Poliorketes, who passed over again from Asia into Greece, recovered portions of Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Athens. He blocked up the city by sea and land, so that the pressure of famine presently became intolerable. Lachares having made his escape, the people opened their gates to Demetrius, not without great fear of the treatment awaiting them. But he behaved with forbearance, and even with generosity. He spared them all, supplied them with a large donation of corn, and contented himself with taking military occupation of the city, naming his own friends as magistrates. He put garrisons, however, not only into Peiræus and Munychia, but also into the hill called Museum, a part of the walled circle of Athens itself[905] (B. C. 298).

While Demetrius was thus strengthening himself in Greece, he lost all his footing both in Cyprus, Syria, and Kilikia, which passed into the hands of Ptolemy and Seleukus. New prospects however were opened to him in Macedonia by the death of Kassander (his brother-in-law, brother of his wife Phila) and the family feuds supervening thereupon. Philippus, eldest son of Kassander, succeeded his father, but died of sickness after something more than a year. Between the two remaining sons, Antipater and Alexander, a sanguinary hostility broke out. Antipater slew his mother Thessalonikê, and threatened the life of his brother, who in his turn invited aid both from Demetrius, and from the Epirotic king Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus being ready first, marched into Macedonia, and expelled Antipater; receiving as his recompense the territory called Tymphæa (between Epirus and Macedonia), together with Akarnania, Amphilochia, and the town of Ambrakia, which became henceforward his chief city and residence.[906] Antipater sought shelter in Thrace with his father-in-law Lysimachus; by whose order, however, he was presently slain. Demetrius, occupied with other matters, was more tardy in obeying the summons; but, on entering into Macedonia, he found himself strong enough to dispossess and kill Alexander (who had indeed invited him, but is said to have laid a train for assassinating him), and seized the Macedonian crown; not without the assent of a considerable party, to whom the name and the deeds of Kassander and his sons were alike odious.[907]

Demetrius became thus master of Macedonia, together with the greater part of Greece, including Athens, Megara, and much of Peloponnesus. He undertook an expedition into Bœotia, for the purpose of conquering Thebes; in which attempt he succeeded, not without a double siege of that city, which made an obstinate resistance. He left as viceroy in Bœotia the historian, Hieronymus of Kardia,[908] once the attached friend and fellow-citizen of Eumenes. But Greece as a whole was managed by Antigonus (afterwards called Antigonus Gonatas) son of Demetrius, who maintained his supremacy unshaken during all his father’s lifetime; even though Demetrius was deprived of Macedonia by the temporary combination of Lysimachus with Pyrrhus, and afterwards remained (until his death in 283 B. C.) a captive in the hands of Seleukus. After a brief possession of the crown of Macedonia successively by Seleukus, Ptolemy, Keraunus, Meleager, Antipater, and Sosthenes—Antigonus Gonatas regained it in 277 B. C. His descendants the Antigonid kings maintained it until the battle of Pydna in 168 B. C.; when Perseus, the last of them, was overthrown, and his kingdom incorporated with the Roman conquests.[909]

Of Greece during this period we can give no account, except that the greater number of its cities were in dependence upon Demetrius and his son Antigonus; either under occupation by Macedonian garrisons, or ruled by local despots who leaned on foreign mercenaries and Macedonian support. The spirit of the Greeks was broken, and their habits of combined sentiment and action had disappeared. The invasion of the Gauls indeed awakened them into a temporary union for the defence of Thermopylæ in 279 B. C. So intolerable was the cruelty and spoliation of those barbarian invaders, that the cities as well as Antigonus were driven by fear to the efforts necessary for repelling them.[910] A gallant army of Hellenic confederates was mustered. In the mountains of Ætolia and in the neighborhood of Delphi, most of the Gallic horde with their king Brennus perished. But this burst of spirit did not interrupt the continuance of the Macedonian dominion in Greece, which Antigonus Gonatas continued to hold throughout most of a long reign. He greatly extended the system begun by his predecessors, of isolating each Grecian city from alliances with other cities in its neighborhood—planting in most of them local despots—and compressing the most important by means of garrisons.[911] Among all Greeks, the Spartans and the Ætolians stood most free from foreign occupation, and were the least crippled in their power of self-action. The Achæan league too developed itself afterwards as a renovated sprout from the ruined tree of Grecian liberty,[912] though never attaining to anything better than a feeble and puny life, nor capable of sustaining itself without foreign aid.[913]

With this after-growth, or half-revival, I shall not meddle. It forms the Greece of Polybius, which that author treats, in my opinion justly, as having no history of its own,[914] but as an appendage attached to some foreign centre and principal among its neighbors—Macedonia, Egypt, Syria, Rome. Each of these neighbors acted upon the destinies of Greece more powerfully than the Greeks themselves. The Greeks to whom these volumes have been devoted—those of Homer, Archilochus, Solon, Æschylus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes—present as their most marked characteristic a loose aggregation of autonomous tribes or communities, acting and reacting freely among themselves, with little or no pressure from foreigners. The main interest of the narrative has consisted in the spontaneous grouping of the different Hellenic fractions—in the self-prompted cooperations and conflicts—the abortive attempts to bring about something like an effective federal organization, or to maintain two permanent rival confederacies—the energetic ambition, and heroic endurance, of men to whom Hellas was the entire political world. The freedom of Hellas, the life and soul of this history from its commencement, disappeared completely during the first years of Alexander’s reign. After following to their tombs the generation of Greeks contemporary with him, men like Demosthenes and Phokion, born in a state of freedom—I have pursued the history into that gulf of Grecian nullity which marks the succeeding century; exhibiting sad evidence of the degrading servility, and suppliant king-worship, into which the countrymen of Aristeides and Perikles had been driven, by their own conscious weakness under overwhelming pressure from without.

I cannot better complete that picture than by showing what the leading democratical citizen became, under the altered atmosphere which now bedimmed his city. Demochares, the nephew of Demosthenes, has been mentioned as one of the few distinguished Athenians in this last generation. He was more than once chosen to the highest public offices;[915] he was conspicuous for his free speech, both as an orator and as an historian, in the face of powerful enemies; he remained throughout a long life faithfully attached to the democratical constitution, and was banished for a time by its opponents. In the year 280 B. C., he prevailed on the Athenians to erect a public monument, with a commemorative inscription, to his uncle Demosthenes. Seven or eight years afterwards, Demochares himself died, aged nearly eighty. His son Laches proposed and obtained a public decree, that a statue should be erected, with an annexed inscription, to his honor. We read in the decree a recital of the distinguished public services, whereby Demochares merited this compliment from his countrymen. All that the proposer of the decree, his son and fellow-citizen, can find to recite, as ennobling the last half of the father’s public life (since his return from exile), is as follows:—1. He contracted the public expenses, and introduced a more frugal management. 2. He undertook an embassy to King Lysimachus, from whom he obtained two presents for the people, one of thirty talents, the other of one hundred talents. 3. He proposed the vote for sending envoys to King Ptolemy in Egypt, from whom fifty talents were obtained for the people. 4. He went as envoy to Antipater, received from him twenty talents, and delivered them to the people at the Eleusinian festival.[916]

When such begging missions are the deeds, for which Athens both employed and recompensed her most eminent citizens, an historian accustomed to the Grecian world as described by Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, feels that the life has departed from his subject, and with sadness and humiliation brings his narrative to a close.