DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0041
OF THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS. IB
they pulled down with the greatest detestation and abhorrence, breaking
some to pieces, selling others, and drowning others; so that of three
hundred there was none left remaining, except only one in the citadel,
as the fore-mentioned author had reported.
Demetrius Poliorcetes having gotten possession of the city, restored
to the Athenians their popular government, bestowed upon them fifteen
thousand measures of wheat, and such a quantity of timber as would en-
able them to build an hundred galleys for the defence of their city, and
left them in full possession of their liberty, without any garrison to keep
them in obedience. And so transported were the Athenians with this
deliverance, that by a wild and extravagant gratitude, they bestowed upon
Demetrius and Antigonus, not only the title of kings, though that was a
name they had hitherto declined, but called them their tutelar deities and
deliverers ; they instituted priests to them ; enacted a law, that the am-
bassadors whom they should send to them, should have the same style
and character with those who were accustomed to be sent to Delphi, to
consult the oracle of the Pythian Apollo, or to Ellis to the Olympian Ju -
piter, to perform the Grecian solemnities, and make oblations for the
safety and preservation of their city, whom they ealled €>sa>j>oi. They
appointed lodgings for Demetrius in the temple of Minerva, and consecrat-
ed an altar where he first alighted from his chariot, calling it the altar of
Demetrius the Alighter, and added infinite other instances of the most
gross and sordid flattery, of which Plutarch (1) and others give us a
large account ; for (says a learned modern author) the Athenians having
forgotten how to employ their hands, made up that defect with their
tongues ; converting to base flattery that eloquence which the virtues of
their ancestors had suited to more manly arguments.
But afterwards, when Demetrius's fortune began to decline, he was no
longer their god, or their deliverer, but in requital of all his former kind-
nesses, they basely deserted him, denied him entrance into their city,
and. by a popular edict, made it death for any person so much as to pro-
pose a treaty or accommodation with him. Then the city being embroil-
ed in civil dissensions, one Lachares seized the government, but upon the
approach of Demetrius, was forced to quit his new usurped authority,
and preserve himself by a timely flight.
Thus they were a second time in the possession of Demetrius, who,
notwithstanding their former shameful ingratitude, received them again
into favour, bestowed upon them an hundred thousand bushels of wheat,
and to ingratiate himself the more with them, advanced such persons to
public offices as he knew to be most acceptable to the people. This un-
expected generosity transported them so far beyond themselves, that at
the motion of Dromochdes an orator, it was decreed by the unanimous
suffrage of the people, that the haven of Piraeeus, and the castle of Muny-
chia, should be put into the hands of Demetrius, to dispose of them as
he pleased. And he having learned by their former inconstancy, not to
repose too much trust in such humble servants, put strong garrisons into
those two places, and by his own authority placed a third in the Muse-
um, to the end (says Plutarch; that those people who had showed so
much levity in their dispositions might be kept in subjection, and not by
their future perfidies be able to divert him from the prosecution of other
enterprises.
(1) Demetrio,
they pulled down with the greatest detestation and abhorrence, breaking
some to pieces, selling others, and drowning others; so that of three
hundred there was none left remaining, except only one in the citadel,
as the fore-mentioned author had reported.
Demetrius Poliorcetes having gotten possession of the city, restored
to the Athenians their popular government, bestowed upon them fifteen
thousand measures of wheat, and such a quantity of timber as would en-
able them to build an hundred galleys for the defence of their city, and
left them in full possession of their liberty, without any garrison to keep
them in obedience. And so transported were the Athenians with this
deliverance, that by a wild and extravagant gratitude, they bestowed upon
Demetrius and Antigonus, not only the title of kings, though that was a
name they had hitherto declined, but called them their tutelar deities and
deliverers ; they instituted priests to them ; enacted a law, that the am-
bassadors whom they should send to them, should have the same style
and character with those who were accustomed to be sent to Delphi, to
consult the oracle of the Pythian Apollo, or to Ellis to the Olympian Ju -
piter, to perform the Grecian solemnities, and make oblations for the
safety and preservation of their city, whom they ealled €>sa>j>oi. They
appointed lodgings for Demetrius in the temple of Minerva, and consecrat-
ed an altar where he first alighted from his chariot, calling it the altar of
Demetrius the Alighter, and added infinite other instances of the most
gross and sordid flattery, of which Plutarch (1) and others give us a
large account ; for (says a learned modern author) the Athenians having
forgotten how to employ their hands, made up that defect with their
tongues ; converting to base flattery that eloquence which the virtues of
their ancestors had suited to more manly arguments.
But afterwards, when Demetrius's fortune began to decline, he was no
longer their god, or their deliverer, but in requital of all his former kind-
nesses, they basely deserted him, denied him entrance into their city,
and. by a popular edict, made it death for any person so much as to pro-
pose a treaty or accommodation with him. Then the city being embroil-
ed in civil dissensions, one Lachares seized the government, but upon the
approach of Demetrius, was forced to quit his new usurped authority,
and preserve himself by a timely flight.
Thus they were a second time in the possession of Demetrius, who,
notwithstanding their former shameful ingratitude, received them again
into favour, bestowed upon them an hundred thousand bushels of wheat,
and to ingratiate himself the more with them, advanced such persons to
public offices as he knew to be most acceptable to the people. This un-
expected generosity transported them so far beyond themselves, that at
the motion of Dromochdes an orator, it was decreed by the unanimous
suffrage of the people, that the haven of Piraeeus, and the castle of Muny-
chia, should be put into the hands of Demetrius, to dispose of them as
he pleased. And he having learned by their former inconstancy, not to
repose too much trust in such humble servants, put strong garrisons into
those two places, and by his own authority placed a third in the Muse-
um, to the end (says Plutarch; that those people who had showed so
much levity in their dispositions might be kept in subjection, and not by
their future perfidies be able to divert him from the prosecution of other
enterprises.
(1) Demetrio,