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As both are great examples of the vicissitudes of fortune, let us firstconsider in what way they attained their power and glory. Demetrius hireda kingdom already won for him by Antigonus, the most powerful of the Successors,who, before Demetrius grew to be a man, traversed with his armies and subduedthe greater part of Asia. Antony's father was well enough in other respects,but was no warrior, and could bequeath no great legacy of reputation tohis son, who had the boldness, nevertheless, to take upon him the government,to which birth give him no claim, which had been held by Caesar, and becamethe inheritor of his great labours. And such power did he attain, withonly himself to thank for it, that, in a division of the whole empire intotwo portions, he took and received the nobler one; and, absent himself,by his mere subalterns and lieutenants often defeated the Parthians, anddrove the barbarous nations of the Caucasus back to the Caspian Sea. Thosevery things that procured him ill-repute bear witness to his greatness.Antigonus considered Antipater's daughter Phila, in spite of the disparityof her years, an advantageous match for Demetrius. Antony was thought disgracedby his marriage with Cleopatra, a queen superior in power and glory toall, except Arsaces, who were kings in her time. Antony was so great asto be thought by others worthy of higher things than his owndesires.
As regards the right and justice of their aims at empire, Demetriusneed not be blamed for seeking to rule a people that had always had a kingto rule them. Antony, who enslaved the Roman people, just liberated fromthe rule of Caesar, followed a cruel and tyrannical object. His greatestand most illustrious work, his successful war with Brutus and Cassius,was done to crush the liberties of his country and of his fellow-citizens.Demetrius, till he was driven to extremity, went on, without intermission,maintaining liberty in Greece, and expelling the foreign garrisons fromthe cities; not like Antony, whose boast was to have slain in Macedoniathose who had set up liberty in Rome. As for the profusion and magnificenceof his gifts, one point for which Antony is lauded, Demetrius so far outdidthem that what he gave to his enemies was far more than Antony ever gaveto his friends. Antony was renowned for giving Brutus honourable burial;Demetrius did so to all the enemy's dead, and sent the prisoners back toPtolemy with money and presents.
Both were insolent in prosperity, and abandoned themselves to luxuriesand enjoyments. Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius, in his revellingsand dissipations, ever let slip the time for action; pleasures with himattended only the superabundance of his ease, and his Lamia, like thatof the fable, belonging only to his playful, half-waking, half-sleepinghours. When war demanded his attention, his spear was not wreathed withivy, nor his helmet redolent of unguents; he did not come out to battlefrom the women's chamber, but, bushing the bacchanal shouts and puttingan end to the orgies, he became at once, as Euripides calls it, "the ministerof the unpriestly Mars; and, in short, he never once incurred disasterthrough indolence or self-indulgence. Whereas Antony, like Hercules inthe picture where Omphale is seen removing his club and stripping him ofhis lion's skin, was over and over again disarmed by Cleopatra, and beguiledaway, while great actions and enterprises of the first necessity fell,as it were, from his hands, to go with her to the seashore of Canopus andTaphosiris, and play about. And in the end, like another Paris, he leftthe battle to fly to her arms; or rather, to say the truth, Paris fledwhen he was already beaten; Antony fled first, and, following Cleopatra,abandoned his victory.
There was no law to prevent Demetrius from marrying several wives;from the time of Philip and Alexander it had become usual with Macedoniankings, and he did no more than was done by Lysimachus and Ptolemy. Andthose he married he treated honourably. But Antony, first of all, in marryingtwo wives at once, did a thing which no Roman had ever allowed himself;and then he drove away his lawful Roman wife to please the foreign andunlawful woman. And so Demetrius incurred no harm at all; Antony procuredhis ruin by his marriage. On the other hand, no licentious act of Antony'scan be charged with that impiety which marks those of Demetrius. Historicalwriters tell us that the very dogs are excluded from the whole Acropolisbecause of their gross, uncleanly habits. The very Parthenon itself sawDemetrius consorting with harlots and debauching free women of Athens.The vice of cruelty, also, remote as it seems from the indulgence of voluptuousdesires, must be attributed to him, who, in the pursuit of his pleasures,allowed or, to say more truly, compelled the death of the most beautifuland most chaste of the Athenians, who found no way but this to escape hisviolence. In one word, Antony himself suffered by his excesses, and otherpeople by those of Demetrius.
In his conduct to his parents, Demetrius was irreproachable. Antonygave up his mother's brother, in order that he might have leave to killCicero, this itself being so cruel and shocking an act that Antony wouldhardly be forgiven if Cicero's death had been the price of this uncle'ssafety. In respect of breaches of oaths and treaties, the seizure of Artabazes,and the assassination of Alexander, Antony may urge the plea which no onedenies to be true, that Artabazes first abandoned and betrayed him in Media;Demetrius is alleged by many to have invented false pretexts for his act,and not to have retaliated for injuries, but to have accused one whom heinjured himself.
The achievements of Demetrius are all his own work. Antony's noblestand greatest victories were won in his absence by his lieutenants. Fortheir final disasters they have both only to thank themselves; not, however,in an equal degree. Demetrius was deserted, the Macedonians revolted fromhim; Antony deserted others, and ran away while men were fighting for himat the risk of their lives. The fault to be found with the one is thathe had thus entirely alienated the affections of his soldiers; the other'scondemnation is that he abandoned so much love and faith as he still possessed.We cannot admire the death of either, but that of Demetrius excites ourgreater contempt. He let himself become a prisoner, and was thankful togain a three years' accession of life in captivity. He was tamed like awild beast by his belly, and by wine; Antony took himself out of the worldin a cowardly, pitiful, and ignoble manner, but still in time to preventthe enemy having his person in their power.THE END
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