Demetrius   

DEMETRIUS

INGENIOUS men have long observed a resemblance between the arts
and the bodily senses. And they were first led to do so, I think, by
noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with our senses, we
examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the use to which we put
it differs in the two cases. Our senses are not meant to pick out
black rather than white, to prefer sweet to bitter, or soft and
yielding to hard and resisting objects; all they have to do is to
receive impressions as they occur, and report to the understanding the
impressions as received. The arts, on the other hand, which reason
institutes expressly to choose and obtain some suitable, and to refuse
and get rid of some unsuitable object, have their proper concern in
the consideration of the former; though, in a casual and contingent
way, they must also, for the very rejection of them, pay attention
to the latter. Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease,
and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord; and the
supreme arts, of temperance, of justice, and of wisdom, as they are
acts of judgment and selection, exercised not on good and just and
expedient only, but also on wicked, unjust, and inexpedient objects,
do not give their commendations to the mere innocence whose boast is
its inexperience of evil, and whose truer name is, by their award,
simpleness and ignorance of what all men who live aright should
know. The ancient Spartans, at their festivals, used to force their
Helots to swallow large quantities of raw wine, and then expose them
at the public tables, to let the young men see what it is to be drunk.
And, though I do not think it consistent with humanity or with civil
justice to correct one man's morals by corrupting those of another,
yet we may, I think, avail ourselves of the cases of those who have
fallen into indiscretions, and have, in high stations, made themselves
conspicuous for misconduct; and I shall not do ill to introduce a pair
or two of such examples among these biographies, not, assuredly, to
amuse and divert my readers, or give variety to my theme, but as
Ismenias, the Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad
performers on the flute, and to tell them, "You should play like
this man," and, "You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas
used to say, Young people would take greater pleasure in hearing
good playing, if first they were set to hear bad, so, in the same
manner, it seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the more
zealous and more emulous to read, observe, and imitate the better
lives, if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy and the bad.
For this reason, the following book contains the lives of
Demetrius Poliorcetes and Antonius the Triumvir; two persons who
have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great natures
produce great vices as well as virtues. Both alike were amorous and
intemperate, warlike and munificent, sumptuous in their way of
living and overbearing in their manners. And the likeness of their
fortunes carried out the resemblance in their characters. Not only
were their lives each a series of great successes and great disasters,
mighty acquisitions and tremendous losses of power, sudden
overthrows followed by unexpected recoveries, but they died, also,
Demetrius in actual captivity to his enemies and Antony on the verge
of it.
Antigonus had by his wife, Stratonice, the daughter of Corrhaeus,
two sons; the one of whom, after the name of his uncle, he called
Demetrius, the other had that of his grandfather Philip, and died
young. This is the most general account, although some have related
that Demetrius was not the son of Antigonus, but of his brother; and
that his own father dying young, and his mother being afterwards
married to Antigonus, he was accounted to be his son.
Demetrius had not the height of his father Antigonus, though he
was a tall man. But his countenance was one of such singular beauty
and expression that no painter or sculptor ever produced a good