Demetrius   

likeness of him. It combined grace and strength, dignity with boyish
bloom, and, in the midst of youthful heat and passion, what was
hardest of all to represent was a certain heroic look and air of
kingly greatness. Nor did his character belie his looks, as no one was
better able to render himself both loved and feared. For as he was the
most easy and agreeable of companions, and the most luxurious and
delicate of princes in his drinking and banqueting and daily
pleasures, so in action there was never any one that showed a more
vehement persistence, or a more passionate energy. Bacchus, skilled in
the conduct of war, and after war in giving peace its pleasures and
joys, seems to have been his pattern among the gods.
He was wonderfully fond of his father Antigonus; and the
tenderness he had for his mother led him, for her sake, to redouble
attentions, which it was evident were not so much owing to fear or
duty as to the more powerful motives of inclination. It is reported
that, returning one day from hunting, he went immediately into the
apartment of Antigonus, who was conversing with some ambassadors,
and after stepping up and kissing his father, he sat down by him, just
as he was, still holding in his hand the javelins which he had brought
with him. Whereupon Antigonus, who had just dismissed the
ambassadors with their answer, called out in a loud voice to them,
as they were going, "Mention, also, that this is the way in which we
two live together;" as if to imply to them that it was no slender mark
of the power and security of his government that there was so
perfect good understanding between himself and his son. Such an
unsociable, solitary thing is power, and so much of jealousy and
distrust in it, that the first and greatest of the successors of
Alexander could make it a thing of glory in that he was not so
afraid of his son as to forbid his standing beside him with a weapon
in his hand. And, in fact, among all the successors of Alexander, that
of Antigonus was the only house which, for many descents, was exempted
from crime of this kind; or to state it exactly, Philip was the only
one of this family who was guilty of a son's death. All the other
families, we may fairly say, afforded frequent examples of fathers who
brought their children, husbands their wives, children their
mothers, to untimely ends; and that brothers should put brothers to
death was assumed, like the postulate of mathematicians as the
common and recognized royal first principle of safety.
Let us here record an example in the early life of Demetrius,
showing his natural humane and kindly disposition. It was an adventure
which passed betwixt him and Mithridates, the son of Ariobarzanes, who
was about the same age with Demetrius, and lived with him, in
attendance on Antigonus; and although nothing was said or could be
said to his reproach, he fell under suspicion, in consequence of a
dream which Antigonus had. Antigonus thought himself in a fair and
spacious field, where he sowed golden seed, and saw presently a golden
crop come up; of which, however, looking presently again, he saw
nothing remain but the stubble, without the ears. And as he stood by
in anger and vexation, he heard some voices saying Mithridates had cut
the golden harvest and carried it off into Pontus. Antigonus, much
discomposed with his dream, first bound his son, by an oath not to
speak, and then related it to him, adding that he had resolved, in
consequence, to lose no time in ridding himself of Mithridates, and
making away with him. Demetrius was extremely distressed; and when the
young man came, as usual, to pass his time with him, to keep his
oath he forbore from saying a word, but, drawing him aside little by
little from the company, as soon as they were by themselves, without
opening his lips, with the point of his javelin he traced before him
the words "Fly, Mithridates." Mithridates took the hint, and fled by
night into Cappadocia, where Antigonus's dream about him was quickly
brought to its due fulfillment; for he got possession of a large and
fertile territory; and from him descended the line of the kings of
Pontus, which, in the eighth generation, was reduced by the Romans.
This may serve for a specimen of the early goodness and love of