The Historians' History of the World 04

It may be that in his early years he had lived like a philosopher, that his table was laid very frugally, “only with olives in vinegar and cheese from the islands.” And then too, when he became master of the state he showed himself, according to some, a humane, clear-sighted, excellent statesman; while others declare that he spent but a small proportion of the city’s income (which with subsidies from Egypt and Macedonia he had raised to twelve hundred talents) in administration and in keeping the city well prepared for war; the rest went partly in public festivities and splendour, and partly in his own riotous and dissolute living. He that would pose in his ordinances as a reformer of Athenian morals, corrupted morals by his more than doubtful example. Every day, it was said, he gave splendid dinners to which a great number of guests were always invited; in his expenditure on his table he surpassed even the Macedonians, in his elegance he outdid Cyprians and Phœnicians; spikenard and myrrh were sprinkled for perfume, the floor was strewn with flowers, costly carpets and paintings decorated the rooms; he kept so extravagant, so luxurious, a table, that his cook, who had what was left over, was able to buy three properties in two years out of the profits he made by his sales. Demetrius spent the greatest care upon his choice of dress, he dyed his hair fair, painted his face, anointed his head with precious oils; he always showed a smiling countenance, he wanted to please every one.

The most dainty and unbridled wantonness side by side with that subtle, gracious, and witty culture, which has ever since been described by the epithet Attic—both are characteristic of the life of Athens in those days. It was the fashion to attend the schools of philosophy.

Grecian Head-dresses.

Such words as home, chastity, modesty, were no longer heard in the Athens of that time, or they were only words. Life had all become phrases and epigrams, ostentation and occupied idleness. Athens distributed flattery and entertainment to the mighty ones of the earth, and permitted herself to receive in return their gifts and gratuities. She grew more servile as she grew more oligarchic. She played as a state the rôle of parasite to kings and such as held power, a sponging flatterer not at all ashamed to buy admiration and pleasures at the price of dignity. There were only two things her people were afraid of; they were afraid of being bored, and they were afraid of being ridiculous—and there were rich occasions for being both. Religion had disappeared, and with the indifference of enlightenment superstition came in—magic, witchcraft, astrology. Moral conduct, out of an old habit (for morality like the laws had been reasoned away), was theoretically handled in the schools and made a theme for debate and literary duels. The two standard philosophies of the next centuries, the Stoic and the Epicurean, were evolving in Athens at this period.

It was, of course, a proud thing for Demetrius that the city was much and profitably frequented. Trade itself was probably livelier in Athens during these years than at any other time and rivalled that of Rhodes, Byzantium, and Alexandria. According to a census which was probably undertaken during the year Demetrius was archon (309), the population of Attica amounted to 21,000 citizens, 10,000 strangers, 400,000 slaves—certainly a great number of inhabitants for a territory of little more than forty square miles.c

[318-317 B.C.]

The acquisition of Athens by Cassander, followed up by his capture of Panactum and Salamis, and seconded by his moderation towards the Athenians, procured for him considerable support in Peloponnesus, whither he proceeded with his army. Many of the cities, intimidated or persuaded, joined him and deserted Polysperchon; while the Spartans, now feeling for the first time their defenceless condition, thought it prudent to surround their city with walls. This fact, among many others contemporaneous, testifies emphatically how the characteristic sentiments of the Hellenic autonomous world were now dying out everywhere. The maintenance of Sparta as an unwalled city was one of the deepest and most cherished of the Lycurgean traditions; a standing proof of the fearless bearing and self-confidence of the Spartans against dangers from without. The erection of the walls showed their own conviction, but too well borne out by the real circumstances around them, that the pressure of the foreigner had become so overwhelming as hardly to leave them even safety at home.

THE LAST ACTS OF OLYMPIAS’ POWER

[317-311 B.C.]