The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

BATTLE OF IPSUS

[301-294 B.C.]

Demetrius conducted into Thessaly an army of fifty-six thousand men, of whom twenty-five thousand were Grecian allies—so extensive was his sway at this moment over the Grecian cities. But after two or three months of hostilities, partially successful, against Cassander, he was summoned into Asia by Antigonus to assist in meeting the formidable army of the allies—Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Before retiring from Greece, Demetrius concluded a truce with Cassander, whereby it was stipulated that the Grecian cities, both in Europe and Asia, should be permanently autonomous and free from garrison or control. This stipulation served only as an honourable pretext for leaving Greece; Demetrius had little expectation that it would be observed. In the ensuing spring was fought the decisive battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (300 B.C.), by Antigonus and Demetrius, against Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus; with a large army and many elephants on both sides. Antigonus, completely defeated, was slain; his age was more than eighty years. His Asiatic dominion was broken up, chiefly to the profit of Seleucus, whose dynasty became from henceforward ascendant, from the coast of Syria eastward to the Caspian Gates and Parthia; sometimes, though imperfectly, farther eastward, nearly to the Indus.

The effects of the battle of Ipsus were speedily felt in Greece. The Athenians passed a decree proclaiming themselves neutral, and excluding both the belligerent parties from Attica. Demetrius, retiring with the remnant of his defeated army, and embarking at Ephesus to sail to Athens, was met on the voyage by Athenian envoys, who respectfully acquainted him that he would not be admitted. At the same time, his wife Didamia, whom he had left at Athens, was sent away by the Athenians under an honourable escort to Megara, while some ships of war which he had left in the Piræus were also restored to him. Demetrius, indignant at this unexpected defection of a city which had recently heaped upon him such fulsome adulation, was still further mortified by the loss of most of his other possessions in Greece. His garrisons were for the most part expelled, and the cities passed into Cassandrian keeping or dominion. His fortunes were indeed partially restored by concluding a peace with Seleucus, who married his daughter. This alliance withdrew Demetrius to Syria, while Greece appears to have fallen more and more under the Cassandrian parties. It was one of these partisans, Lachares, who, seconded by Cassander’s soldiers, acquired a despotism at Athens such as had been possessed by the Phalerean Demetrius, but employed in a manner far more cruel and oppressive.

Various exiles from his tyranny invited Demetrius Poliorcetes, who passed over again from Asia into Greece, recovered portions of Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Athens. He blocked up the city by sea and land, so that the pressure of famine presently became intolerable. Lachares having made his escape, the people opened their gates to Demetrius, not without great fear of the treatment awaiting them. But he behaved with forbearance, and even with generosity. He spared them all, supplied them with a large donation of corn, and contented himself with taking military occupation of the city, naming his own friends as magistrates. He put garrisons, however, not only into Piræus and Munychia, but also into the hill called Museum, a part of the walled circle of Athens itself (298 B.C.).