Demetrius I Soter

“ In Babylonia the governor Timarchus rebelled and was acknowledged by the Roman senate. But he was defeated and killed by Demetrius I. (c. 158) , who was hailed as deliverer (Soter, “saviour”) by the inhabitants (Appian, Syr. 45. 4 f.; Trogus, Prol. 34; Diod. 31. 27a) . ”

“ We are told that when Demetrius captured an army of Ptolemy's in Cyprus in 306, large numbers of men, instead of accepting service under Demetrius, tried to make their way back to Egypt, where they had left their families and chattels. [33]
Besides bodies of soldiers brought en masse into Egypt, many men from the Greek world may have individually entered the service of Ptolemy as mercenaries, and then accepted the offer of a permanent settlement in the country. The armies which could be formed from Macedonians domiciled in Egypt were not by themselves adequate. ”

“ Thus for instance his intimacy with the Syrian prince Demetrius, afterwards king Demetrius Soter, was made in the hunting-field33: and the value which this young man attached to his advice and support is some measure of the opinion entertained generally of his wisdom, moderation, and good judgment. We have no further details xxviiiof his life in Rome; but we have what is better,—its fruits, in the luminous account of its polity, the constitution of its army, and the aims of its statesmen. ”

“ According to these more reliable authorities, Balas was a Rhodian youth employed by various monarchs hostile to the pretensions of Demetrius Soter, then in possession of the kingdom of Syria, to personate Alexander, a long deceased son of Antiochus Epiphanos. The impostor, assuming the name and title of the deceased prince, speedily found himself, through the assistance of the allied sovereigns and the favour of the Roman senate, at the head of a large army, with which he invaded Syria. ”

“ Stilpo, a celebrated philosopher of Megara, who flourished 336 years before Christ, and was greatly esteemed by Ptolemy Soter. He was naturally addicted to riot and debauchery, but he reformed his manners when he opened a school at Megara. He was universally respected, his school was frequented, and Demetrius, when he plundered Megara, ordered the house of the philosopher to be left safe and unmolested. It is said that he intoxicated himself when ready to die, to alleviate the terrors of death. He was one of the chiefs of the Stoics. Plutarch, Demosthenes.—Diogenes Laërtius, bk. ”

“ Demetrius, having besieged Rhodes for some fifteen months, 305‐304, failed in the end to take it, and had to consent to a compromised peace. The successful defence of Rhodes had been largely due to the provisions and reinforcements which Ptolemy contrived from time to time to throw into the besieged city.
In 303‐302 a new league was conformed of Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus against Antigonus. Seleucus was in the depths of the East, conquering the farther provinces of the Empire as far as India. ”

“ A Ptolemaic force was defeated in 311 by Demetrius in Northern Syria, and Antigonus came marching down into Palestine from the north. For the second time Ptolemy withdrew from Palestine into his shell. Simultaneously Cyrene again revolted, not against Ophellas this time, but under the leadership of Ophellas. It was a bad moment for Ptolemy. In 311 he and the other Macedonian chiefs, his allies — Cassander, the ruler of Macedonia, and Lysimachus, the ruler of Thrace — made a peace with Antigonus, by which Ptolemy abandoned Coele-Syria. ”

“ Pindar (Isthmia, iv. 34) calls it the “bridge of the sea.”
754 We learn from Curtius (ix. 21) that the authors who stated that Ptolemy was present in this battle were Clitarchus and Timagenes. From the history of the former, who was a contemporary of Alexander, Curtius mainly drew the materials for his history of Alexander.
755 Ptolemy received this appellation from the Rhodians whom he relieved from the assaults of Demetrius. The grateful Rhodians paid him divine honours as their preserver, and he was henceforward known as Ptolemy Soter. B.C. 304. See Pausanias, i. 8, 6. ”

“ He was glad to get away, and went, we believe, to Demetrias in Magnesia, which he himself had built on the Gulf of Pagasæ, near the ancient town of Iolcus, and which we afterwards find in the hands of his son Antigonus. Thence he proceeded into Greece. He was a great general; his keen discernment as a military commander is attested by the foundation of Demetrias and of New-Sicyon: the fortress of Demetrias exercised an important influence upon the fate of Greece. Demetrius had reigned over Macedonia five or six years. ”

“ In consequence of rejecting, at the wish of the Romans, a marriage with the sister of Demetrius Soter, the latter made war upon him, and brought forward Holophernes, one of the supposititious sons of the late king, as a claimant of the throne. Ariarathes was deprived of his kingdom, and fled to Rome about b. c. 158. He was restored by the Romans, who, however, appear to have allowed Holophernes to reign jointly with him, as is expressly stated by Appian (Syr. 47) , and implied by Polybius (xxxii. 20) . The joint government, however, did not last long ”

“ Whereupon Ptolemy joined Demetrius, the son of Demetrius Soter, and supported his claim against Alexander Balas. Joseph. Ant. 13, 3; 1 Maccabees 11, 1-13.
266: Dionysius Hal. (1, 74) quotes this statement of Polybius with the remark that it is founded on a single tablet in the custody of the Pontifices. Various calculations as to the date were:—
But even granting a definite act of foundation (on which see Mommsen, H. of R. vol. i. p. 4) , the Olympic register before 672 B.C. is a very uncertain foundation on which to build. See Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. ii. p. ”

“ And with the morning, the Macedonians, still in alarm, and fearful of the forces of Demetrius, on finding no violence offered, but only a message sent from Demetrius desiring an interview and opportunity for explanation of his actions, at last began to feel pretty confident again, and prepared to receive him favorably. And when he came, there was no need of much being said; their hatred of Antipater for his murder of his mother, and the absence of anyone better to govern them, soon decided them to proclaim Demetrius king of Macedon. ”

“ IWANSKA. Long live the Czar! The mighty prince Dmitri! GLEB. How! What is this! ILIA. What do you mean? TIMOSKA. Who are you? PETRUSCHKA. Join all who're loyal to our princely line! TIMOSKA. What means all this? There a whole village flies Up country to escape the Poles, while you Make for the very point whence these have fled, To join the standard of the country's foe! PETRUSCHKA. What foe? It is no foe that comes; it is The people's friend, the emperor's rightful heir.
The POSADMIK (the village judge) enters to read a manifesto by Demetrius. ”

“ Formerly Demeter had numerous votaries, especially among the Macedonians, who were the greatest name-spreaders among the Greeks, and used it in all the “four horns” of their divided empire. It occurs in the Acts, as the silversmith of Ephesus, who stirred up the tumult against St. Paul, and another Demetrius is commended by St. John. The Latin Church has no saint so called; but the Greek had a Cretan monk of the fourteenth century, who was a great ecclesiastical author; and a Demetrios, who is reckoned as the second great saint of Thessalonika. ”

“ Some time after this, Demetrius conquered Ptolemy, who had shown that he would not abide by the treaty either. This victory was so great, that Demetrius' soldiers said he deserved a reward, and named him King of Syria.
When the other generals heard that Demetrius and his father had accepted the title of kings, they too put on royal crowns. Then, as each was still jealous of the rest, and wished to obtain more land for himself, war soon broke out among them once more. ”

“ Feodor was childless, and his barren bride Denied all prospect of an heir. Thus, when The wily Boiar, by his fawning arts, Had coiled himself into the people's favor, His wishes soared as high as to the throne. Between him and his haughty hopes there stood A youthful prince, the young Demetrius Iwanowitsch, who with his mother lived At Uglitsch, where her widowhood was passed. ”

“ Many a good and wise man whom he had known —nay the Emperor, the great and learned Theodosius himself—was devoted heart and soul to the Christian faith, and Demetrius knew from his own experience that his mother's creed, in which he had been initiated as a boy and from which his father, after holding him at the font had perverted him at an early age, offered great consolations and enduring help to those whose existence was one of care, poverty, and suffering. ”

“ Ptolemy had no legitimate wives in Egypt beside Eurydice and Berenice. Whether he divorced Eurydice before he married Berenice, or whether after 315 he had two wives concurrently, our sources do not say. The later kings of the dynasty are never found with more than one legitimate wife at the same time, according to the universal practice of the Greek world. But the Macedonian kings before Alexander were apparently polygamous, and amongst Alexander's successors Demetrius and Pyrrhus were polygamous; hence it is possible that the first Ptolemy was in this respect rather Macedonian than Greek. ”

“ And the Macedonians at home, who had not forgotten or forgiven the wicked deeds committed by Cassander on the family of Alexander, were far from sorry at the change. Any kind recollections that still might subsist, of the plain and simple rule of the first Antipater, went also to the benefit of Demetrius, whose wife was Phila, his daughter, and his son by her, a boy already old enough to be serving in the army with his father, was the natural successor to the government. ”

“ Demetrius left no other children by his wife Phila but Antigonus and Stratonice, but he had two other sons, both of his own name, one surnamed the Thin, by an Illyrian mother, and one who ruled in Cyrene, by Ptolemais. He had also, by Deidamia, a son, Alexander, who lived and died in Egypt; and there are some who say that he had a son by Eurydice, named Corrhabus. His family was continued in a succession of kings down to Perseus, the last, from whom the Romans took Macedonia. ”

“ Agias indeed found in Demetrius a perfect mine of bloody romance and adventure. It had been the banking clerk's misfortune, not his fault, that every man's hand had been against him and his against every man. Demetrius had been declared an outlaw to Roman authority; and Roman authority at that time stretched over very nearly every quarter of the civilized world. Demetrius had been to India, to intercept the Red Sea traders. He had been beyond the Pillars of Hercules and set foot on those then half-mythical islands of the Canaries. ”

“ And, in truth, his passion for this woman and the prosperity in which she lived were such as to draw upon him not only the envy and jealousy of all his wives, but the animosity even of his friends. For example, on Lysimachus's showing to some ambassadors from Demetrius the scars of the wounds which he had received upon his thighs and arms by the paws of the lion with which Alexander had shut him up, after hearing his account of the combat, they smiled and answered, that their king, also, was not without his scars, but could show upon his neck the marks of a Lamia, a no less dangerous beast. ”

“ Revenge and ambition are far from his soul; he pursues only justice. He loves Axinia without hope, and is, without knowing it, beloved by her in return.
ROMANOW hastens to the army to secure it for the young Czar. Insurrection in Moscow, brought about by the adherents of Demetrius. The people drag the Boiars from their houses, make themselves masters of Feodor and Axinia—put them in prison, and send delegates to Demetrius. ”

“ And Clearchus the Solensian, in the first book of his Amatory treatises, says—"No flatterer is constant in his friendship. For time destroys the falsehood of his pretences, and a lover is only a flatterer and a pretended friend on account of youth or beauty." One of the flatterers of Demetrius the king was Adeimantus of Lampsacus, who having built a temple in Thriæ, and placed statues in it, called it the temple of Phila Venus, and called the place itself Philæum, from Phila the mother of Demetrius; as we are told by Dionysius the son of Tryphon, in the tenth book of his treatise on Names. ”

“ But Antigonus would not hear of it; he did not want a better or a steadier gangway than people's good-will; and from Athens, the beacon of the world, the news of their conduct would soon be handed on to all the world's inhabitants. So Demetrius, with a sum of five thousand talents, and a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, set sail for Athens, where Demetrius the Phalerian was governing the city for Cassander, with a garrison lodged in the port of Munychia. ”

“ And when Saint Demetrius had been appointed Archbishop of the city of Antioch, in the days of Falaryas, the infidel emperor, this saint sent priests to the city of Athens, and they carried away the body of Saint Martianus and brought it to Antioch, with great honor, and with the singing of many psalms and hymns and dirges. And Demetrius paid honor to it and saluted it, and laid it in a coffer in the church, and celebrated a festival in his honor, as it were this day. Salutation to Demetrius on whom John, the Mouth of Gold (i.e. Chrysostom) , pronounced an encomium. ”

“ And when Demetrius would not obey his command the emperor commanded the soldiers to thrust at him with spears until he died. And the soldiers told Demetrius about this command, and they thought that he would deny and abandon the Faith of Christ, and worship idols. And Saint Demetrius said unto them, “Do whatsoever ye please, for I will neither offer incense to nor worship the filthy gods; I will worship only our Lord [Jesus Christ] , the Son of the Living God, Who is God in truth.” ”