Antigonus

And even for want of nurses he was in a sad plight, until Antigonus sent him two servants.

Hermippus tells us that upon the death of Casander, being in fear of Antigonus, he fled to Ptolemy Soter.

We are also told that Antigonus made him a present of three thousand drachmas.

Nevertheless, after Antigonus had sent his nephew Ptolemy into the fortress, as Eumenes had demanded, Eumenes went down to meet him, and they embraced one another with greetings of friendship and affection, since they had formerly been close associates and intimate companions.

Then Antigonus, afraid that Eumenes might suffer some violence, first loudly forbade the soldiers to approach, and pelted with stones those who were hurrying up, but finally threw his arms about Eumenes and, keeping off the throng with his bodyguards, with much ado removed him to a place of safety.

Moreover, when Antigonus demanded to be addressed by him as a superior, Eumenes replied:

These shields, now suspended here as a gift to Athena Itonis, Pyrrhus the Molossian took from valiant Gauls, after defeating the entire army of Antigonus;

For this reason Antigonus used to liken him to a player with dice who makes many fine throws but does not understand how to use them when they are made.

He railed at Antigonus and called him a shameless man for not laying aside the purple and wearing a common robe;

and, by Zeus, if a man should be entrusted by a king or a tyrant with gold or silver, or ships, or arms, or a citadel, or the whole empire—as Leptines often received Syracuse from his brother, and Philistus from the younger Dionysius, and the Magi the royal palace of the Persians from Cambyses, when he was on campaign in Egypt, and Mithranes the citadel of Sardis from Darius, and Persaeus the Acro …

Polybius highly extols the merit and wisdom of Antigonus, who, having Sparta in his power, allowed the inhabitants to retain their national polity and freedom.

For he invited Antigonus into Greece and filled the Peloponnesus with Macedonians, whom he himself had driven out of Peloponnesus when, as a young man, he delivered Acrocorinthus from their power -he who had incurred the suspicion and hostility of all the reigning kings, and of this very Antigonus had said countless evil things in the commentaries which he left behind him.

When Antigonus with a large force was crossing the mountain-range of Geraneia, Cleomenes thought it more advisable to fortify thoroughly, not the Isthmus, but the Oneian range of hills, and to wear out the Macedonians by a war of posts and positions, rather than to engage in formal battle with their disciplined phalanx.

But when he saw Antigonus with his phalanx descending from the heights into the plain, and his horsemen already streaming into the city, he gave up trying to master it;

But those who affirm that Aristotle counselled Antipater to do the deed, and that it was entirely through his agency that the poison was provided, mention one Hagnothemis as their authority, who professed to have heard the story from Antigonus the king;

And yet he made presents to many private persons of tetrarchies and realms of great peoples, and he deprived many monarchs of their kingdoms, as, for instance, Antigonus the Jew, whom he brought forth and beheaded, though no other king before him had been so punished.

Hearing that the ambassador they had sent to Antigonus the son of Demetrius had called him king, they fined him, though he had obtained of him in a time of scarcity a bushel of wheat for every person in the city.

but Antigonus, the king, was annoyed by the policy of Aratus, and wished either to bring him over into complete friendship with himself or to alienate him from Ptolemy.

Antigonus, then, having got Acrocorinthus into his power, as I have said, kept it under guard, putting men there whom he most trusted, and making Persaeus the philosopher their commander.

For when Alexander, in whose hands the place was, had died of poison given him (it is said) in obedience to Antigonus, and his wife Nicaea had succeeded to his power and was guarding the citadel, Antigonus at once sent his son Demetrius to her in furtherance of his schemes, and by inspiring her with pleasant hopes of a royal marriage and of wedded life with a young man who would be no disagreeable …

For Antigonus was well pleased to have his son Demetrius marry Phila, the daughter of Antipater, in spite of her disparity in years, because he thought her a greater personage;

For if Eumenes had stood aside from the struggles for the primacy and been satisfied with the second place, Antigonus would gladly have given him that;

the one took Macedonia and brought the royal line of Antigonus to an end in its seventh king;

Antigonus commanded Eutropion his mastercook (then in waiting) to go to this Theocritus and settle some accounts with him.

Antigonus himself was tarrying in Phrygia, and hearing there that Ptolemy had crossed over from Cyprus and was ravaging Syria and reducing or turning from their allegiance its cities, he sent against him his son Demetrius, who was only twenty-two years of age, and was then for the first time engaging with sole command in an expedition where great interests were at stake.

When Antigonus learned of the battle, he said that Ptolemy had conquered beardless youths, but must now fight with men;

In his vexation and distress, he heard in his dream sundry voices saying that Mithridates had reaped the golden crop for himself and gone off to the Euxine Sea.

Better was the speech of old Antigonus as he was about to fight a sea-fight off Andros, and someone told him that the enemy’s ships were far more numerous than his:

At any rate, there was a soldier of Antigonus who was venturesome, but had miserable health and an impaired body.

Soon, however, Antigonus the king marched with the Achaeans to give aid against Cleomenes, and finding that his enemy was occupying the heights and passes about Sellasia, he drew up his forces near by with the purpose of attacking him and forcing a passage.

Antigonus was eager that he should take service under him, and offered him command and pay.

After his victory, therefore, Antigonus put his Macedonians to the question, and asked them why, without his orders, they had brought the cavalry into action.

He arrived there, as some heavenly power, doubtless, would have it, precisely at the time when Antipater was already afflicted with sickness, and when Cassander, who had assumed control of affairs, had found a letter which Demades had written to Antigonus in Asia, beseeching him to present himself suddenly in Greece and Macedonia, which hung by an old and rotten thread, as he facetiously called Antipater.

Antigonus the Second—when his father was a prisoner, and sent one of his friends to admonish him to pay no regard to any thing that he might write at the constraint of Seleucus, and to enter into no obligation to surrender up the cities—wrote to Seleucus that he would give up his whole kingdom, and himself for an hostage, that his father might be set free.

Antigonus was not alone, then, in saying that he loved men who offered to betray, but hated those who had betrayed;

of these, Antigonus is one.

The most warlike of generals, and those who achieved most by a mixture of craft and ability, have been one-eyed men,—Philip, Antigonus, Hannibal, and the subject of this Life, Sertorius;

And so, when the Greeks were besieged in some little fort and, despising the enemy through confidence in the place, were making many jests at Antigonus's ugliness, now deriding his low stature, now his flattened nose, he said:

For what was easier for Antigonus than to order two common soldiers to be led off who, leaning against the king's tent, were doing what men do most dangerously and most gladly—thinking ill of their king?

The same man, one night, when he had overheard some of his soldiers calling down all evils upon the king who had led them into that march and that inextricable mire, came up to those who were labouring most, and, when he had extricated them as they knew not by whom they were being helped, said:

1 A Cynic asked a talent of Antigonus;