DEMETRIUS. 145 wane, now filling up and now foiling away. And so, at this time of apparent entire obscuration and extinction, his light again shone out, and accessions of strength, little by little, came in to fulfil once more the measure of his hope. At first he showed himself in the garb of a private man, and went about the cities without anj^ of the badges of a king. One who saw him thus at Thebes applied to hmi, not inaptly, the lines of Euripides, Humbled to man, laid b}' the godhead's pride, He comes to Dirce and Ismenus' side. But erelong his expectations had reentered the royal track, and he began once more to have about him the body and form of empire. The Thebaus received back, as his gift, their ancient constitution. The Athenians had deserted him. They displaced Diphilus, who was that year the priest of the two Tutelar Deities, and restored the archons, as of old, to mark the year ; and on hearincr that Demetrius was not so weak as they had ex- pected, they sent into Macedonia to beg the protection of Pyrrhus. Demetrius, in anger, marched to Athens, and laid close siege to the city. In this distress, they sent out to him Crates the philosopher, a person of authority and reputation, who succeeded so far, that what with his entreaties and the solid reasons which he offered, Demetrius was persuaded to raise the siege ; and, collect- ing all his ships, he embarked a force of eleven thousand men with cavalry, and sailed away to Asia, to Caria and Lydia, to take those proviaces from Lysimachus. Arriv- ino; at Miletus, he was met there bv Eurvdice, the sister of Phila, who brought alom; with her Ptolemais. one of her daughters by king Ptolemy, who had before been affianced to Demetrius, and with whom he now consum- mated his marriage. Immediately after, he proceeded to VOL. V. 10
