Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

When Demetrius was besieging the Rhodians [*](In 305-304 B.C.) he seized in one of the suburbs a painting of the

artist Protogenes in which he portrayed Ialysus. The Rhodians sent a herald to him and besought him to spare the painting. He replied that he would sooner destroy the statues and portraits of his father than that painting. [*](The painting was seen by Cicero (Orator, 2 (5)) at Rhodes; later it was carried to Rome and placed in the temple of Peace (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36 (102)).) And coming to terms with the Rhodians, he left his great siege-engine, the Citytaker, [*](This engine is described by Diodorus, xx. 48, and Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, chap. xxi. (898 B).) with them to serve as a token of his prowess and of their courage. [*](The story is told by Plutarch in his Life of Demetrius, chap. xxii. (898 E); Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36 (105); and Aulus Gellius, xv. 31.)

The Athenians revolted, and when he had taken their city, which was already in serious straits from lack of food, an assembly of the people was immediof grain. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Demetrius, chap. xxxiv. (905 B).)In speaking about this before them he lapsed into a barbarism. One of those sitting there repeated the phrase as it should have been spoken, and he said, For this correction, then, I give you eight thousand bushels more.

When Demetrius, the father of Antigonus the Second, had been taken captive, he sent one of his friends and urged Antigonus to pay no attention if he should write anything under compulsion of Seleucus, and not to withdraw from the cities; but Antigonus of his own accord wrote to Seleucus resigning to him his whole kingdom and offering to surrender himself as a hostage on condition that his father Demetrius be released. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Demetrius, chap. li. (914 D).)

When Antigonus was about to engage in a naval battle against Ptolemy’s generals, the pilot said that the ships of the enemy far outnumbered their own. But, said Antigonus, how many ships do you think my own presence here is equivalent to ? [*](Cf. Moralia, 545 B, and Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas, chap. ii. (278 D), both showing variation in wording and details; also Athenaeus, 209 E, and Gulick’s note in the L.C.L., vol. ii. p. 447.)

Once when he was withdrawing before the advance of the enemy, he said that he was not fleeing, but was following up his advantage, which lay in the rear.

When a young man, son of a brave father, but not himself having any reputation for being a good soldier, suggested the propriety of his receiving his father’s emoluments, Antigonus said, My boy, I give pay and presents for the excellence of a man, not for the excellence of his father.