HKB
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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · wise man · vicissitudes of fortune · tumultuous petition · trophies of luxury · the rise and fall of greatness · strategy and the aims of war · stoic ethics · socrates · refusal of money · rank, class, and social order · public register of property
Usually: narrative (3) · the fall of the great (3) · detachment (3) · argument (2) · reflection (2) · temptation (2) · censure (2) · skepticism (2) · wonder (2) · description (1)
“But in such cases as these, it is not a set number that makes the Assembly Unlawfull, but such a number, as the present Officers are not able to suppresse, and bring to Justice.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan · insight
“Where he calleth an Assembly, whereof men can give no just account, a Sedition, and such as they could not answer for.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan · observation
“Those very things that procured him ill-repute bear witness to his greatness.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · insight
“Antony, like Hercules in the picture where Omphale is seen removing his club and stripping him of his lion's skin, was over and over again disarmed by Cleopatra.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · vivid
“Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius, in his revelings and dissipations, ever let slip the time for action.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · observation
“Pleasure is uncertain, short, apt to pall upon us, and the more eagerly we indulge in it, the sooner we bring on a reaction of feeling against it.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · insight
“If he meant to tempt me, he ought to have tried to do so by offering his entire kingdom.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · wit
After victories and campaigns in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, Demetrius rescues Halicarnassus and helps plan liberating Greece, then sails to Athens with a large fleet to take Athens for Antigonus.
friends, loaded with presents. This defeat drove Ptolemy out of Syria, and brought Antigonus from Celaenae, to enjoy the victory, and the sight of the son who had gained it. Soon after, Demetrius was sent to bring the Nabathaean Arabs into obedience. And here he got into a district without water, and incurred considerable danger, but by his resolute and composed demeanor he overawed the barbarians, and returned aft…
Plutarch compares Demetrius and Antony as rulers of “vicissitudes of fortune,” judging their rise to power, justice, generosity, lust, discipline in war, and ultimately their different causes of disgrace.
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY As both are great examples of the vicissitudes of fortune, let us first consider in what way they attained their power and glory. Demetrius heired a kingdom already won for him by Antigonus, the most powerful of the Successors, who, before Demetrius grew to be a man, traversed with his armies and subdued the greater part of Asia. Antony's father was well enough in other respects,…
He uses the Ephesian riot in Acts 19 as an example: Demetrius and workers assemble against Paul’s companions, yet the magistrate calls their crowd a sedition because it cannot be justified.
old time in Greece, are unjust, as being contrary to the peace and safety of the people, and a taking of the Sword out of the hand of the Soveraign. Concourse of people, is an Irregular Systeme, the lawfulnesse, or unlawfulnesse, whereof dependeth on the occasion, and on the number of them that are assembled. If the occasion be lawfull, and manifest, the Concourse is lawfull; as the usuall meeting of men at Church, …
Polybius links the “course of Macedonian history” to an apparently heaven-sent infatuation, noting Macedonians previously benefited from Roman favor yet suffered defeat and unexpected victories.
[Sidenote: rather than of their leaders.] +5.+ Accordingly after a short time they obtained assistance, and once more inhabited their country in security. For the compassion of foreigners is no small benefit to those who are unjustly dispossessed; since we often see that, with the change of feeling among the many, Fortune also changes; and even the conquerors themselves repent, and make good the disasters of those w…
Seneca, following Demetrius, urges daily internal practice of key ethical rules: nothing is evil except what is base, pleasure is low and uncertain, and the wise man depends on honor not fortune.
merely to amuse our leisure; yet, when once anchored in safety, the mind may consider these matters also, though it can derive no strength, but only culture from their discussion." II. The above are the rules which my friend Demetrius bids him who would make progress in philosophy to clutch with both hands, never to let go, but to cling to them, and make them a part of himself, and by daily meditation upon them to b…
He claims the wise man’s mind encompasses all things though public registers may rate him as having no property, and he praises Demetrius as a model of constant, inimitable wisdom.
greater man to refuse this reward than to earn it? for many have taken away the landmarks of other men's property, but no one sets up limits to his own. VIII. When, then, we consider that the mind of the truly wise man has power over all things and pervades all things, we cannot help declaring that everything is his, although, in the estimation of our common law, it may chance that he may be rated as possessing no p…
Demetrius supposedly rejects accepting immense wealth because it entangles him in business transactions and luxury, describing elaborate, dehumanizing costs of courtly extravagance in vivid detail.
Demetrius on the fixed condition that he should not be permitted to give it away, I am sure that he would have refused to accept it, and would have said, IX. "I do not intend to fasten upon my back a burden like this, of which I never can rid myself, nor do I, nimble and lightly equipped as I am, mean to hinder my progress by plunging into the deep morass of business transactions. Why do you offer to me what is the …
He recounts that Gaius Caesar offered Demetrius 200,000 sesterces and he refused, then adds Caesar’s remark that if he tried to tempt him, he should have offered his entire kingdom.
that he could be influenced by such a bribe, he said, "If he meant to tempt me, he ought to have tried to do so by offering his entire kingdom." XII. It is possible, then, to give something to the wise man, although all things belong to the wise man. Similarly, though we declare that friends have all things in common, it is nevertheless possible to give something to a friend: for I have not everything in common with…