Demetrius

But to resume the story, when Demetrius was getting ready to return to Athens, he wrote letters to the people saying that he wished to he initiated into the mysteries as soon as he arrived, and to pass through all the grades in the ceremony, from the lowest to the highest (the epoptica). Now, this was not lawful, and had not been done before, but the lesser rites were performed in the month Anthesterion, the great rites in Boëdromion; and the supreme rites (the epoptica) were celebrated after an interval of at least a year from the great rites.

And yet when the letter of Demetrius was read, no one ventured to oppose the proposition except Pythodorus the Torch-bearer, and he accomplished nothing; instead, on motion of Stratocles, it was voted to call the current month, which was Munychion, Anthesterion, and so to regard it, and the lesser rites at Agra were performed for Demetrius; after which Munychion was again changed and became Boëdromion instead of Anthesterion, Demetrius received the remaining rites of initiation, and at the same time was also admitted to the highest grade of epoptos.

Hence Philippides, in his abuse of Stratocles, wrote[*](Part of the fragment cited at xii. 4.):—

1. Who abridged the whole year into a single month,

1. Who took the acropolis for a caravansery,
2. And introduced to its virgin goddess his courtesans.

But among the many lawless and shocking things done by Demetrius in the city at this time, this is said to have given the Athenians most displeasure, namely, that after he had ordered them to procure speedily two hundred and fifty talents for his use, and after they had levied the money rigorously and inexorably, when he saw the sum that had been collected, he commanded that it should be given to Lamia and her fellow courtesans to buy soap with. For the shame they felt was more intolerable to the people than their loss, and the words which accompanied it than the deed itself.

But some say that those who received this treatment were Thessalians, not Athenians. Apart from this incident, however, Lamia, when she was preparing a supper for the king, exacted money on her own account from many citizens. And the costliness of this supper gave it so wide a renown that it was described in full by Lynceus the Samian. Hence also a comic poet not inaptly called Lamia a veritable City-taker.[*](See chapter xx. 4.) And Demochares of Soli called Demetrius himself Fable, because he too, like Fable, had a Lamia.[*](The name of a fabulous monster reputed to eat men’s flesh.)

And not only among the wives of Demetrius, but also among his friends, did the favour and affection which he bestowed on Lamia awaken envy and jealousy. At all events, some ambassadors from him once came to Lysimachus, and Lysimachus, in an hour of leisure, showed them on his thighs and shoulders deep scars of wounds made by a lion’s claws; he also told them about the battle he had fought against the beast, with which he had been caged by Alexander the king. Then they laughingly told him that their own king also carried, on his neck, the bites of a dreadful wild beast,-a Lamia.