Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

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.)