out of the possession of the Acrocorinthian citadel, which was, politically speaking, the apple of his eye, he celebrated the occasion by getting exceedingly drunk, and went “reeling through Corinth at the head of a drunken rout, a garland on his head and a wine-cup in his hand.”  Antigonus was, in fact, not so much what we should call a philosopher as a man of action with literary tastes, standing thus in marked contrast to Pyrrhus, who “cared as little for knowledge or culture as did any baron of the Dark Ages.”  When he was engaged in a difficult negotiation with Ptolemy Philadelphus he allowed himself to be mollified by a quotation from Homer, who, as Plato said, was “the educator of Hellas.”  Although not himself an original thinker, he encouraged thought in others.  He surrounded himself with men of learning, and even received at his court the yellow-robed envoys of Asoka, the far-distant ruler and religious reformer of India.  Moreover, in spite of his wholly practical turn of mind, Antigonus learnt something from his philosophic friends; notably, he imbibed somewhat of the Stoic sense of duty.  “Do you not understand,” he said to his son, who had misused some of his subjects, “that our kingship is a noble servitude?” Nevertheless, throughout his career, the sentiments of the man of action strongly predominated over those of the man of thought.  He treated all shams with a truly Carlylean hatred and contempt.  Moreover, one trait in his character strongly indicates the pride of the masterful man of action who scorns all adventitious advantages and claims to stand or fall by his own merits.  Napoleon, whilst the members of his family were putting forth ignoble claims to noble birth, said that his patent of nobility dated from the battle of Montenotte.  Antigonus, albeit he came of a royal stock, laid aside all ancestral claims to the throne of Macedonia.  He aspired to be king because of his kingly qualities.  He wished his people to apply to him the words which Tiberius used of a distinguished Roman of humble birth:  “Curtius Rufinus videtur mihi ex se natus” (Ann. xi. 21).  He succeeded in his attempt.  He won the hearts of his people, and although he failed in his endeavour to govern the whole of Greece through the agency of subservient “tyrants,” he accomplished the main object which through good and evil fortune he pursued with dogged tenacity throughout the whole of his chequered career.  He lived and died King of Macedonia.

The world-politics of this period are almost as confused as the relationships which were the outcome of the matrimonial alliances contracted by the principal actors on the world’s stage.  How bewildering these alliances were may be judged from what Mr. Tarn says of Stratonice, the daughter of Antiochus I., who married Demetrius, the son of Antigonus:  “Stratonice was her husband’s first cousin and also his aunt, her mother-in-law’s half-sister and also her niece, her father-in-law’s niece,