Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/150

142 DEMETRIUS. of the whole empire which his father had possessed ; and his preparations were suitable to his hopes, and the great- ness of the enterprise. He had arranged for the levying of ninety-eight thousand foot, and nearly twelve thou- sand horse ; and he had a fleet of five hundred galleys on the stocks, some building at Athens, others at Corinth and Chalcis, and in the neighborhood of Pella. And he himself was passing evermore from one to another of these places, to give his directions and his assistance to the plans, while all that saw were amazed, not so much at the number, as at the magnitude of the works. Hitherto, there had never been seen a galley with fifteen or sixteen ranges of oars. At a later time, Ptolemy Philopator built one of forty rows, which was two hun- dred and eighty cubits in length, and the height of her to the top of her stern forty eight cubits ; she had four hundred sailors and four thousand rowers, and afforded room besides for very near three thousand soldiers to fight on her decks. But this, after all, was for show, and not for service, scarcely differing from a fixed edifice ashore, and was not to be moved without extreme toil and peril ; whereas these galleys of Demetrius were meant quite as much for fighting as for looking at, were not the less serviceable for their magnificence, and were as wonderful for their speed and general performance as for their size. These mighty preparations against Asia, the like of which had not been made since Alexander first invaded it, united Seleucus, Ptolemy, and'Lysimachus in a con- federacy for their defence. They also despatched ambas- sadors to Pyrrhus, to persuade him to make a diversion by attacking Macedonia ; he need not think there was any va- hdity in a treaty which Demetrius had concluded, not as an engagement to be at peace with him, but as a means for enabling himself to make war first upon the enemy of