Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/156

148 DEMETRIUS. But Seleucus, whose jealousy made him put an ill con- Btruction on all he said, sent him answer, that he would permit him to stay two months and no longer in Cataonia, provided he presently sent him the principal of his friends as hostages for his departure then ; and, in the mean time, he fortified all the passages into Syria. So that Demetrius, who saw himself thus, like a wild beast, in the way to be encompassed on all sides in the toils, was driven in desperation to his defence, overran the country, and in several engagements in which Seleu- cus attacked him, had the advantage of him. Particu- larly, when he was once assailed by the scythed chariots, he successfully avoided the charge and routed his assail- ants, and then, expelling the troops that were in guard of the passes, made himself master of the roads leading into Syria. And now, elated himself, and finding his soldiers also animated by these successes, he was resolved to push at all, and to have one deciding blow for the empire with Seleucus ; who, indeed, Avas in considerable anxiety and distress, being averse to any assistance from Lysimachus, whom he both mistrusted and feared, and shrinking from a battle with Demetrius, whose desperation he knew, and whose fortune he had so often seen suddenly pass from the lowest to the highest. . But Demetrius, in the mean while, was taken with a violent sickness, from which he suffered extremely him- self, and which ruined all his prospects. His men deserted to the enemy, or dispersed. At last, after forty days, he began to be so far recovered as to be able to rally his remaining forces, and marched as if he directly designed for Cilicia ; but in the night, raising his camp without sound of trumpet, he took a countermarch, and, passing the mountain Amanns, he ravaged all the lower country as far as Cyrrhestica. Upon this, Seleucus advancing towards him and en-