ld now
call a "corner" in the bitumen which floated on the surface of the Dead
Sea, and which was largely used for purposes of embalming in Egypt; but
his efforts were completely frustrated by the Arabs who were interested
in the local trade. The philosopher Lycon, besides displaying an
excessive love for the pleasures of the table, was a noted wrestler,
boxer, and tennis-player. Antigonus himself, in spite of his love of
learning, vied with his great predecessors, Philip and Alexander, in his
addiction to the wine-cup. When, by a somewhat unworthy stratagem, he
had tricked the widowed queen Nikaia 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