Plutarch pairs Demetrius and Antony as great natures spent on display and on love. Demetrius took Athens, built the huge siege engines, and died a captive who had at last learned to sit quiet. Antony tied his cause to Cleopatra and lost it at Actium.

The comparison does not excuse either man. The gifts were real — courage, an open hand, a general's eye — and both spent them on shows and on a woman who became the policy. Antony's fall pulled a Roman world down with him. Demetrius fell from a smaller throne.