Exchanging now the form of god for that of man,
He visits Dirce's rivulets and Ismenus' flood.
[3]
This simile might be better used of the fortunes of Demetrius, now waxing and now waning, now full-orbed and now diminished, since even at this time, when his power seemed to fail altogether and suffer extinction, it shot forth new rays of light, and sundry accessions of strength little by little filled out the measure of his hopes. At first he went about visiting the cities in the garb of a private man and without the insignia of a king, and one who saw him thus at Thebes applied to him, not inaptly, the verses of Euripides1:—
1 Bacchae, 4 f., with adaptation from the first person.
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