Demonstrator - Narrative

Constantine P. Cavafy (/kəˈvɑːfɪ/; also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes; Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης; April 29 (April 17, OS), 1863 – April 29, 1933) was an Ethnic Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. He wrote 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. During his life, he consistently refused to formally publish his work and preferred to share them through local newspapers and magazines, or even print them out himself and give them away to anyone interested. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday and officially published two years after his death. His work was internationally recognised, as several of them were translated in other languages.

Cavafy was instrumental in the revival and recognition of Greek poetry both at home and abroad. His poems are, typically, concise but intimate evocations of real or literary figures and milieux that have played roles in Greek culture. Uncertainty about the future, sensual pleasures, the moral character and psychology of individuals, homosexuality, and a fatalistic existential nostalgia are some of the defining themes.

Besides his subjects, unconventional for the time, his poems also exhibit a skilled and versatile craftsmanship, which is almost completely lost in translation. Cavafy was a perfectionist, obsessively refining every single line of his poetry. His mature style was a free iambic form, free in the sense that verses rarely rhyme and are usually from 10 to 17 syllables. In his poems, the presence of rhyme usually implies irony.

Cavafy drew his themes from personal experience, along with a deep and wide knowledge of history, especially of the Hellenistic era. Many of his poems are pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or accurately, but quirkily, historical.

Historical poems

These poems are mainly inspired by the Hellenistic era with Alexandria at primary focus. Other poems originate from Helleno-romaic antiquity and the Byzantine era. Mythological references are also present. The periods chosen are mostly of decline and decadence (e.g. Trojans); his heroes facing the final end.

Orophernes Nicephorus (in Greek Oρoφέρνης Nικηφόρoς) was one of the two false sons whom Antiochis imposed upon her husband, Ariarathes IV, king of Cappadocia. On the birth, however, of a real son, named Mithradates (afterwards Ariarathes V), Orophernes, so that he might not set up pretensions to the throne, was sent away into Ionia. When Ariarathes V refused to marry the sister of Demetrius I Soter, king of Syria, the king supported the claims of Orophernes to the crown of Cappadocia.

In 157 BC, when Ariarathes had been deposed and had fled to Rome, Orophernes sent two ambassadors (Timotheus and Diogenes) to the capital city to join the emissaries of Demetrius in opposing his brother. According to Appian the Romans decided that the two claimants should share the throne between them.

We are told, however, that Orophernes did not hold the kingdom long, and it is alleged that his reign was signalized by a departure from the more simple customs of his ancestors and by the introduction of systematic debauchery. To supply his lavish extravagance, he oppressed and pillaged his subjects, putting many to death and confiscating their property.

He deposited 400 talents with the citizens of Priene as a resource in case of a reversal of fortune, but the Priennians later returned the money.

When Orophernes' business affairs were on the decline, he became alarmed that his soldiers might mutiny over unpaid wages so he plundered an ancient temple of Zeus to pay them off. Orophernes was forced at the end to return to Syria, where he entered into a conspiracy with the people of Antioch to dethrone Demetrius. The latter threw Orophernes into chains, but spared his life that he might still keep Ariarathes in alarm with his pretensions.

Today Orophernes is mainly known for a poem written by the celebrated modern Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy in 1915. In meditating on a tetradrachm found in Priene, the poet wrote "Orophernes," on the pretender's life and his adventures.

Ariarathes IV was the son of the king of Cappadocia Ariarathes III and his Greek Macedonian wife Stratonice. He was a child at his accession, and reigned for about 57 years. He married Antiochis, the daughter of Antiochus III the Great, king of Syria, and wife Laodice III, and, in consequence of this alliance, assisted Antiochus in his war against the Romans. After the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans in 190 BC, Ariarathes sued for peace in 188 BC, which he obtained on favourable terms, as his daughter, Stratonice, was about that time betrothed to Eumenes II, king of Pergamum, whom she later actually married, and became an ally of the Romans. In 183–179 BC, he assisted Eumenes in his war against Pharnaces, king of Pontus. Polybius mentions that a Roman embassy was sent to Ariarathes after the death of the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who died 164 BC. Antiochis, the wife of Ariarathes, is said to have at first bore him no children, and accordingly introduced two supposititious ones, who were called Ariarathes and Orophernes. Subsequently, however, the tale goes that she bore her husband two daughters and a son, Mithridates, afterwards Ariarathes V, and then informed Ariarathes of the deceit she had practised upon him. The other two were in consequence sent away from Cappadocia, one to Rome, the other to Ionia.

Demetrius I (/dɪˈmiːtriəs/; Greek: Δημήτριος; 337–283 BC), called Poliorcetes (/ˌpɒli.ɔrˈsiːtiːz/; Greek: Πολιορκητής, "The Besieger"), son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Stratonice, was a Macedonian nobleman, military leader, and finally king of Macedon (294–288 BC). He belonged to the Antigonid dynasty and was its first member to rule Macedonia.

At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend Syria against Ptolemy the son of Lagus. He was defeated at the Battle of Gaza, but soon partially repaired his loss by a victory in the neighbourhood of Myus. In the spring of 310, he was soundly defeated when he tried to expel Seleucus I Nicator from Babylon; his father was defeated in the autumn. As a result of this Babylonian War, Antigonus lost almost two thirds of his empire: all eastern satrapies fell to Seleucus.

His first wife was Phila daughter of Regent Antipater by whom he had two children: Stratonice of Syria and Antigonus II Gonatas.
His second wife was Eurydice of Athens, by whom he is said to have had a son called Corrhabus.
His third wife was Deidamia, a sister of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Deidamia bore him a son called Alexander who is said by Plutarch to have spent his life in Egypt, probably in an honourable captivity.
His fourth wife was Lanassa, the former wife of his brother-in-law Pyrrhus of Epirus.
His fifth wife was Ptolemais, daughter of Ptolemy I Soter and Eurydice of Egypt, by whom he had a son called Demetrius the Fair.