DEMOSTHENES. 



DEMOSTHENES. 



53 



to overcome them. The means which he is said to have taken to 

 remedy these defects look very like the inventions of some writer of 

 the rhetorical school, though Plutarch (' Demosth./ x.) quotes Deme- 

 trius the Phalerian as saying that he had from the orator's own mouth 

 what Plutarch has stated in the chapter just referred to. Among 

 these means we hear of climbing up hills with pebbles in his mouth, 

 declaiming on the sea-shore, or with a sword hung so as to strike his 

 shoulder when he made an uncouth gesture. Ho is also said to have 

 shut himself up at times in a cave under ground for study's sake, and 

 this for months together. 



Having been emancipated from his guardians, after a minority of 

 ten years, he commenced a prosecution against them to recover his 

 property. Estimating his losses at thirty talents (inclusive of ten years' 

 interest), he sued Aphobus for one-third part, and gained his cause, 

 without however succeeding in obtaining more than a small part of 

 his money. This took place B.C. 364, when he was in his twentieth 

 year, or, as he says himself (' Mid.' 539, 23), when he was quite a 

 boy ; but the extant orations against his guardians are evidently not 

 the work of a youth of that age, as a careful perusal of these orations 

 will clearly show. He subsequently adopted the profession of writing 

 and delivering, as a hired advocate, speeches for persona eugaged in 

 private and public causes a practice which was now generally adopted 

 by the Greek orators, and was attended with considerable profit 

 HU first speech on a public occasion was made in B.C. 355, in which 

 year he wrote the speech against Andrqtion, and wrote and delivered 

 that against Lepti 



Of his speeches relating to public concerns, there are three which 

 have a direct bearing on his personal history : the speech against 

 Midias ; that concerning Malversation in the Embassy ; and that in 

 behalf of Ctesiphon, or, as it is commonly called, the ' Oration on the 

 Crown.' The two last are briefly noticed under the article yEschines. 

 [/ESCIIINES.] With reference to the first, it should be premised that, 

 in the year B.C. 351, Demosthenes voluntarily undertook the expensive 

 office of Cboragus, and that, during the performances at the Dionysia, 

 when discharging his duties, he was insulted and struck by Midias. 

 Demosthenes brought an action against Midias for assaulting him in 

 the performance of what was regarded as a religious duty, and thus 

 Midias was involved in a prosecution for sacrilege. Demosthenes 

 obtained a verdict. The extant oration against Midias was written 

 three years afterwards. 



The first speech on a public affair that remains, and probably the 

 first which Demosthenes published, is that on the Syuimoria), which 

 was delivered B.C. 354. A few words will be necessary to explain the 

 state of parties at the time. 



About ten years previous to this oration the power of Sparta had 

 been broken by Thebes, who in her turn sank into inactivity after the 

 death of her great general Epaminondas in the battle of Mantinea, 

 B.C. 362 : three years after this time Philip of Macedon began his 

 reign. His first step, after defeating two other claimants to the 

 throne and compelling the Paoonians and Illyriaus to submission, was 

 to possess himself of several Greek colonies to the south of Macedonia, 

 and to interfere in a war of succession then going on in Tbessaly. 

 Athens, not yet recovered from the effects of the Peloponnesian war, 

 had been engaged from B.C. 357 to B.C. 355 in a war with her allies. 

 lihodes, Chios, Cos, and Byzantium, which ended in their throwing off 

 the yoke under which she had held them, about a year before the 

 delivery of the oration on the Symmoriae. There were, as usual, two 

 parties in Athens. With one of these, which was headed by Phocion, 

 Philip had an intimate connection, and this party was not unfavourable 

 to his designs, either through want of energy or from believing that 

 they would do Greece no injury. The other party, called by Mitford 

 the ' War Party,' was beaded by a profligate general named Chares, 

 and was that to which Demosthenes was afterwards attached. 



Perhaps the most important eveut of the time was the war occasioned 

 by the seizure of the temple of Apollo at Delphi by the Phocians. 

 There had been a dispute aa to the sacred land, which had long 

 belonged to Phocis, and the Amphictyonic council asserting their 

 claim, Philomelus the Pbociau seized the temple, and its treasures 

 were freely used in the war, which continued till B.C. 346. It was 

 through this war that Philip contrived to identify his interests with 

 that of the Amphictyons at large, and at last to be elected their 

 leader ; and hence we must generally consider the leading parties in 

 the struggle between Philip and Demosthenes to have been the 

 Amphictyonic states and Macedon on the one side, against Athens 

 and occasionally Persia on the other ; while we must remember that 

 in Thebes, the principal Amphictyonic state, thrre was a strong party 

 ..it Philip, as in Athens there was one equally strong for him. 



Under thee circumstances, Demosthenes made hia oration on the 

 Symmoritc, which in part relates to a question of finance, but more 

 particularly to a scheme then on foot for sending Chares with an 

 armament into Asia against the Persians; a project utterly preposterous, 

 as Athens had enough to do to hold her ground against the refractory 

 colonies and Milyect states, without engaging in other undertaking". 

 Against this measure Demosthene* directed his eloquence with BUCCCSH, 

 and tbi may be considered the beginning of his struggle with Philip, 

 for the Macedonian cause would have gained by any IO*B which Athens 

 might sustain. About a year after, Philip begun to take an active 

 part in the affairs of the Sacred War, as that in Phoois is usually 



called. He defeated the Phocian alliance, and only retired, as it 

 should seem, to avoid any rupture with Athens, such as might preclude 

 all hope of adding her to the number of his auxiliaries. At, this 

 juncture Demosthenes, who had been opposed to the former war, 

 joined Chares, and delivered his first Philippic. 



The motive of this apparent change of opinion is evident : on the 

 former occasion he saw that war would have been the dispersion of 

 strength which was needful for a nearer struggle ; now, he saw that 

 the time for that struggle was come, and knew that, to be effectual, 

 Athens must direct it. (' Oration on the Crown,' p. 249.) But Athens, 

 however powerful when roused, had lost much of that spirit of indi- 

 vidual bravery which characterised her in the best times of her history. 

 The exhortations of Demosthenes failed in producing the desired effect; 

 nor was it till Philip had defeated ICersobleptes the Thracian, whom 

 it was the interest of the Athenians to support as his rival, that they 

 considered themselves compelled to commence military operations 

 against him. 



This was at last done by sending successive expeditions to Olynthus, 

 a maritime town near the isthmus of Pallene ; and by an inroad into 

 Eubooa, under the direction of Phocion, by means of which the 

 Macedonian influence was lessened in that island. The former step 

 was however the more important, as Olynthus was a place of strength, 

 and was looked on with great jealousy by Philip. 



Olynthus had made alliance with Athens contrary to a compact with 

 Philip, and although well enough supplied with arms and men, it 

 required the assistance of Athenian soldiers. To provide for these 

 expeditions, Demosthenes, in his Olynthiac orations, advised the appli- 

 cation of the money appropriated to the public festivals, and in so 

 doing was opposed by Phocion. In spite however of the exertions of 

 Demosthenes, Olynthus was taken by Philip in the spring of B.C. 347. 

 Early in the succeeding year Demosthenes, with yEschiues and eight 

 or nine others, went on an embassy to Philip, to treat of peace. 

 According to ^Eschines, he exhibited great want of self-possession on 

 this occasion. If this were the case, it is surely not too much to 

 attribute it to a consciousness that he had departed through fear of 

 present danger from his one great object of opposition to Philip, who, 

 even during the settlement of preliminaries, seized on several Thracian 

 towns. The motive which urged Demosthenes to agree to a peace is 

 probably that assigned by Schaumann (see also -Demosthenes, ' Oration 

 on the Peace '), that the means of resistance were too small to allow any 

 hope that Athens alone could use them effectually. Be that as it may, 

 Demosthenes never slackened his efforts ; and in B.C. 343 we find him 

 accusing .-Eschines of malversation in the former embassy, and acting 

 as one in a second embassy to counteract Philip's influence in Ambracia 

 and Peloponnesus. Since the cessation of the Phocian war in B.C. 346 

 this influence appears to have increased, as well by the weakening of 

 Sparta and Thebes as by his acquisition of two votes in the 

 Amphictyonic council ; hence the renewed energy of Demosthenes 

 and the expedition of Diopeithes to the Hellespont, for the purpose of 

 protecting the Athenian corn-trade. (' Oration on the Crown,' p. 254). 



About this time too Demosthenes became in a more decided sense 

 the leader of his party in the room of Chores, and for the next two 

 years employed himself in supporting and strengthening the arti- 

 Macedonian party in Greece. His principal measures were an embassy 

 to the Persians ; the strengthening of the alliance with Byzantium and 

 Periuthus for the purpose of forming alliances ; and the reliuquishmeut 

 by Athens of all claim on Eubcca, in which Phocion concurred. 



The struggle now began. Philip laid siege to Perinthus, to Selymbria, 

 and afterwards to Byzantium, and fitted out a fleet. At this j uncture 

 Demosthenes delivered his fourth Philippic, in which, among other 

 things, he recommended the restoration of the festival-money to its 

 original use, alleging the scruples felt by some concerning its application 

 to military purposes, and the increase in revenue which rendered that 

 application no longer necessary. In B.C. 339 the siege of Byzantium 

 and Perinthus was raised, and a short peaoe ensued; but in the 

 succeeding spring Philip ws chosen Amphictyonic general. The 

 object of Demosthenes was now somewhat changed. Before, he had 

 to oppose a foreign influence which sought to insinuate itself into the 

 affairs of the Grecian States; now that wish had beau gained, and his 

 business became that of arranging party against party in the different 

 sections of the same nation. 



From this time till the battle of Chseronea he was engaged in 

 ne(,'ociations to detach different states from the Amphictyouic alliance. 

 At Thebes he was completely successful : a strict alliance was con- 

 cluded between Thebes and Athens, and Demosthenes became almost 

 as much the minister of the one state as of the other. He defeated 

 all the counter- efforts of Python, Philip's agent, and procured the 

 preparation of an army and fleet to act against Philip, who hud seized 

 and fortified Elatea, a principal town in Phocis. But his hopes were 

 again destroyed at the battle of Chjeronea in the summer of B.C. 338, 

 and Philip remained apparently master of the destinies of Greece 

 perhaps not unaided in tiie conflict by a superstition which considered 

 his cause aa in some sort identified with that of Apollo, the Delphian 

 god. Under those circumstances, the party of Phocion made some 

 faint attempts at action ; but Philip, with, his usual remarkable policy, 

 forestalled them by releii.-ing his Athenian prisoners, and using his 

 victory with the greatest moderation. 



Demosthenes joined in the flight from Choeronea, not, us his pnoroies 



