DEMOSTHENES. 



611 



B'envwthe. honour of the command of the ship equipped. But 

 •***• while none of the wealthy were legally excusable from 

 y — ^ le on6j man y -would be very unfit tor the other, which, 

 therefore, was not so rigorously imposed. Demosthe- 

 nes, though apparently little of a seaman, acted how- 

 ever at one time as a naval captain in the Athenian 

 service. He contributed also to the treasury, as we 

 find him boasting, by a gift called free, but no more to 

 be avoided than the office of trierarc. Through his 

 disposition to luxury and ostentation, (continues the 

 game historian), his fortune was quickly dissipated. On 

 emerging from his minority, (by the Athenian law at 

 five-and~twcnty,) he earned an opprobrious nick-name 

 by a prosecution of his guardians, which was consider- 

 ed as a dishonourable attempt to extort money. In fix- 

 ing this last stain upon Demosthenes' character, with 

 regard to his prosecution of his guardians, Mr Mitford 

 seems to give way rather to his systematic hatred of 

 the republican orator, than to the force of historical evi- 

 dence. The charge of youthful effeminacy in dress and 

 manner, and even of prodigality, brought against him 

 by his rival iEschines, might or might not be true; but 

 in order to substantiate the accusation of baseness in 

 his plea with his guardians, some better proof is requi- 

 red than the invective of a rival. The fiict of his 

 prosecuting those guardians is admitted ; and the 

 commonly received account is, that he cast them in da- 

 mages. Had the decisions of the court of justice been 

 against him, we should have been informed of it by 

 the same hostile channel through which the suspicion 

 of his motives has been conveyed. In the same mi- 

 candid spirit, we consider the general mora! portraiture 

 of this illustrious man to have been drawn by Mr Mit- 

 ford. That his life was not unblemished, is but too 

 evident ; but to admit the abuse of TEschines as deci- 

 sive in every instance against it, -is the excess of histo- 

 rical acrimony ; the more to be regretted that it comes 

 from the pen of a writer so powerful, acute, and learn- 

 ed, as the latest historian of Greece must be confessed 

 to be. 



At the age of twenty -five, Demosthenes commenced 

 that employment which had raised Isocrates before him 

 to wealth, consequence, and fame, that of composing 

 speeches for suitors in the court of justice ; and from 

 private causes, soon embarked his talents in those of 

 the public. His natural deficiencies for public oratory, 

 and the pains which lie took to correct them, are rela- 

 ted in almost every sketch of his biography. Some of 

 them are akin to the marvellous, and savour much of 

 the gossipping credulity of Plutarch; in particular, the 

 anecdote of his mode of curing defective articulation, 

 by speaking with pebbles in his mouth as he walked 

 up a hill. Yet the tradition of antiquity, that he con- 

 quered impediments and acquired^ excellence by un- 

 bounded assiduity, may well deserve belief. 



As Demosthenes was one of the great men who 

 chain the history of their counti-y to their biography, it 

 may be necessary to say something of the circum- 

 stances of Athens at the time when he appeared as a 

 public character. From the date of the glorious vic- 

 tories over the Persians, the Athenians, who assumed 

 to themselves the chief honours of those victories, set 

 tip as the sovereign umpires of Greece. Their rival- 

 ship with Sparta occasioned the Peloponnesian war; af- 

 ter which, the Spartans, for thirty years, established a 

 sovereignty over the petty states, that was much more 

 intolerable than.that of Attica. By the aid of Persia, 

 however, Athens was enabled to form a new confede- 

 racy for the nominal independence of the Greek states. 



or, in other words, to transfer thtir dependence to Dernosthe- 

 themselves. They rebuilt their walls, and once more ne5# 

 dictated terms to Sparta. Peace had not been long es- "■""""• 

 tablished, when Thebes, under the genius of Pelopidas 

 and Epaminondas, rose to primary importance in the 

 scale of Greece : in her short struggle against both La- 

 cedemon and Athens, she gave a mortal wound to the 

 supremacy of the former power, though she left the 

 power of Athens comparatively unimpaired. Soon af- 

 ter, Olynthus, a city extending its influence widely 

 over the Chalcidic continent, rose also to a formidable 

 degree of consequence, and for a certain time gave a 

 check to the Athenian arms. But the consequence of 

 either Thebes or Olynthus was transitory, compared 

 with that which was now developing itself in Macedon 

 under Philip. Macedon, remote and rude, had hither- 

 to been scarcely numbered among the Grecian nations ; 

 but its new sovereign Philip, who had been educated 

 in the Theban school of arms, submitted its barbarous 

 energies to a system of military and political tactics 

 which proved irresistible. Philip, on his accession to 

 the throne, found himself at war with Athens, which 

 supported another competitor to the Macedonian throne. 

 Having defeated the Athenians, he instantly liberated 

 all the prisoners of that nation, and, by a politic act of 

 generosity, sent them home, not only without ransom, 

 but loaded with favours. Peace and alliance were con- 

 cluded between the republic and Macedon, whose sove- 

 reign waved his pretensions to Amphipolis, a city bor- 

 dering on Macedon, knowing it to be a favourite ob- 

 ject of Athenian ambition. By the peace with Philip, 

 Athens revived in political eminence ; but the defects 

 in her deroocratical constitution were coming to a fatal 

 crisis, in the unsteadiness of government, the decay of 

 patriotism and principle, and of military virtue, and in 

 the subserviency of administration to popular passion. 

 Victory, however, for a time attended the Athenian 

 arms, which were turned, for a while, in conjunction 

 with those of Philip, against the state of Olynthus. The' 

 alliance of the Athenians and Philip -was broken off 

 by events which are still involved in some obscurity, 

 notwithstanding the generally luminous researches of 

 Mr Mitford. According to that author, the whole blame 

 rested on the Athenians, who turned short upon their 

 ally, and with successful treachery instigated the inha- 

 bitants of Pydna, (a sea-port town subject to Macedon,) 

 to revolt from Macedon. After which, the Athenians, 

 having refused satisfaction to Philip, seized upon Am- 

 phipolis, and with some difficulty succeeded. Two 

 points in this statement are, however, uncertain ; the 

 first is, the successful treachery of the Athenians in de- 

 taching Pydna from Macedon, which is but very ob- 

 scurely intimated by the ancients ; and, secondly, the 

 fact of the Athenians having seized Amphipolis, of 

 which there is no proof, although it is certain that 

 they attacked it. In about a year from this time, An_- 

 phipolis was attacked by Philip, and the Olynthians 

 now at peace and in alliance, were quickly taken. Dio- 

 dorus's account, however, so far justifies Philip, as 

 it informs us, that this prince had recei ;-ed strong pro- 

 vocation from the city of Amphipolis; and the Athe- 

 nians, who had no more real title to Amphipolis than 

 the Macedonians, could with an ill grace blame another 

 power for taking possession of what they had them- 

 selves attempted to seize. Athens, however, whether 

 her quarrel with Philip was just or unjust, was unable, 

 for the present, to follow the dictates of her resent- 

 ment. Her maritime oppressions had driven the states 

 of Rhodes, Chios, Cos, and Byzantium, to join hi a 



