Illustration: DemosthenesDemosthenes.Thisgreatest of the Grecian orators was born about 385 or 384 years before Christ, when Athens had reached the zenith of her literary, and had passed that of her political glory. Juvenal has represented him slightingly as the son of a blacksmith, the fact being that the elder Demosthenes was engaged in various branches of trade, and among others was owner of a sword manufactory. His maternal grandmother was a Thracian woman, a circumstance noticeable because it enabled his enemies, in the spirit of exaggeration and ill-will, to taunt him as a barbarian and hereditary enemy of his country—for the Greeks in general regarded the admixture of barbarian,that is, other than Greek blood, with the same sort of contempt and dislike as do the whites of America the taint of African descent.Being left an orphan when seven years old, Demosthenes fell into the hands of dishonest guardians, who embezzled a large portion of the property which his father had bequeathed to him. His constitution appears to have been delicate, and it may have been on this account, that he did not attend the gymnastic exercises, which formed a large portion of the education of the youths in Greece; exercises really important where neither birth nor wealth set aside the obligation to military service common to all citizens; and where, therefore, skill in the use of arms, strength, and the power to endure fatigue and hardship, were essential to the rich as well as to the poor. It may have been on this account that a nickname expressive of effeminacy was bestowed on him, which was afterwards interpreted into a proof of unmanly luxury and vicious habits; indeed, the reproach of wanting physical strength stuck by him through life, and apparently not undeservedly. Another nickname that he obtained was that of “Viper.” In short, the extant anecdotes tend pretty uniformly to show that his private character was harsh and unamiable.His ambition to excel as an orator is said to have been kindled by hearing a masterly and much admired speech of Callistratus. For instruction, he resorted to Isæus, and, as some say, to Isocrates, both eminent teachers of the art of rhetoric. He had a stimulus to exertion in the resolution to prosecute his guardians for the abuse of their trust; and having gained the cause, B. C. 364, in the conduct of which he himself took an active part, recovered, it would seem, a large part of his property. The orations against Aphobus and Onetor profess to have been delivered in the course of the suit; but it has been doubted, on internal evidence, whether they were really composed by him so early in life.Be this as it may, his success emboldened him to come forward as a speaker in the assemblies of the people: on what occasion, and at what time, does not appear. His reception was discouraging. He probably had underrated, till taught by experience, the degree of training and mechanical preparation requisite at all times to excellence, and most essential in addressing an audience so alive to the ridiculous and so fastidious as the Athenians. He labored also under physical defects, which almost amounted to disqualifications. His voice was weak, his breath short, his articulation defective; in addition to all this, his style was thought strained, harsh, and involved.Though disheartened by his ill success, he felt, as Sheridan is reported to have expressed himself on a similar occasion, that it was in him, and it should come out; beside, he was encouraged by a few discerning spirits. One aged man, who had heard Pericles, cheered him with the assurance that he reminded him of that unequalled orator; and the actor Satyrus pointed out the faults of his delivery, and instructed him to amend them. He now set himself in earnest to realize his notions of excellence; and the singular and irksome method which he adopted, denoting certainly no commonenergy and strength of will, are too celebrated and too remarkable to be omitted, though the authority on which they rest is not free from doubt. He built a room under ground, where he might practise gesture and delivery without molestation, and there he spent two or three months together, shaving his head that the oddity of his appearance might render it impossible for him to go abroad, even if his resolution should fail. The defect in his articulation he cured by reciting with small pebbles in his mouth. His lungs he strengthened by practising running up hill, while reciting verses. Nor was he less diligent in cultivating mental, than bodily requisites, applying himself earnestly to study the theory of the art, as explained in books, and the examples of the greatest masters of eloquence. Thucydides is said to have been his favorite model, insomuch that he copied out his history eight times, and had it almost by heart.Meanwhile, his pen was continually employed in rhetorical exercises; every question suggested to him by passing events served him for a topic of discussion, which called forth the application of his attainments to the real business of life. It was perhaps as much for the sake of such practice, as with a view to reputation, or the increase of his fortune, that he accepted employment as an advocate, which, until he began to take an active part in public affairs, was offered to him in abundance.Such was the process by which he became confessedly the greatest orator among the people by whom eloquence was cultivated, as it has never been since by any nation upon earth. He brought it to its highest state of perfection, as did Sophocles the tragic drama, by the harmonious union of excellences which had before only existed apart. The quality in his writings which excited the highest admiration of the most intelligent critics among his countrymen, in the later critical age, was the Protean versatility with which he adapted his style to every theme, so as to furnish the most perfect examples of every order and kind of eloquence.Demosthenes, like Pericles, never willingly appeared before his audience with any but the ripest fruits of his private studies, though he was quite capable of speaking on the impulse of the moment in a manner worthy of his reputation. He continued to the end of his career to cultivate the art with unabated diligence, and even in the midst of public business, his habits were known to be those of a severe student.The first manifestation of that just jealousy of Philip, the ambitious king of Macedon, which became the leading principle of his life, was made B. C. 352, when the orator delivered the first of those celebrated speeches called Philippics. The word has been naturalized in Latin and most European languages, as a concise term to signify indignant invective.From this time forward, it was the main object of Demosthenes to inspire and keep alive in the minds of the Athenians a constant jealousy of Philip’s power and intentions, and to unite the other states of Greece in confederacy against him. The policy and the disinterestedness of his conduct have both been questioned; the former, by thosewho have judged, from the event, that resistance to the power of Macedonia was rashly to accelerate a certain and inevitable evil; the latter, by those, both of his contemporaries and among posterity, who believe that he received bribes from Persia, as the price of finding employment in Greece for an enemy, whose ambition threatened the monarch of the East. With respect to the former, however, it was at least the most generous policy, and that of the elder Athenians in their most illustrious days, not to await the ruin of their independence submissively, until every means had been tried for averting it; for the latter, such charges are hard either to be proved or refuted. The character of Demosthenes certainly does not stand above the suspicion of pecuniary corruption, but it has not been shown, nor is it necessary or probable to suppose, that his jealousy of Philip of Macedon was not in the first instance far-sighted and patriotic. During fourteen years, from 352 to 338, he exhausted every resource of eloquence and diplomatic skill to check the progress of that aspiring monarch; and whatever may be thought of his moral worth, none can undervalue the genius and energy, which have made his name illustrious, and raised a memorial of him far more enduring than sepulchral brass.In 339, B. C., Philip’s appointment to be general of the Amphyctionic League gave him a more direct influence than he had yet possessed; and in the same year, the decisive victory of Cheronea, won over the combined forces of Thebes, Athens,&c., made him master of Greece. Demosthenes served in this engagement, but joined early in the flight, with circumstances, according to report, of marked cowardice and disgrace. He retired for a time from Athens, but the cloud upon his character was but transient; for shortly after he was entrusted with the charge of putting the city in a state of defence, and was appointed to pronounce the funeral oration over those who had been slain. After the battle of Cheronea, Philip, contrary to expectation, did not prosecute hostilities against Athens; on the contrary, he used his best endeavors to conciliate the affections of the people, but without success; the party hostile to Macedon soon regained the superiority, and Demosthenes was proceeding with his usual vigor in the prosecution of his political schemes, when news arrived of the murder of Philip, in July, 336.The daughter of Demosthenes had then lately died; nevertheless, in violation of national usage, he put off his mourning, and appeared in public crowned with flowers, and with other tokens of festive rejoicing. This act, a strong expression of triumph over the fall of a most dangerous enemy, has been censured with needless asperity; the accusation of having been privy to the plot for Philip’s murder beforehand, founded on his own declaration of the event some time before intelligence of it came from any other quarter, and the manifest falsehood as to the source of the information, which he professed to derive from a divine revelation, involves, if it be judged to be well founded, a far blacker imputation.Whether or not it were of his own procuring, the death of Philip was hailedby Demosthenes as an event most fortunate for Athens, and favorable to the liberty of Greece. Thinking lightly of the young successor to the Macedonian crown, he busied himself the more in stirring up opposition to Alexander, and succeeded in urging Thebes into that revolt, which ended in the entire destruction of the city, B. C. 335. This example, as it well might, struck terror into Athens. Alexander demanded that Demosthenes, with nine others, should be given up into his hands, as the authors of the battle of Cheronea, and of the succeeding troubles of Greece; but finally contented himself with requiring the banishment of Charidemus alone.Opposition to Macedon was now effectually put down, and until the death of Alexander we hear little more of Demosthenes as a public man. During this period, however, one of the most memorable incidents of his life occurred in that contest of oratory with Æschines, which has been more celebrated than any strife of words since the world began. The origin of it was as follows. About the time of the battle of Cheronea, one Ctesiphon brought before the people a decree for presenting Demosthenes with a crown for his distinguished services; a complimentary motion, in its nature and effects very much like a vote of parliament declaratory of confidence in the administration. Æschines, the leading orator of the opposite party, arraigned this motion, as being both untrue in substance and irregular in form; he indicted Ctesiphon on these grounds, and laid the penalty at fifty talents, equivalent to about $45,000. Why the prosecution was no long delayed, does not clearly appear; but it was not brought to an issue until the year 330, when Æschines pronounced his great oration “against Ctesiphon.” Demosthenes defended him in the still more celebrated speech “on the crown.” These, besides being the most admirable specimens of rhetorical art, have the additional value, that the rival orators, being much more anxious to uphold the merits of their own past policy and conduct, than to convict or defend the nominal object of prosecution, have gone largely into matters of self-defence and mutual recrimination, from which much of our knowledge of this obscure portion of history is derived. Æschines lost the cause, and not having the votes of so much as a fifth part of the judges, became liable, according to the laws of Athens, to fine and banishment. He withdrew to Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric.Demosthenes roused the Athenians against Antipater the successor of Alexander in Greece, but when that general triumphed, he fled to Calmesia, and took refuge in a temple. He retired into the inner part of the building, on pretence of writing a letter, where he took poison and speedily died.Such was the life of Demosthenes, the greatest orator Greece ever produced, and one of the most famous that ever lived.Manis made to live on the earth, but to regard heaven as his resting place. He must keep both objects in view: if he forgets heaven, he imitates the brutes which perish; if he forgets the earth, he will tumble into the first ditch that lies across his path.
Illustration: Demosthenes
Thisgreatest of the Grecian orators was born about 385 or 384 years before Christ, when Athens had reached the zenith of her literary, and had passed that of her political glory. Juvenal has represented him slightingly as the son of a blacksmith, the fact being that the elder Demosthenes was engaged in various branches of trade, and among others was owner of a sword manufactory. His maternal grandmother was a Thracian woman, a circumstance noticeable because it enabled his enemies, in the spirit of exaggeration and ill-will, to taunt him as a barbarian and hereditary enemy of his country—for the Greeks in general regarded the admixture of barbarian,that is, other than Greek blood, with the same sort of contempt and dislike as do the whites of America the taint of African descent.
Being left an orphan when seven years old, Demosthenes fell into the hands of dishonest guardians, who embezzled a large portion of the property which his father had bequeathed to him. His constitution appears to have been delicate, and it may have been on this account, that he did not attend the gymnastic exercises, which formed a large portion of the education of the youths in Greece; exercises really important where neither birth nor wealth set aside the obligation to military service common to all citizens; and where, therefore, skill in the use of arms, strength, and the power to endure fatigue and hardship, were essential to the rich as well as to the poor. It may have been on this account that a nickname expressive of effeminacy was bestowed on him, which was afterwards interpreted into a proof of unmanly luxury and vicious habits; indeed, the reproach of wanting physical strength stuck by him through life, and apparently not undeservedly. Another nickname that he obtained was that of “Viper.” In short, the extant anecdotes tend pretty uniformly to show that his private character was harsh and unamiable.
His ambition to excel as an orator is said to have been kindled by hearing a masterly and much admired speech of Callistratus. For instruction, he resorted to Isæus, and, as some say, to Isocrates, both eminent teachers of the art of rhetoric. He had a stimulus to exertion in the resolution to prosecute his guardians for the abuse of their trust; and having gained the cause, B. C. 364, in the conduct of which he himself took an active part, recovered, it would seem, a large part of his property. The orations against Aphobus and Onetor profess to have been delivered in the course of the suit; but it has been doubted, on internal evidence, whether they were really composed by him so early in life.
Be this as it may, his success emboldened him to come forward as a speaker in the assemblies of the people: on what occasion, and at what time, does not appear. His reception was discouraging. He probably had underrated, till taught by experience, the degree of training and mechanical preparation requisite at all times to excellence, and most essential in addressing an audience so alive to the ridiculous and so fastidious as the Athenians. He labored also under physical defects, which almost amounted to disqualifications. His voice was weak, his breath short, his articulation defective; in addition to all this, his style was thought strained, harsh, and involved.
Though disheartened by his ill success, he felt, as Sheridan is reported to have expressed himself on a similar occasion, that it was in him, and it should come out; beside, he was encouraged by a few discerning spirits. One aged man, who had heard Pericles, cheered him with the assurance that he reminded him of that unequalled orator; and the actor Satyrus pointed out the faults of his delivery, and instructed him to amend them. He now set himself in earnest to realize his notions of excellence; and the singular and irksome method which he adopted, denoting certainly no commonenergy and strength of will, are too celebrated and too remarkable to be omitted, though the authority on which they rest is not free from doubt. He built a room under ground, where he might practise gesture and delivery without molestation, and there he spent two or three months together, shaving his head that the oddity of his appearance might render it impossible for him to go abroad, even if his resolution should fail. The defect in his articulation he cured by reciting with small pebbles in his mouth. His lungs he strengthened by practising running up hill, while reciting verses. Nor was he less diligent in cultivating mental, than bodily requisites, applying himself earnestly to study the theory of the art, as explained in books, and the examples of the greatest masters of eloquence. Thucydides is said to have been his favorite model, insomuch that he copied out his history eight times, and had it almost by heart.
Meanwhile, his pen was continually employed in rhetorical exercises; every question suggested to him by passing events served him for a topic of discussion, which called forth the application of his attainments to the real business of life. It was perhaps as much for the sake of such practice, as with a view to reputation, or the increase of his fortune, that he accepted employment as an advocate, which, until he began to take an active part in public affairs, was offered to him in abundance.
Such was the process by which he became confessedly the greatest orator among the people by whom eloquence was cultivated, as it has never been since by any nation upon earth. He brought it to its highest state of perfection, as did Sophocles the tragic drama, by the harmonious union of excellences which had before only existed apart. The quality in his writings which excited the highest admiration of the most intelligent critics among his countrymen, in the later critical age, was the Protean versatility with which he adapted his style to every theme, so as to furnish the most perfect examples of every order and kind of eloquence.
Demosthenes, like Pericles, never willingly appeared before his audience with any but the ripest fruits of his private studies, though he was quite capable of speaking on the impulse of the moment in a manner worthy of his reputation. He continued to the end of his career to cultivate the art with unabated diligence, and even in the midst of public business, his habits were known to be those of a severe student.
The first manifestation of that just jealousy of Philip, the ambitious king of Macedon, which became the leading principle of his life, was made B. C. 352, when the orator delivered the first of those celebrated speeches called Philippics. The word has been naturalized in Latin and most European languages, as a concise term to signify indignant invective.
From this time forward, it was the main object of Demosthenes to inspire and keep alive in the minds of the Athenians a constant jealousy of Philip’s power and intentions, and to unite the other states of Greece in confederacy against him. The policy and the disinterestedness of his conduct have both been questioned; the former, by thosewho have judged, from the event, that resistance to the power of Macedonia was rashly to accelerate a certain and inevitable evil; the latter, by those, both of his contemporaries and among posterity, who believe that he received bribes from Persia, as the price of finding employment in Greece for an enemy, whose ambition threatened the monarch of the East. With respect to the former, however, it was at least the most generous policy, and that of the elder Athenians in their most illustrious days, not to await the ruin of their independence submissively, until every means had been tried for averting it; for the latter, such charges are hard either to be proved or refuted. The character of Demosthenes certainly does not stand above the suspicion of pecuniary corruption, but it has not been shown, nor is it necessary or probable to suppose, that his jealousy of Philip of Macedon was not in the first instance far-sighted and patriotic. During fourteen years, from 352 to 338, he exhausted every resource of eloquence and diplomatic skill to check the progress of that aspiring monarch; and whatever may be thought of his moral worth, none can undervalue the genius and energy, which have made his name illustrious, and raised a memorial of him far more enduring than sepulchral brass.
In 339, B. C., Philip’s appointment to be general of the Amphyctionic League gave him a more direct influence than he had yet possessed; and in the same year, the decisive victory of Cheronea, won over the combined forces of Thebes, Athens,&c., made him master of Greece. Demosthenes served in this engagement, but joined early in the flight, with circumstances, according to report, of marked cowardice and disgrace. He retired for a time from Athens, but the cloud upon his character was but transient; for shortly after he was entrusted with the charge of putting the city in a state of defence, and was appointed to pronounce the funeral oration over those who had been slain. After the battle of Cheronea, Philip, contrary to expectation, did not prosecute hostilities against Athens; on the contrary, he used his best endeavors to conciliate the affections of the people, but without success; the party hostile to Macedon soon regained the superiority, and Demosthenes was proceeding with his usual vigor in the prosecution of his political schemes, when news arrived of the murder of Philip, in July, 336.
The daughter of Demosthenes had then lately died; nevertheless, in violation of national usage, he put off his mourning, and appeared in public crowned with flowers, and with other tokens of festive rejoicing. This act, a strong expression of triumph over the fall of a most dangerous enemy, has been censured with needless asperity; the accusation of having been privy to the plot for Philip’s murder beforehand, founded on his own declaration of the event some time before intelligence of it came from any other quarter, and the manifest falsehood as to the source of the information, which he professed to derive from a divine revelation, involves, if it be judged to be well founded, a far blacker imputation.
Whether or not it were of his own procuring, the death of Philip was hailedby Demosthenes as an event most fortunate for Athens, and favorable to the liberty of Greece. Thinking lightly of the young successor to the Macedonian crown, he busied himself the more in stirring up opposition to Alexander, and succeeded in urging Thebes into that revolt, which ended in the entire destruction of the city, B. C. 335. This example, as it well might, struck terror into Athens. Alexander demanded that Demosthenes, with nine others, should be given up into his hands, as the authors of the battle of Cheronea, and of the succeeding troubles of Greece; but finally contented himself with requiring the banishment of Charidemus alone.
Opposition to Macedon was now effectually put down, and until the death of Alexander we hear little more of Demosthenes as a public man. During this period, however, one of the most memorable incidents of his life occurred in that contest of oratory with Æschines, which has been more celebrated than any strife of words since the world began. The origin of it was as follows. About the time of the battle of Cheronea, one Ctesiphon brought before the people a decree for presenting Demosthenes with a crown for his distinguished services; a complimentary motion, in its nature and effects very much like a vote of parliament declaratory of confidence in the administration. Æschines, the leading orator of the opposite party, arraigned this motion, as being both untrue in substance and irregular in form; he indicted Ctesiphon on these grounds, and laid the penalty at fifty talents, equivalent to about $45,000. Why the prosecution was no long delayed, does not clearly appear; but it was not brought to an issue until the year 330, when Æschines pronounced his great oration “against Ctesiphon.” Demosthenes defended him in the still more celebrated speech “on the crown.” These, besides being the most admirable specimens of rhetorical art, have the additional value, that the rival orators, being much more anxious to uphold the merits of their own past policy and conduct, than to convict or defend the nominal object of prosecution, have gone largely into matters of self-defence and mutual recrimination, from which much of our knowledge of this obscure portion of history is derived. Æschines lost the cause, and not having the votes of so much as a fifth part of the judges, became liable, according to the laws of Athens, to fine and banishment. He withdrew to Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric.
Demosthenes roused the Athenians against Antipater the successor of Alexander in Greece, but when that general triumphed, he fled to Calmesia, and took refuge in a temple. He retired into the inner part of the building, on pretence of writing a letter, where he took poison and speedily died.
Such was the life of Demosthenes, the greatest orator Greece ever produced, and one of the most famous that ever lived.
Manis made to live on the earth, but to regard heaven as his resting place. He must keep both objects in view: if he forgets heaven, he imitates the brutes which perish; if he forgets the earth, he will tumble into the first ditch that lies across his path.