Delphi Complete Works of Demosthenes

by Demosthenes

  6 1 However this may be, when Demosthenes came of age he began to bring suits against his guardians and to write speeches attacking them. They devised many evasions and new trials, but Demosthenes, after practising himself in these exercises, as Thucydides says, not without toil and danger, won his cause, although he was able to recover not even a small fraction of his patrimony. However, he acquired sufficient practice and confidence in speaking, and got a taste of the distinction and power that go with forensic contests, and therefore essayed to come forward and engage in public matters. 2 And just as Laomedon the Orchomenian — so we are told — practised long-distance running by the advice of his physicians, to ward off some disease of the spleen, and then, after restoring his health in this way, entered the great games and became one of the best runners of the long course, so Demosthenes, after applying himself to oratory in the first place for the sake of recovering his private property, by this means acquired ability and power in speaking, and at last in public business, as it were in the great games, won the first place among the citizens who strove with one another on the bema.

  3 And yet when he first addressed the people he was interrupted by their clamours and laughed at for his inexperience, since his discourse seemed to them confused by long periods and too harshly and immoderately tortured by formal arguments. 4 He had also, as it would appear, a certain weakness of voice and indistinctness of speech and shortness of breath which disturbed the sense of what he said by disjoining his sentences. 5 And finally, when he had forsaken the assembly and was wandering about dejectedly in the Piraeus, Eunomus the Thriasian, who was already a very old man, caught sight of him and upbraided him because, although he had a style of speaking which was most like that of Pericles, he was throwing himself away out of weakness and lack of courage, neither facing the multitude with boldness, nor preparing his body for these forensic contests, but suffering it to wither away in slothful neglect.

  7 1 At another time, too, they say, when he had been rebuffed by the people and was going off homewards disconcerted 849 and in great distress, Satyrus the actor, who was a familiar acquaintance of his, followed after and went indoors with him. 2 Demosthenes lamented to him that although he was the most laborious of all the orators and had almost used up the vigour of his body in this calling, he had no favour with the people, but debauchees, sailors, and illiterate fellows were listened to and held the bema, while he himself was ignored. 3 “You are right, Demosthenes, “ said Satyrus, “but I will quickly remedy the cause of all this, if you will consent to recite off-hand for me some narrative speech from Euripides or Sophocles.” 4 Demosthenes did so, whereupon Satyrus, taking up the same speech after him, gave it such a form and recited it with such appropriate sentiment and disposition that it appeared to Demosthenes to be quite another. 5 Persuaded, now, how much of ornament and grace action lends to oratory, he considered it of little or no use for a man to practise declaiming if he neglected the delivery and disposition of his words. 6 After this, at all, he built a subterranean study, which, in fact, was preserved in our time, and into this he would descend every day without exception in order to form his action and cultivate his voice, and he would often remain there even for two or three months together, shaving one side of his head in order that shame might keep him from going abroad even though he greatly wished to do so.

  8 1 Nor was this all, but he would make his interviews, conversations, and business with those outside, the foundation and starting point for eager toil. For as soon as he parted from his associates, he would go down into his study, and there would go over his transactions with them in due order, and the arguments used in defence of each course. 2 And still further, whatever speeches he chanced to hear delivered he would take up by himself and reduce to propositions and periods, and he would introduce all sorts of corrections and changes of expression into the speeches made by others against himself, or, contrariwise, by himself against others. 3 Consequently it was thought that he was not a man of good natural parts, but that his ability and power were the product of toil. And there would seem to be strong proof of this in the fact that Demosthenes was rarely heard to speak on the spur of the moment, but though the people often called upon him by name as he sat in the assembly, he would not come forward unless he had given thought to the question and was prepared to speak upon it. 4 For this, many of the popular leaders used to rail at him, and Pytheas, in particular, once told him scoffingly that his arguments smelt of lamp-wicks. To him, then, Demosthenes made a sharp answer. 5 “Indeed,” said he, “thy lamp and mine, O Pytheas, are not privy to the same pursuits.” To the rest, however, he made no denial at all, but confessed that his speeches were neither altogether unwritten, nor yet fully written out. 6 Moreover, he used to declare that he who rehearsed his speeches was a true man of the people: for such preparation was a mark of deference to the people, whereas heedlessness of what the multitude will think of his speech marks a man of oligarchical spirit, and one who relies on force rather than on persuasion. 7 Another circumstance, too, is made a proof of his lack of courage for an emergency, namely, that when he was interrupted by the clamours of the people, Demades often rose and spoke off-hand in his support, but he never rendered such a service to Demades.

  9 1 How, then, some one might say, could Aeschines call him a man of the most astonishing boldness in his speeches? And how was it that, when Python of Byzantium was inveighing with much boldness and a great torrent of words against the Athenians, Demosthenes alone rose up and spoke against him? Or how did it happen that, when Lamachus the Myrinaean had written an encomium on Kings Philip and Alexander, in which many injurious things were said of Thebes and Olynthus, and while he was reading it aloud at Olympia, 850 Demosthenes came forward and rehearsed with historical proofs all the benefits which the peoples of Thebes and Chalcidice had conferred upon Greece, and, on the other hand, all the evils of which the flatterers of the Macedonians had been the cause, and thereby so turned the minds of the audience that the sophist was terrified at the outcry against him and slunk away from the festival assemblage?

  2 But although Demosthenes, as it would appear, did not regard the other characteristics of Pericles as suitable for himself, he admired and sought to imitate the formality of his speech and bearing, as well as his refusal to speak suddenly or on every subject that might present itself, as if his greatness was due to these things; but he by no means sought the reputation which is won in a sudden emergency, nor did he often of his own free will stake his influence upon chance. 3 However, those orations which were spoken off-hand by him had more courage and boldness than those which he wrote out, if we are to put any confidence in Eratosthenes, Demetrius the Phalerian, and the comic poets. 4 Of these, Eratosthenes says that often in his speeches Demosthenes was like one frenzied, and the Phalerean says that once, as if under inspiration, he swore the famous metrical oath to the people: —

  “By earth, by springs, by rivers, and by streams.”

  5 Of the comic poets, one calls him a “rhopoperperethras,” or trumpery-braggart, and another, ridiculing his use of the antithesis, says this: —

  (First slave) “My master, as he took, retook.”

  (Second slave (?)) “Demosthenes would have been delighted to take over this phrase.”

  6 Unless, indeed, this, too, was a jest of Antiphanes upon the speech of Demosthenes concerning Halonnesus, in which the orator counselled the Athenians not to take the island from Philip, but to retake it.

  10 1 Still, all men used to agree that Demades, in the exercise of his natural gifts, was invincible, and that when he spoke on the spur of the moment he surpassed the studied preparations of Demosthenes. 2 And Ariston the Chian records an opinion which Theophrastus also passed upon the two orators. When he was asked, namely, what sort of an orator he thought Demosthenes was, he replied: “Worthy of the city”; and what Demades, “Too good for the city.” 3 And the same philosopher tells us that Polyeuctus the Sphettian, one of the political leaders of that time at Athens, declar
ed that Demosthenes was the greatest orator, but Phocion the most influential speaker; since he expressed most sense in fewest words. 4 Indeed, we are told that even Demosthenes himself, whenever Phocion mounted the bema to reply to him, would say to his intimates: “Here comes the chopper of my speeches.” 5 Now, it is not clear whether Demosthenes had this feeling towards Phocion because of his oratory, or because of his life and reputation, believing that a single word or nod from a man who is trusted has more power than very many long periods.

  11 For his bodily deficiencies he adopted the exercises which I shall describe, as Demetrius the Phalerian tells us, who says he heard about them from Demosthenes himself, now grown old. The indistinctness and lisping in his speech he used to correct and drive away by taking pebbles in his mouth and then reciting speeches. His voice he used to exercise by discoursing while running or going up steep places, and by reciting speeches or verses at a single breath. Moreover, he had in his house a large looking-glass, and in front of this he used to stand and go through his exercises in declamation.

  2 A story is told of a man coming to him and begging his services as an advocate, and telling at great length how he had been assaulted and beaten by some one. “But certainly,” said Demosthenes, “you got none of the hurts which you describe.” Then the man raised his voice and shouted: “I, Demosthenes, no hurts?” “Now, indeed,” said Demosthenes, “I hear the voice of one who is wronged and hurt.” 3 So important in winning credence did he consider the tone and action of the speaker. Accordingly, his own action in speaking was astonishingly pleasing to most men, 851 but men of refinement, like Demetrius the Phalerian, thought his manner low, ignoble, and weak. 4 And Hermippus tells us that Aesion, when asked his opinion of the ancient orators as compared with those of his own time, said that one would have listened with admiration when the older orators discoursed to the people decorously and in the grand manner, but that the speeches, of Demosthenes, when read aloud, were far superior in point of arrangement and power. 5 Now, it is needless to remark that his written speeches have much in them that is harsh and bitter; but in his extempore rejoinders he was also humorous. For instance, when Demades said “Demosthenes teach me! As well might the sow teach Athena.” “It was this Athena,” said Demosthenes, “that was lately found laying the harlot in Collytus.” 6 And to the thief nicknamed Brazen, who attempted to make fun of him for his late hours and his writing at night, “I know,” he said, “that I annoy you with my lighted lamp. But you, men of Athens, must not wonder at the thefts that are committed, when we have thieves of brass, but house-walls of clay.” 7 However, though I have still more to say on this head, I shall stop here; the other traits of his character, and his disposition, should be surveyed in connection with his achievements as a statesman.

  12 1 Well, then, he set out to engage in public matters after the Phocian war had broken out, as he himself says, and as it is possible to gather from his Philippic harangues. 2 Some of these were made after the Phocian war was already ended, and the earliest of them touch upon affairs which were closely connected with it. 3 And it is clear that when he prepared himself to speak in the prosecution of Meidias he was thirty-two years old, but had as yet no power or reputation in the conduct of the city’s affairs. 4 And his fears on this score were the chief reason, in my opinion, why he compromised his case against the man he hated for a sum of money:

  “For he was not at all a sweet-tempered man or of gentle mood,”

  but vehement and violent in his requitals. 5 However, seeing that it was no mean task and one beyond his power to overthrow a man like Meidias, who was well hedged about with wealth, oratory and friends, he yielded to those who interceded in his behalf. 6 For it does not seem to me that the three thousand drachmas of themselves could have dulled the bitter feelings of Demosthenes if he had expected or felt able to triumph over his adversary.

  7 But when he had once taken as a noble basis for his political activity the defence of the Greeks against Philip, and was contending worthily here, he quickly won a reputation and was lifted into a conspicuous place by the boldness of his speeches, so that he was admired in Greece, and treated with deference by the Great King; Philip, too, made more account of him than of any other popular leader at Athens, and it was admitted even by those who hated him that they had to contend with a man of mark. 8 For both Aeschines and Hypereides say thus much for him while denouncing him.

  13 1 Wherefore I do not know how it occurred to Theopompus to say that Demosthenes was unstable in his character and unable to remain true for any length of time to the same policies or the same men. 2 For it is apparent that after he had at the outset adopted a party and a line of policy in the conduct of the city’s affairs, he maintained this to the end, and not only did not change his position while he lived, but actually gave up his life that he might not change it. 3 For he was not like Demades, who apologised for his change of policy by saying that he often spoke at variance with himself, but never at variance with the interests of the city; nor like Melanopus, who, though opposed politically to Callistratus, 852 was often bought over by him, and then would say to the people: “The man is my enemy, it is true, but the interests of the city shall prevail”; 4 nor like Nicodemus the Messenian, who first attached himself to Cassander, and then again advocated the interests of Demetrius, but said that he was not contradicting himself, for it was always advantageous to listen to one’s masters. We cannot say such things of Demosthenes also, as of one who is turned from his course and veers to and fro either in word or deed — nay, he followed one unchangeable scale, as it were, and ever held to one key in politics. 5 And Panaetius the philosopher says that most of his speeches also are written in the conviction that good alone is to be chosen for its own sake, as, for instance, the speech “On the Crown,” the one “Against Aristocrates,” that “For the Immunities,” and the Philippics; 6 for in all these he does not try to lead his countrymen to do what is pleasantest or easiest or most profitable, but in many places thinks they ought to make their safety and preservation secondary to what is honourable and fitting, so that, if the loftiness of his principles and the nobility of his speeches had been accompanied by such bravery as becomes a warrior and by incorruptibility in all his dealings, he would have been worthy to be numbered, not with such orators as Moerocles, Polyeuctus, Hypereides, and their contemporaries, but high up with Cimon, Thucydides, and Pericles.

  14 1 At any rate, Phocion, among his contemporaries, though he took the lead in a policy which is not to be commended, and though he had the reputation of favouring Macedonia, nevertheless, by reason of his bravery and integrity, was held to be in no wise inferior to Ephialtes and Aristides and Cimon. 2 Demosthenes, however, was not worthy of confidence when he bore arms, as Demetrius says, nor was he altogether inaccessible to bribes, but though he did not succumb to the gold which came from Philip and Macedonia, that which came down in streams from Susa and Ecbatana reached and overwhelmed him, and therefore while he was most capable of praising the virtues of earlier generations, he was not so good at imitating them. 3 For certainly the orators of his own day (though I leave Phocion out of the account) were surpassed by him even in his life and conversation. And it is manifest that beyond them all he reasoned boldly with the people, opposed himself to the desires of the multitude, and persistently attacked their faults, as may be gathered from his speeches. 4 And even Theopompus tells us that, when the Athenians nominated him to conduct a certain impeachment, and, on his refusal, raised a tumult against him, he rose and said: “Men of Athens, I will serve you as a counsellor, even though you do not wish it; but not as a false accuser, even though you wish it.” 5 Moreover, the measures which he took in the case of Antiphon were exceedingly aristocratic in their spirit. Antiphon had been acquitted by the assembly, but Demosthenes arrested him and brought him before the council of the Areiopagus, and making no account of the offence thus given to the people, convicted him of having promised Philip to set fire to the dockyards; and Antiphon was given up to
justice by the council and suffered death. 6 He also accused the priestess Theoris of many misdemeanours, and particularly of teaching the slaves to practise deceit; and by fixing the penalty at death he brought about her execution.

  15 1 It is said, too, that the speech which Apollodorus used in order to secure the conviction of Timotheus the general in an action for debt was written for him by Demosthenes, and likewise the speeches which Apollodorus used against Phormio and Stephanus, in which cases Demosthenes properly won discredit. 2 For Phormio contended against Apollodorus with a speech which Demosthenes had written for him, the orator thus simply selling to the disputants, as it were from one and the same cutlery-shop, the knives with which to wound each other. 3 Moreover, of his public orations, those against Androtion and Timocrates and Aristocrates were written for others to pronounce, before he had as yet entered public life; 853 for it appears that these speeches were produced when he was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age. But he himself delivered the speech against Aristogeiton, as well as the one “On the Immunities,” at the instance, as he himself says, of Ctesippus the son of Chabrias, but as some say, because he was wooing the mother of this young man. 4 However, he did not marry this woman, but had a certain woman of Samos to wife, as Demetrius the Magnesian tells us in his work “On Persons of the Same Name.” 5 Whether the speech denouncing the treacherous embassage of Aeschines was delivered or not, is uncertain; and yet Idomeneus says that Aeschines got off by only thirty votes. But this would seem to be untrue, if we are to judge by the written speeches of both orators “On the Crown.” 6 For neither of them speaks clearly and distinctly of that contention as one which came to trial. This question, however, will have to be decided by others.