Demosthenes's father died possessed of an estate of fourteen talents.2 His son at that time was only seven years of age. He had the misfortune to fall into the hands of sordid and avaricious guardians, who had no views but of making the most out of his fortune. They carried that base spirit so far as to refuse their pupil's masters the stipend due to them: so that he was not educated with the care which so excellent a genius as his required; besides which, the weakness of his constitution and the delicacy of his health, in conjunction with the excessive fondness of a mother that doated upon him, prevented his masters from obliging him to apply closely to his studies.

The school of Isocrates,3 in which so many great men had been educated, was at that time the most famous at Athens. But whether the avarice of Demosthenes's guardians prevented him from improving under a master whose price was very high; or that the soft and placid eloquence of Isocrates was not to his taste, at that time he studied under Isæus, whose characteristic was strength and vehemence. He found means, however, to get the principles of rhetoric taught by the former: but Platos in reality contributed the most to form Demosthenes; he read his works with great application, and even received lessons from him; and it is easy to distinguish in the writings of the disciple, the noble and sublime air of the master.

7

But he soon quitted the schools of Isæus and Plato for another; I mean to frequent the bar; of which this was the occasion. The orator Callistratus was appointed to plead in a full assembly the cause of the city of Oropus, situated between Boeotia and Attica. Chabrias, having disposed the Athenians to march to the aid of the Thebans, who were in great distress, they hastened thither, and delivered them from the enemy. The Thebans, forgetting so great a service, took the town of Oropus, which was upon their frontier, from the Athenians. Chabrias was suspected, and charged with treason upon this occasion. Callistratus was chosen to plead against him. The reputation of the orator, and the importance of the cause, excited curiosity, and made a great noise in the city. Demosthenes, who was then sixteen years of age, earnestly entreated his masters to carry him with them to the bar, that he might be present at so famous a trial. The orator was heard with great attention and having had extraordinary success, was attended home by a crowd of illustrious citizens, who seemed to vie with each other in praising and admiring him. The young man was extremely affected with the honours which he saw paid to the orator, and still more with the supreme influence of eloquence over the minds of men, over which it exercises a kind of absolute power. He was himself sensible of its effects; and not being able to resist its charms, he gave

-A. M. 3639. Ant. J. C. 365.

all other studies and pleasures, and as long as Callistratus continued at Athens, he never quitted him, but made all the improvement he could from his precepts. The first essay of his eloquence was against his guardians, whom he obliged to refund a part of his fortune. Encouraged by this success, he ventured to speak before the people, but with very ill fortune. He had a weak voice, an impediment in his speech, and a very short breath; notwithstanding which, his periods were so long, that he was often obliged to stop in the midst of them to take breath. This occasioned his being hissed by the whole audience; from whence he retired entirely discouraged, and determined to renounce for ever a function of which he believed himself incapable. One of his auditors, who, through all these imperfections, had observed an excellent fund of genius in him, and a kind of eloquence which came very near that of Pericles, gave him new spirit from the grateful idea of so glorious a resemblance, and the good advice which he added to it.

He ventured, therefore, to appear a second time before the people, and was no better received than before. As he withdrew, hanging down his head, and in the utmost confusion, Satyrus, one of the most excellent actors of those times, who was his friend, met him, and having learned from himself the cause of his be ing so much dejected, he assured him that the evil was not without remedy, and that the case was not so desperate as he imagined. He desired him only to repeat some of Sophocles' or Euripides' verses to him, which he accordingly did. Satyrus spoke them after him, and gave them such graces by the tone, gesture, and spirit, with which he pronounced them, that Demosthenes himself found them quite different from what they were in his own manner of speaking. He perceived plainly what he wanted, and applied himself to the acquiring of it.

His efforts to correct his natural defect of utterance, and to perfect himself in pronunciation, of which his friend had made him understand the value, seem almost incredible, and prove, that an industrious perseverance can surmount all things. He stammered to such a degree, that he could not pronounce some letters; amongst others, that with which the name of the art he studied begins ;9 and he was so shortbreathed, that he could not utter a whole period without stopping. He at length overcame these obstacles by putting small pebbles into his mouth, and pronouncing several verses in that manner without interruption; and that even when walking, and going up steep and difficult places; so that, at last, no letter made him hesitate, and his breath held out through the longest periods. He went also to the sea-side,10 and whilst the waves were in the most violent agitation, he pronounced harangues, to accustom himself, by the confused noise of the waters, to the roar of the people, and the tumultuous cries of public assemblies.

Demosthenes took no less care of his action than of his voice. He had a large looking-glass in his house, which served to teach him gesture, and at which he used to declaim, before he spoke in public. To correct a fault which he had contracted by an ill habit, of continually shrugging his shoulders, he practised standing upright in a kind of very narrow pulpit or rostrum, over which hung a halbert, in such a manner that, if in the heat of action that motion escaped him, the point of the weapon might serve at the same time to admonish and correct him.

His pains were well bestowed; for it was by this means that he carried the art of declaiming to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable; whence it is plain, he well knew its value and importance. When he was asked three several times, which quality he thought most necessary in an orator, he gave no other answer than Pronunciation; insinuating,

by making that reply three times successively, that qualification to be the only one, of which the want could be least concealed, and which was the most capable of concealing other defects; and that pronunciation alone could give considerable weight even to an indifferent orator, when without it the most excellent could not hope for the least success. He must have had a very high opinion of it, since, in order to attain a perfection in it, and to receive the instruction of Neoptolemus, the most excellent comedian then in being, he devoted so considerable a sum as 10,000 drachmas, though he was not very rich.

His application to study was no less surprising. To be the more removed from noise, and less subject to distraction, he caused a small chamber to be made for him under ground, in which he sometimes shut himself up for whole months, shaving on purpose half his head and face, that he might not be in a condition to go abroad. It was there, by the light of a small lamp, he composed the admirable orations which were said, by those who envied him, to smell of the oil; to imply, that they were too elaborate. "It is plain," replied he, " yours did not cost you so much trouble." He rose very early in the morning,3 and used to say, that he was sorry when any workman was at his business before him. We may judge of his extraordinary efforts to acquire perfection of every kind, from the pains he took in copying Thucydides' history eight times with his own hand, in order to render the style of that great man familiar to him.

Demosthenes, after having exercised his talent of eloquence in several private causes, made his appear ance in full light, and mounted the tribunal, to treat there upon the public affairs; with what success we shall see hereafter. Ciceros tells us that his success was so great, that all Greece came in crowds to Athens to hear Demosthenes speak: and he adds, that merit, so great as his, could not but have had that effect. I do not examine in this place into the character of his eloquence; I have enlarged sufficiently upon that elsewhere; 1 only consider its wonderful effects.

If we may believe Philip, and upon this point he is certainly an evidence of unquestionable authority, the eloquence of Demosthenes alone did him more hurt than all the armies and fleets of the Athenians. His harangues, he said, were like machines of war, and batteries raised at a distance against him; by which he overthrew all his projects, and ruined his enterprises, without its being possible to prevent their effect. "For I myself," says Philip of him, "had I been present, and heard that vehement orator declaim, I should have been the first to conclude that it was indispensably necessary to declare war against me." No city seemed impregnable to that prince, provided he could introduce a mule laden with gold into it: but he confessed, that, to his sorrow, Demosthenes was invincible in that respect, and that he always found him inaccessible to his presents. After the battle of Charonea, Philip, though victor, was struck with extreme dread at the prospect of the great danger to which that orator, by the powerful league he had been the sole cause of forming against him, and had exposed both himself and his kingdom.

Actio in dicendo una dominatur. Sine hâc summus orator esse numero nullo potest: mediocris, hâc instructus, summos sæpe superare. Huic primas dedisse Demosthe nes dicitur, cùm rogaretur quid in dicendo esset primum; huic secundas, huic tertias. Cic. de Orat. 1. iii, n. 213. 2 About 240. sterling.

Cui non sunt audita Demosthenis vigilia? qui dolere se debat, si quando opificum antelucanâ victus esset industria. Tuse Quest, I. iv. n. 44.

Lucian, advers. Indoct. p. 639.

Ne illud quidem intelligunt, non modò ita memoriæ proditum esse, sed ita necesse fuisse, cum Demosthenes dicturus esset, ut concursus, audiendi causa ex tota Græ cia fierent. In Brut, n. 239.

Art of studying the Belles Lettres, vol. ii.
Lucian. in Encom, Demosth. p. 940, 941

Antipater spoke of him in similar terms.8 "I value not," said he, "the_Piraeus, the galleys, and armies of the Athenians. For what have we to fear from a people continually employed in games, feasts, and Bacchanalian rites? Demosthenes alone gives me pain. Without him, the Athenians are in no respect different from the meanest people of Greece. He alone excites and animates them. It is he that rouses them from their lethargy and stupefaction, and puts arms and oars into their hands almost against their will. Incessantly representing to them the famous battles of Marathon and Salamis, he transforms them into new men by the ardour of his discourses, and inspires them with incredible valour and boldness. Nothing escapes his penetrating eyes nor his consummate prudence. He foresees all our designs, he countermines all our projects, and disconcerts us in every thing; and did Athens entirely confide in him, and wholly follow his advice, we should be irremediably undone. Nothing can tempt him, nor diminish his love for his country. All the gold of Philip finds no more access to him, than that of Persia did formerly to Aristides."

He was reduced by necessity to give this glorious testimony for himself, in making good his defence against schines, his accuser and declared enemy. "Whilst all the orators have suffered themselves to be corrupted by the presents of Philip and Alexander, it is well known," says he, "that neither delicate conjunctures, nor engaging expressions, nor magnificent promises, nor hope, nor fear, nor favour, nor any thing in the world, have ever been able to induce me to relax in any point, which I thought favourable either to the rights or interest of my country." He adds, that instead of acting like those mercenary persons, who, in all they proposed, declared for such as paid them best, like scales, that always incline to the side from whence they receive most; he, in all the counsels he had given, had solely in view the interest and glory of his country, and that he had always continued inflexible and incorruptible by the Macedonian gold. The sequel will show whether he supported that character to the end.

Such was the orator who is about to ascend the tribunal, or rather the statesman who is going to enter upon the administration of the public affairs, and to be the principle and soul of all the enterprises of Athens against Philip of Macedon.

SECTION VII.--DIGRESSIONS UPON THE MANNER OF

FITTING OUT FLEETS BY THE ATHENIANS, AND THE EXEMPTIONS AND OTHER MARKS OF HONOUR GRANTED BY THAT CITY TO SUCH AS HAD RENDERED IT GREAT SERVICES.

THE subject of this digression ought properly to have had place in that part of this volume where I have treated of the maritime affairs of the Athenians. Bat at that time I had not in my thoughts those orations of Demosthenes which speak of them. It is a deviation from the chain of the history, which the reader may easily pass over, if he thinks fit.

The word Trierarchs9 signifies no more in itself than commanders of galleys. But those citizens were also called Trierarchs who were appointed to fit out the galleys in time of war, and to furnish them with all things necessary, or at least with part of them.

and there was no fixed number of them. Sometimes They were chosen out of the richest of the people, two, sometimes three, and sometimes even ten Trierarchs were appointed to equip one vessel.

At length the number of Trierarchs in general was fixed at 1200,10 in this manner. Athens was divided into ten tribes. A hundred and twenty of the richest citizens of each tribe, were nominated to furnish the furnishing six score, the number of the Trierarchs expenses of these armaments; and thus each tribe amounted to 1200.

Those 1200 men were again divided into two parts, of 600 each; and those 600 subdivided into two more, each of 300. The first 300 were chosen from among such as were richest. Upon pressing occasions they advanced the necessary expenses, and were reimbursed by the other 300, who paid their proportion as the state of their affairs would admit.

A law was afterwards made, whereby those 1200 were divided into different companies, each consisting of sixteen men, who joined in the equipment of a galley. That law was very heavy upon the poorer citizens, and radically unjust, as it decreed that this number of sixteen should be chosen by their age, and not their estates. It ordained that all citizens, from twenty-five to forty, should be included in one of these companies, and contribute one-sixteenth; so that by this law the poorer citizens were to contribute as much as the most opulent, and often found it impossible to provide for an expense so much above their power. From whence it happened, that the fleet was either not armed in time, or very ill fitted out; by which means Athens lost the most favourable opportunitiess for action.

Demosthenes, always intent upon the public good, to remedy these inconveniences, proposed the abrogation of the law by another. By the latter, the Trierarchs were to be chosen, not by the number of their years, but the value of their fortunes. Each citizen, whose estate amounted to ten talents,2 was obliged to fit out one galley at his own expense; and if to twenty talents, two; and so on in proportion. Such as were not worth ten talents, were to join with as many others as were necessary to complete that sum, and to fit out a galley.

Nothing could be wiser than this law of Demosthenes, which reformed all the abuses of the other. By these means the fleet was fitted out in time, and provided with all things necessary; the poor were considerably relieved, and none but the rich displeased with it. For instead of contributing only a sixteenth, as by the first law, they were sometimes obliged by the second to equip a galley by themselves, and sometimes two or more, according to the amount of their

estates.

The rich were in consequence very much offended at Demosthenes for this regulation; and it required, without doubt, no small courage in him to disregard their complaints, and to hazard the making himself as many enemies as there were powerful citizens in Athens. Let us hear himself. "Seeing," says he, speaking to the Athenians, "that your maritime af fairs were in a ruinous condition, the rich possessed of an immunity purchased at a very low rate, the citizens of middle or small fortunes overwhelmed with taxes, and the republic itself, in consequence of these inconveniences, never attempting any thing till too late to be of any avail; I had the courage to establish a law, whereby the rich are brought back to their duty, the poor relieved from oppression, and, what was of the highest importance, the republic enabled to make the necessary preparations for war in due time." He adds, that there was nothing the rich would not have given him to forbear the proposing of this law, or at least to have suspended its execution: but he did not suffer himself to be swayed either by their threats or promises, and continued firm to the public good.

Not having been able to make him change his resolution, they contrived a stratagem to render it ineffectual. For it was without doubt at their instigation that a certain person, named Patroclus, cited Demosthenes before the judges, and prosecuted him juridically as an infringer of the laws of his country. The accuser not having the fifth part of the voices on his side, was according to custom fined 500 drachmas,

Demosth. in Orat. de Classib. 2 Ten thousand crowns. Demosth, pro Ctesiph. p. 419. • Twelve pounds five shillings.

and Demosthenes acquitted of the charge. He himself informs us of these particulars.

I much doubt, whether at Rome, especially in the latter times, the affair would have taken this turn. For we see, that whatever attempts were made by the tribunes of the people, and to whatever extremity the quarrel arose, it never was possible to induce the rich, who were far more powerful and enterprising than those of Athens, to renounce the possession of the lands, which they had usurped in manifest contravention of the institutions of the state. The law of Demosthenes was approved and confirmed by the senate and people.

We find, from what has been said, that the Trierarchs fitted out the galleys and equipped them at their own expense. The state paid the mariners and soldiers, generally, at the rate of three Oboli, or fivepence a day, as has been observed elsewhere. The officers had greater pay.

The Trierarch commanded the vessel, and gave all orders on board. When there were two of them to a ship, each commanded six months.

When they quitted their office, they were obliged to give an account of their administration, and delivered a state of the vessel's equipage to their successor, or the republic. The successor was obliged to go immediately and fill up the vacant place; and if he failed to be at his post by a time assigned him, he was fined for his neglect.

As the charge of Trierarch was very expensive, those who were nominated to it, were admitted to point out some other person richer than themselves, and to demand that he should be put into their place; provided they were ready to change estates with such person, and to act as Trierarch after such exchange. This law was instituted by Solon, and was called the law of exchanges.

Besides the equipment of galleys, which must have amounted to very great sums, the rich had another burden to support in time of war; that was, the extraordinary taxes and imposts laid on their estates; upon which sometimes the hundredth, sometimes, a fiftieth, and even a twelfth, were levied, according to

the different necessities of the state.

Nobody at Athens,5 upon any pretence whatsoever, could be exempted from these two charges, except the Novemviri, or nine Archons, who were not obliged to fit out galleys. So that we see clearly, that without ships or money, the republic was not in a condition, either to support wars, or defend itself.

There were other immunities and exemptions, which were granted to such as had rendered great services to the republic, and-sometimes even to all their descendants; such as maintaining the public places for the exercises with all things necessary for such as frequented them; instituting a public feast for one of the ten tribes; and defraying the expenses of games and shows; all which amounted to great sums.

These immunities, as has already been said, were marks of honour and rewards for services rendered the state; as well as the statues which were erected to great men, the freedom of the city which was granted to strangers, and the privilege of being maintained in the Prytaneum at the public expense. The view of Athens in these honourable distinctions, which were sometimes perpetuated through families, was to express their high sense of gratitude, and to kindle at the same time in the hearts of their citizens a noble thirst of glory, and an ardent love for their country.

Besides the statues erected to Harmodius and Aristogiton, the deliverers of Athens, their descendants were for ever exempted from all public employments, and enjoyed that honourable privilege many ages after.

As Aristides died without any estate, and left his son Lysimachus no other patrimony but his glory and

5 Demosth. advers, Lept. p. 545. Idem in Orat. ad Lep. p. 558.

poverty, the republic gave him 100 acres of wood, and as much arable land, in Euboea, besides 100 minæ at one payment, and four drachmas, or forty pence, a-day. Athens,2 in the services which were done it, regarded more the good will than the action itself. A certain person of Cyrene, named Epicerdus, being at Syracuse when the Athenians were defeated, touched with compassion for the unfortunate prisoners dispersed in Sicily, whom he saw ready to expire for want of food, distributed 100 minæ amongst them, that is, about 2401. Athens adopted him into the number of its citizens, and granted him all the immunities before mentioned. Some time after, in the war against the thirty tyrants, the same Epicerdus gave the city a talent.3 These were but small matters on either occasion with regard to the grandeur and power of Athens; but they were deeply affected with the good will of a stranger, who, without any view of interest, in a time of public calamity, exhausted himself in some measure for the relief of those with whom he had no connection, and from whom he had nothing to expect.

The same Athens granted the freedom of their city, and an exemption from customs, to Leucon, who reigned in the Bosphorus, and to his children, because they imported from the lands of that prince a considerable quantity of corn, of which they were in extreme want, subsisting almost entirely upon what came from for eign parts. Leucon, in his turn, not to be outdone in generosity, exempted the Athenian merchants from the duty of a thirtieth that was imposed upon all grain exported from his dominions, and granted them the privilege of supplying themselves with corn in his country in preference to all other people. That exemption amounted to a considerable sum. For they brought from thence alone 2,000,000 of quarters of corn, of which the thirtieth part amounted to almost 70,000.

The children of Conon and Chabrias were also granted an immunity from public offices. The names alone of those illustrious generals sufficiently justify that liberality of the Athenian people. A person, however, called Leptines, out of a mistaken zeal for the public good proposed to abrogate, by a new law, all the grants of that kind, which had been made from time immemorial, except those which regarded the posterity of Harmodius and Aristogiton; and to enact, that for the future the people should not be permitted to grant such privileges.

Demosthenes strongly opposed this law, though with great delicacy towards the person who proposed it; praising his good intentions, and not speaking of him but with esteem; a much more efficacious manner of refuting, than those violent invectives, and that eager and passionate style, which serve only to alienate the minds of the hearers, and to render an orator suspected, who discredits his cause himself, and shows its weak side, by substituting railing in the place of reasons, which are alone capable of convincing.

After having shown that so odious a reform would prove of little or no advantage to the republic, from the inconsiderable number of the exempted persons, he goes on to expose its inconveniences, and sets them in a full light.

"It is first," says he, "doing injury to the memory

About two hundred and forty pounds.
Demosth. in Orat. ad Lep. p. 757.
A thousand crowns.

• Demosth. in Orat. ad Lep. p. 545, 546.

of those great men, whose merit the state intended to acknowledge and reward by such immunities; it is in some manner calling in question the services they have done their country; it is throwing a suspicion upon their great actions, injurious to, if not destructive of, their glory. And were they now alive.and present in this assembly, which of us all would presume to offer them such an affront? Should not the respect we owe their memories make us consider them as always alive and present?

"But if we are little affected with what concerns them, can we be insensible to our own interest? Besides that cancelling so ancient a law is to condemn the conduct of our ancestors, what shame shall we bring upon ourselves, and what an injury shall we do our reputation? The glory of Athens, and of every well-governed state, is to value itself upon its gratitude; to keep its word religiously, and to be true to all its engagements. A private person that fails in these respects, is hated and abhorred; and who is not afraid of being reproached with ingratitude? And shall the commonwealth, in cancelling a law that has received the sanction of public authority, and been in a manner consecrated by the usage of many ages, be guilty of so scandalous a prevarication? We prohibit lying in the very markets under heavy penalties and require truth and good faith to be observed in them; and shall we renounce them ourselves, by the revocation of grants passed in all their forms, and upon which every private man has a right to insist? "To act in such a manner, would be to extinguish in the hearts of our citizens all emulation for glory, all desire to distinguish themselves by great exploits, all zeal for the honour and welfare of their country, which are the great springs and principles of almost all the actions of life. And it is to no purpose to object the example of Sparta and Thebes, which grant no such exemptions. Do we repent our not resembling them in many things; and is there any wisdom in proposing their defects, and not their virtues, for our imitation?"

Demosthenes concludes with demanding the law of exemptions to be retained in all its extent, with this exception, that all persons should be deprived of the benefits of it, but those who had a just title to them; and that a strict inquiry should be made for that pur pose.

It is plain that I have only made a very slight extract in this place of an exceeding long discourse, and that I designed to express only the spirit and sense, without confining myself to the method and expressions of it.

There was a meanness in Leptines's desiring to obtain a trivial advantage for the republic, by retrenching the moderate expenses that were an honour to it, and in no degree burdensome, whilst there were other abuses of far greater importance to reform.

Such marks of public gratitude perpetuated in a family, perpetuate also in a state an ardent zeal for one's country, and a warm desire to obtain distinction by glorious actions. It is not without pain I find amongst ourselves, that part of the privileges granted to the family of the Maid of Orleans have been retrenched. Charles VII.5 had ennobled her, her father, three brothers, and all their descendants, even by the female line. In 1614, at the request of the attorneygeneral, the article of nobility on the women's side was retrenched.

• Mezerai.