Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes of Paeania in Attica, a rich and
highly respected factory-owner, was born in or about the year 384 B.C.
He was early left an orphan; his guardians mismanaged his property for
their own advantage; and although, soon after coming of age in 366, he
took proceedings against them and was victorious in the law-courts, he
appears to have recovered comparatively little from them. In preparing
for these proceedings he had the assistance of Isaeus, a teacher and
writer of speeches who was remarkable for his knowledge of law, his
complete mastery of all the aspects of any case with which he had to
do, and his skill in dealing with questions of ownership and
inheritance. Demosthenes' speeches against his guardians show plainly
the influence of Isaeus, and the teacher may have developed in his
pupil the thoroughness and the ingenuity in handling legal arguments
which afterwards became characteristic of his work.
Apart from this litigation with his guardians, we know little of
Demosthenes' youth and early manhood. Various stories have come down to
us (for the most part not on the best authority), of his having been
inspired to aim at an orator's career by the eloquence and fame of
Callistratus; of his having overcome serious physical defects by
assiduous practice; of his having failed, nevertheless, owing to
imperfections of delivery, in his early appearances before the people,
and having been enabled to remedy these by the instruction of the
celebrated actor Satyrus; and of his close study of the _History_ of
Thucydides. Upon the latter point the evidence of his early style
leaves no room for doubt, and the same studies may have contributed to
the skill and impressiveness with which, in nearly every oration, he
appeals to the events of the past, and sums up the lessons of history.
Whether he came personally under the influence either of Plato, the
philosopher, or of Isocrates, the greatest rhetorical teacher of his
time, and a political pamphleteer of high principles but little
practical insight, is much more doubtful. The two men were almost as
different in temperament and aims as it was possible to be, but
Demosthenes' familiarity with the published speeches of Isocrates, and
with the rhetorical principles which Isocrates taught and followed, can
scarcely be questioned.
In the early years of his manhood, Demosthenes undertook the
composition of speeches for others who were engaged in litigation. This
task required not only a very thorough knowledge of law, but the power
of assuming, as it were, the character of each separate client, and
writing in a tone appropriate to it; and, not less, the ability to
interest and to rouse the active sympathy of juries, with whom feeling
was perhaps as influential as legal justification. This part, however,
of Demosthenes' career only concerns us here in so far as it was an
admirable training for his later work in the larger sphere of politics,
in which the same qualities of adaptability and of power both to argue
cogently and to appeal to the emotions effectively were required in an
even higher degree.
At the time when Demosthenes' interest in public affairs was beginning
to take an active form, Athens was suffering from the recent loss of
some of her most powerful allies. In the year 358 B.C. she had counted
within the sphere of her influence not only the islands of Lemnos,
Imbros, and Scyros (which had been guaranteed to her by the Peace of
Antalcidas in 387), but also the chief cities of Euboea, the islands of
Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Samos, Mytilene in Lesbos, the towns of the
Chersonese, Byzantium (a city of the greatest commercial importance),
and a number of stations on the south coast of Thrace, as well as
Pydna, Potidaea, Methone, and the greater part of the country bordering
upon the Thermaic Gulf. But her failure to observe the terms of
alliance, laid down when the new league was founded in 378, had led to
a revolt, which ended in 355 or 354 in the loss to her of Chios, Cos,
Rhodes, and Byzantium, and of some of the ablest of her own commanders,
and left her treasury almost empty. About the same time Mytilene and
Corcyra also took the opportunity to break with her. Moreover, her
position in the Thermaic region was threatened first by Olynthus, at
the head of the Chalcidic League, which included over thirty towns; and
secondly by Philip, the newly-established King of Macedonia, who seemed
likely to displace both Olynthus and Athens from their positions of
commanding influence.[1]
Nevertheless, Athens, though unable to face a strong combination, was
probably the most powerful single state in Greece. In her equipment and
capacity for naval warfare she had no rival, and certainly no other
state could vie with her in commercial activity and prosperity. The
power of Sparta in the Peloponnese had declined greatly. The
establishment of Megalopolis as the centre of a confederacy of Arcadian
tribes, and of Messene as an independent city commanding a region once
entirely subject to Sparta, had seriously weakened her position; while
at the same time her ambition to recover her supremacy kept alive a
feeling of unrest throughout the Peloponnese. Of the other states of
South Greece, Argos was hostile to Sparta, Elis to the Arcadians;
Corinth and other less important cities were not definitely attached to
any alliance, but were not powerful enough to carry out any serious
movement alone. In North Greece, Thebes, though she lacked great
leaders, was still a great power, whose authority throughout Boeotia
had been strengthened by the complete or partial annihilation of
Platacae, Thespiae, Orchomenus,[2] and Coroneia. In Athens the ill
feeling against Thebes was strong, owing to the occupation by the
Thebans of Oropus,[2] a frontier town which Athens claimed, and their
treatment of the towns just mentioned, towards which the Athenians were
kindly disposed. The Phocians, who had until recently been unwilling
allies of Thebes, were now hostile and not insignificant neighbours,
and about this time entered into relations with both Sparta and Athens.
The subject of contention was the possession or control of the Temple
of Apollo at Delphi, which the Phocians had recently taken by force
from the Delphians, who were supported by Thebes; and in the 'Sacred
War' to which this act (which was considered to be sacrilege) gave rise
in 355 B.C., the Thebans and Locrians fought against the Phocians in
the name of the Amphictyonic Council, a body (composed of
representatives of tribes and states of very unequal importance[3]) to
which the control of the temple traditionally belonged. Thessaly
appears to have been at this time more or less under Theban influence,
but was immediately dominated by the tyrants of Pherae, though the
several cities seem each to have possessed a nominally independent
government. The Greek peoples were disunited in fact and unfitted for
union by temperament. The twofold desire, felt by almost all the more
advanced Greek peoples, for independence on the one hand, and for
'hegemony' or leadership among other peoples, on the other, rendered
any effective combination impossible, and made the relations of states
to one another uncertain and inconstant. While each people paid respect
to the spirit of autonomy, when their own autonomy was in question,
they were ready to violate it without scruple when they saw their way
to securing a predominant position among their neighbours; and although
the ideal of Panhellenic unity had been put before Greece by Gorgias
and Isocrates, its realization did not go further than the formation of
leagues of an unstable character, each subject, as a rule, to the more
or less tyrannical domination of some one member.
Probably the power which was most generally feared in the Greek world
was that of the King of Persia. Several times in recent years (and
particularly in 387 and 367) he had been requested to make and enforce
a general settlement of Hellenic affairs. The settlement of 387 (called
the King's Peace, or the Peace of Antalcidas, after the Spartan officer
who negotiated it) had ordained the independence of the Greek cities,
small and great, with the exception of those in Asia Minor, which were
to form part of the Persian Empire, and of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros,
which were to belong to Athens as before. The attempt to give effect to
the arrangement negotiated in 367 failed, and the terms of the Peace of
Antalcidas, though it was still appealed to, when convenient, as a
charter of liberty, also came to be disregarded. But there was always a
sense of the possibility or the danger of provoking the great king to
exert his strength, or at least to use his wealth, to the detriment of
some or all of the Greek states; though at the moment of which we are
speaking (about 355) the Persian Empire itself was suffering from
recent disorders and revolutions, and the king had little leisure for
interfering in the affairs of Greece.
It was to the department of foreign and inter-Hellenic affairs that
Demosthenes principally devoted himself. His earliest political
speeches, however, were composed and delivered in furtherance of
prosecutions for the crime of proposing illegal legislation. These were
the speeches against Androtion (spoken by Diodorus in 355) and against
Leptines (in 354). Both these were written to denounce measures which
Demosthenes regarded as dishonest or unworthy of Athenian traditions.
In the former he displays that desire for clean-handed administration
which is so prominent in some of his later speeches; and in the
prosecution of Leptines he shows his anxiety that Athens should retain
her reputation for good faith. Both speeches, like those of the year
352 against Timocrates (spoken by Diodorus), and against Aristocrates
(spoken by Euthycles), are remarkable for thoroughness of argument and
for the skill which is displayed in handling legal and political
questions, though, like almost all Athenian forensic orations, they are
sometimes sophistical in argument.
The first speech which is directly devoted to questions of external
policy is that on the Naval Boards in 354; and this is followed within
the next two years by speeches delivered in support of appeals made to
Athens by the people of Megalopolis and by the exiled democratic party
of Rhodes. From these speeches it appears that the general lines of
Demosthenes' policy were already determined. He was in opposition to
Eubulus, who, after the disastrous termination of the war with the
allies, had become the leading statesman in Athens. The strength of
Eubulus lay in his freedom from all illusion as to the position in
which Athens stood, in his ability as a financier, and in his readiness
to take any measures which would enable him to carry out his policy. He
saw that the prime necessity of the moment was to recruit the financial
and material strength of the city; that until this should be effected,
she was quite incapable of carrying on war with any other power; and
that she could only recover her strength through peace. In this policy
he had the support of the well-to-do classes, who suffered heavily in
time of war from taxation and the disturbance of trade. On the other
hand, the sentiments of the masses were imperialistic and militant. We
gather that there were plenty of orators who made a practice of
appealing to the glorious traditions of the past and the claim always
made by Athens to leadership among the Greek states. To buy off the
opposition which his policy might be expected to encounter, Eubulus
distributed funds freely to the people, in the shape of
'Festival-money', adopting the methods employed before him by
demagogues, very different from himself, in order that he might
override the real sentiments of the democracy; and in spite of the
large amounts thus spent he did in fact succeed, in the course of a few
years, in collecting a considerable sum without resorting to
extraordinary taxation, in greatly increasing the navy and in enlarging
the dockyards. For the success of this policy it was absolutely
necessary to avoid all entanglement in war, except under the strongest
compulsion. The appeals of the Megalopolitans and the Rhodians, to
yield to which would probably have meant war with Sparta and with
Persia, must be rejected. Even in dealing with Philip, who was making
himself master of the Athenian allies on the Thermaic coast, the fact
of the weakness of Athens must be recognized, and all idea of a great
expedition against Philip must be abandoned for the present. At the
same time, some necessary measures of precaution were not neglected. It
was essential to secure the route to the Euxine, over which the
Athenian corn-trade passed, if corn was not to be sold at famine
prices. For this purpose, therefore, alliance was made with the
Thracian prince, Cersobleptes; and when Philip threatened Heraeon
Teichos on the Propontis, an expedition was prepared, and was only
abandoned because Philip himself was forced to desist from his attempt
by illness. Similarly, when Philip appeared likely to cross the Pass of
Thermopylae in 352, an Athenian force was sent (on the proposal of
Diophantus, a supporter of Eubulus) to prevent him. The failure of
Eubulus and his party to give effective aid to Olynthus against Philip
was due to the more pressing necessity of attempting to recover control
of Euboea: it had clearly been their intention to save Olynthus, if
possible. But when this had proved impossible, and the attempt to form
a Hellenic league against Philip had also failed, facts had once more
to be recognized; and, since Athens was now virtually isolated, peace
must be made with Philip on the only terms which he would accept--that
each side should keep what it _de facto_ possessed at the time.
Demosthenes was generally in opposition to Eubulus and his party, of
which Aeschines (once an actor and afterwards a clerk, but a man of
education and great natural gifts) was one of the ablest members.
Demosthenes was inspired by the traditions of the past, but had a much
less vague conception of the moral to be drawn from them than had the
multitude. Athens, for him as for them, was to be the first state in
Hellas; she was above all to be the protectress of democracy
everywhere, against both absolutism and oligarchy, and the leader of
the Hellenes in resistance to foreign aggression. But, unlike the
multitude, Demosthenes saw that this policy required the greatest
personal effort and readiness for sacrifice on the part of every
individual; and he devotes his utmost energies to the task of arousing
his countrymen to the necessary pitch of enthusiasm, and of effecting
such reforms in administration and finance as, in his opinion, would
make the realization of his ideal for Athens possible. In the speeches
for the Megalopolitans and the Rhodians, the nature of this ideal is
already becoming clear both in its Athenian and in its Panhellenic
aspects. But so soon as it appeared that Philip, at the head of the
half-barbarian Macedonians, and not Athens, was likely to become the
predominant power in the Hellenic world, it was against Philip that all
his efforts were directed; and although in 346 he is practically at one
with the party of Eubulus in his recognition of the necessity of peace,
he is eager, when the opportunity seems once more to offer itself, to
resume the conflict, and, when it is resumed, to carry it through to
the end.
We have then before us the sharp antagonism of two types of
statesmanship. The strength of the one lies in the recognition of
actual facts, and the avoidance of all projects which seem likely,
under existing circumstances, to fail. The other is of a more sanguine
type, and believes in the power of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice to
transform the existing facts into something better, and to win success
against all odds. Statesmen of the former type are always attacked as
unpatriotic and mean-spirited; those of the latter, as unpractical and
reckless. There is truth and falsehood in both accusations: but since
no statesman has ever combined all the elements of statesmanship in a
perfect and just proportion, and since neither prudence and
clear-sightedness, nor enthusiastic and generous sentiment, can ever be
dispensed with in the conduct of affairs without loss, a larger view
will attach little discredit to either type. While, therefore, we may
view with regret some of the methods which both Demosthenes and
Aeschines at times condescended to use in their conflicts with one
another, and with no less regret the disastrous result of the policy
which ultimately carried the day, we need not hesitate to give their
due to both of the contending parties: nor, while we recognize that
Eubulus and Phocion (his sturdiest supporter in the field and in
counsel) took the truer view of the situation, and of the character of
the Athenians as they were, need we (as it is now fashionable to do)
denounce the orator who strove with unstinting personal effort and
self-sacrifice to rouse the Athenians into a mood in which they could
and would realize the ideal to which they, no less than he, professed
their devotion.
But the difficulties in the way of such a realization were wellnigh
insuperable. Neither the political nor the military system of Athens
was adapted to such a policy. The Sovereign Assembly, though capable of
sensible and energetic action at moments of special danger, was more
likely to be moved by feeling and prejudice than by businesslike
argument, particularly at a time when the tendency of the best educated
and most intelligent men was to withdraw from participation in public
life; and meeting, as the Assembly did (unless specially summoned),
only at stated intervals, it was incapable of taking such rapid,
well-timed, and decisive action as Philip could take, simply because he
was a single man, sole master of his own policy, and personally in
command of his own forces. The publicity which necessarily attached to
the discussions of the Assembly was a disadvantage at a time when many
plans would better have been kept secret; and rapid modifications of
policy, to suit sudden changes in the situation, were almost
impossible. Again, while no subjects are so unsuited under any
circumstances for popular discussion as foreign and military affairs,
the absence in Athens of a responsible ministry greatly increased the
difficulties of her position. It is true that the Controller of the
Festival Fund (whose office gradually became more and more important)
was now appointed for four years at a time, while all other offices
were annual; and that he and his friends, and their regular opponents,
were generally ready to take the lead in making proposals to the
Council or the Assembly. But if they chose to remain silent, they could
do so;[4] no one was bound to make any proposal at all; and, on the
other hand, any one might do so. With such a want of system, far too
much was left to chance or to the designs of interested persons.
Moreover, the Assembly felt itself under no obligation to follow for
any length of time any lead which might be given to it, or to maintain
any continuity or consistency between its own decrees. In modern times,
a minister, brought into power by the will of the majority of the
people, can reckon for a considerable period upon the more or less
loyal support of the majority for himself and his official colleagues.
In Athens the leader of the moment had to be perpetually adapting
himself afresh to the mood of the Assembly, and even to deceive it, in
order that he might lead at all, or carry out the policy which, in his
opinion, his country's need required. It is therefore a remarkable
thing that both Eubulus and Demosthenes succeeded for many years in
maintaining a line of action as consistent as that taken by practical
men can ever be.
The fact that the Council of Five Hundred, which acted as a standing
committee of the people, and prepared business for the Assembly and was
responsible for the details of measures passed by the Assembly in
general form, was chosen by lot and changed annually, as did
practically all the civil and the military officials (though the latter
might be re-elected), was all against efficiency and continuity of
policy.[5] After the system of election by lot, the most characteristic
feature of the Athenian democracy was the responsibility of statesmen
and generals to the law-courts.[6] Any citizen might accuse them upon
charges nominally limited in scope, but often serving in reality to
bring their whole career into question. Had it been certain that the
courts would only punish incompetence or misconduct, and not failure as
such, little harm would have resulted. But although there were very
many acquittals in political trials, the uncertainty of the issue was
so great, and the sentences inflicted upon the condemned so severe
(commonly involving banishment at least), that the liability to trial
as a criminal must often have deterred the statesman and the general
from taking the most necessary risks; while the condemnation of the
accused had usually the result of driving a really able man out of the
country, and depriving his fellow countrymen of services which might be
urgently required when they were no longer available.
The financial system was also ill adapted for the purposes of a people
constantly liable to war. The funds required for the bare needs of a
time of peace seem indeed to have been sufficiently provided from
permanent sources of income (such as the silver mines, the rent of
public lands, court fees and fines, and various indirect taxes): but
those needed for war had to be met by a direct tax upon property,
levied _ad hoc_ whenever the necessity arose, and not collected without
delays and difficulties. And although the equipment of ships for
service was systematically managed under the trierarchic laws,[7] it
was still subject to delays no less serious. There was no regular
system of contribution to State funds, and no systematic accumulation
of a reserve to meet military needs. The raising of money by means of
loans at interest to the State was only adopted in Greece in a few
isolated instances:[8] and the practice of annually distributing
surplus funds to the people,[9] however necessary or excusable under
the circumstances, was wholly contrary to sound finance.
An even greater evil was the dependence of the city upon mercenary
forces and generals, whose allegiance was often at the call of the
highest bidder, and in consequence was seldom reliable. There is no
demand which Demosthenes makes with greater insistence, than the demand
that the citizens themselves shall serve with the army. At a moment of
supreme danger, they might do so. But in fact Athens had become more
and more an industrial state, and men were not willing to leave their
business to take care of itself for considerable periods, in order to
go out and fight, unless the danger was very urgent, or the interests
at stake of vital importance; particularly now that the length of
campaigns had become greater and the seasons exempted from military
operations shorter. In many minds the spread of culture, and of the
ideal of self-culture, had produced a type of individualism indifferent
to public concerns, and contemptuous of political and military
ambitions. Moreover, the methods of warfare had undergone great
improvement; in most branches of the army the trained skill of the
professional soldier was really necessary; and it was not possible to
leave the olive-yard or the counting-house and become an efficient
fighter without more ado. But the expensiveness of the mercenary
forces; the violent methods by which they obtained supplies from
friends and neutrals, as well as foes, if, as often happened, their pay
was in arrear; and the dependence of the city upon the goodwill of
generals and soldiers who could without much difficulty find employment
under other masters, were evils which were bound to hamper any attempt
to give effect to a well-planned and far-sighted scheme of action.
It also resulted from the Athenian system of government that the
general, while obviously better informed of the facts of the military
situation than any one else could be, and at the same time always
liable to be brought to trial in case of failure, had little influence
upon policy, unless he could find an effective speaker to represent
him. In the Assembly and in the law-courts (where the juries were large
enough to be treated in the same manner as the Assembly itself) the
orator who could win the people's ear was all powerful, and expert
knowledge could only make itself felt through the medium of oratory.
A constitution which gave so much power to the orator had grave
disadvantages. The temptation to work upon the feelings rather than to
appeal to the reason of the audience was very strong, and no charge is
more commonly made by one orator against another than that of deceiving
or attempting to deceive the people. It is, indeed, very difficult to
judge how far an Athenian Assembly was really taken in by sophistical
or dishonest arguments: but it is quite certain that such arguments
were continually addressed to it; and the main body of the citizens can
scarcely have had that first-hand knowledge of facts, which would
enable them to criticize the orator's statements. Again, the oration
appealed to the people as a performance, no less than as a piece of
reasoning. Ancient political oratory resembled the oratory of the
pulpit at the present day, not only because it appealed perpetually to
the moral sense, and was in fact a kind of preaching; but also because
the main difficulty of the ancient orator and the modern preacher was
the same: for the Athenians liked being preached at, as the modern
congregation 'enjoys' a good sermon, and were, therefore, almost
equally immune against conversion. The conflicts of rival orators were
regarded mainly as an entertainment. The speaker who was most likely to
carry the voting (except when a great crisis had roused the Assembly to
seriousness) was the one who found specious and apparently moral
reasons for doing what would give the audience least trouble; and
consequently one who, like Demosthenes, desired to stir them up to
action and personal sacrifices, had always an uphill fight: and if he
also at times 'deceived the people' or employed sophistical arguments
in order to secure results which he believed to be for their good, we
must remember the difficulty (which, in spite of the wide circulation
of authentic information, is at least equally great at the present day)
of putting the true reasons for or against a policy, before those who,
whether from want of education or from lack of training in the
subordination of feeling to thought, are not likely to understand or to
listen to them. Nor, if we grant the genuineness of Demosthenes'
conviction as to the desirability of the end for which he contended,
can many statesmen be pointed out, who have not been at least as guilty
as he in their choice of means. That he did not solve the problem, how
to lead a democracy by wholly honest means, is the less to his
discredit, in that the problem still remains unsolved.
It should be added that with an audience like the Athenian, whose
aesthetic sensitiveness was doubtless far greater than that of any
modern assembly, delivery counted for much. Aeschines' fine voice was a
real danger to Demosthenes, and Demosthenes himself spoke of delivery,
or the skilled acting of his part, as the all-important condition of an
orator's success. But it is clear that this can have been no advantage
from the standpoint of the public interest.
In the law-courts the drawbacks to which the commanding influence of
oratory was liable were intensified. In the Assembly a certain amount
of reticence and self-restraint was imposed by custom: an opponent
could not be attacked by name or on purely personal grounds; and an
appearance of impartiality was commonly assumed. But in the courts much
greater play was allowed to feeling; and the arguments were often much
more disingenuous, not only because the personal interests at stake
made the speaker more unscrupulous, but also, perhaps, because the
juries ordinarily included a larger proportion of the poorer, the
idler, and the less-educated citizens than the Assembly. The legal
question was often that to which the jury were encouraged to pay least
attention, and the condemnation or acquittal of the accused was
demanded upon grounds quite extraneous to the indictment. (The two
court-speeches contained in these volumes afford abundant illustrations
of this.) Personalities were freely admitted, of a kind which it is
difficult to excuse and impossible to justify. To attempt to blacken
the personal character of an opponent by false stories about his
parentage and his youth, and by the ascription to him and his relations
of nameless immoralities, is a very different thing from the assignment
of wrong motives for his political actions, though even in purely
political controversy the ancients far exceeded the utmost limits of
modern invective. And this both Demosthenes and Aeschines do freely.
There is also reason to suspect that some of the tales which each tells
of the other's conduct, both while serving as ambassadors and on other
occasions, may be fabrications. The descriptive passages for which such
falsehoods gave an opening had doubtless their dramatic value in the
oratorical performance: possibly they were even expected by the
listeners; but their presence in the speeches does not increase our
admiration either for the speaker or for his audience.
All the force of Demosthenes' oratory was unable to defeat the great
antagonist of his country. To Philip of Macedon failure was an
inconceivable idea. Resident during three impressionable years of his
youth at Thebes, he had there learned, from the example of Epaminondas,
what a single man could do: and he proceeded to each of the three great
tasks of his life--the welding of the rough Macedonians into one great
engine of war, the unification of Greece under his own leadership, and
the preparation for the conquest of the East by a united Greece and
Macedonia--without either faltering in face of difficulties, or
hesitating, out of any scrupulosity, to use the most effective means
towards the end which he wished at the moment to achieve; though in
fact the charges of bad faith made against him by Demosthenes are found
to be exaggerated, when they are impartially examined. Philip intended
to become master of Greece: Demosthenes realized this early, and, with
all the Hellenic detestation of a master, resolved to oppose him to the
end. Philip was, indeed, in spite of the barbarous traits which
revealed themselves in him at times, not only gracious and courteous by
nature, but a sincere admirer of Hellenic--in other words, of
Athenian--culture; the relations between his house and the people of
Athens had generally been friendly; and there was little reason to
suppose that, if he conquered Athens, he would treat her less
handsomely than in fact he did. Yet this could not justify one who
regarded freedom as Demosthenes regarded it, in making any concession
not extorted by the necessities of the situation: his duty and his
country's duty, as he conceived it, was to defeat the enemy of Hellenic
independence or to fall in the attempt. Nor was it for him to consider
(as Isocrates might) whether or no Philip's plans had now developed
into, or could be transformed into, a beneficent scheme for the
conquest of the barbarian world by a united Hellas, if the union was to
be achieved at the price of Athenian liberty. It is because, in spite
of errors and of the questionable methods to which he sometimes
stooped, Demosthenes devoted himself unflinchingly to the cause of
freedom, for Athens and for the Hellenes as a whole, that he is
entitled, not merely as an orator but as a politician, to the
admiration which posterity has generally accorded him. It is, above
all, by the second part of his career, when his policy of antagonism to
Philip had been accepted by the people, and he was no longer in
opposition but, as it were, in office, that Demosthenes himself claims
to be justified; and Aeschines' attempt to invalidate the claim is for
the most part unconvincing.
It is not easy to describe in a few paragraphs the characteristics of
Demosthenes as an orator. That he stands on the highest eminence that
an orator has ever reached is generally admitted. But this is not to
say that he was wholly free from faults. His contemporaries, as well as
later Greek critics, were conscious of a certain artificiality in his
eloquence. It was, indeed, the general custom of Athenian orators to
prepare their speeches with great care: the speakers who, like
Aeschines and Demades, were able to produce a great effect without
preparation, and the rhetoricians who, like Alcidamas, thought of the
studied oration as but a poor imitation of true eloquence, were only a
small minority; and in general, not only was the arrangement of topics
carefully planned, but the greatest attention was paid to the sound and
rhythm of the sentences, and to the appropriateness and order of the
words. The orator had also his collections of passages on themes which
were likely to recur constantly, and of arguments on either side of
many questions; and from these he selected such passages as he
required, and adapted them to his particular purpose. The rhetorical
teachers appear to have supplied their pupils with such collections; we
find a number of instances of the repetition of the same passage in
different speeches, and an abundance of arguments formed exactly on the
model of the precepts contained in rhetorical handbooks.[10] Yet with
all this art nothing was more necessary than that a speech should
appear to be spontaneous and innocent of guile. There was a general
mistrust of the 'clever speaker', who by study or rhetorical training
had learned the art of arguing to any point, and making the worse cause
appear the better. To have studied his part too carefully--even to have
worked up illustrations from history and poetry--might expose the
orator to suspicion.[11] Demosthenes, in spite of his frequent attempts
to deprecate such suspicion, did not succeed wholly in keeping on the
safe side. Aeschines describes him as a wizard and a sophist, who
enjoyed deceiving the people or the jury. Another of his opponents
levelled at him the taunt that his speeches 'smelt of the lamp'.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, one of the best of the ancient critics,
says that the artificiality of Demosthenes and his master Isaeus was
apt to excite suspicion, even when they had a good case. Nor can a
modern reader altogether escape the same impression. Sometimes,
especially in the earlier speeches to the Assembly, the argument seems
unreal, the joints between the previously prepared commonplaces or
illustrations and their application to the matter in hand are too
visible, the language is artificially phrased, and wanting in
spontaneity and ease. There are also parts of the court speeches in
which the orator seems to have calculated out all the possible methods
of meeting a particular case, and to be applying them in turn with more
ingenuity than convincingness. An appearance of unreality also arises
at times (again principally in the earlier speeches) from a certain
want of imagination. He attributes feelings and motives to others,
which they were really most unlikely to have entertained, and argues
from them. Some of the sentiments which he expects Artaxerxes or
Artemisia to feel (in the Speeches on the Naval Boards and for the
Rhodians) were certainly not to be looked for in them. Similar
misconceptions of the actual or possible sentiments of the Spartans
appear in the Speech for the Megalopolitans, and of those of the
Thebans in the Third Olynthiac (§ 15). The early orations against
Philip also show some misunderstanding of his character. And if, in
fact, Demosthenes lived his early years largely in solitary
studiousness and was unsociable by disposition, this lack of a quick
grasp of human nature and motives is quite intelligible. But this
defect grew less conspicuous as his experience increased; and though
even to the end there remained something of the sophist about him, as
about all the disciples of the ancient rhetoric, the greatness of his
best work is not seriously affected by this. For, in his greatest
speeches, and in the greatest parts of nearly all his speeches, the
orator is white-hot with genuine passion and earnestness; and all his
study and preparation resulted, for the most part, not in an artificial
product, but in the most convincing expression of his real feeling and
belief; so that it was the man himself, and not the rhetorical
practitioner that spoke.
The lighter virtues of the orator are not to be sought for in him. In
gracefulness and humour he is deficient: his humour, indeed, generally
takes the grim forms of irony and satire, or verges on personality and
bad taste. Few of his sentences can be imagined to have been delivered
with a smile; and something like ferocity is generally not far below
the surface. Pathos is seldom in him unmixed with sterner qualities,
and is usually lost in indignation. But of almost every other variety
of tone he has a complete command. The essential parts of his reasoning
(even when it is logically or morally defective) are couched, as a
rule, in a forcible and cogent form;[12] and he has a striking power of
close, sustained, and at the same time lucid argumentation. His matter
is commonly disposed with such skill that each topic occurs where it
will tell most powerfully; and while one portion of a speech affords
relief to another (where relief is needed, and particularly in the
longer orations) all alike bear on the main issue or strengthen the
orator's position with his audience. Historical allusions are not (as
they often are by Aeschines and Isocrates) enlarged out of proportion
to their importance, but are limited to what is necessary, in order to
illustrate the orator's point or drive his lesson home. Add to these
qualities his combination of political idealism with absolute mastery
of minute detail; the intensity of his appeal to the moral sense and
patriotism of his hearers; the impressiveness of his denunciation of
political wrong; the vividness of his narrative, the rapid succession
of his impassioned phrases, and some part of the secret of his power
will be explained. For the rest, while there is in his writing every
degree of fullness or brevity, there is no waste of words, no 'fine
language' out of place. His language, indeed, is ordinarily
simple--sometimes even colloquial; though in the arrangement of his
words in their most telling order he shows consummate art, and his
metaphors are often bold and sometimes even violent. In the use of the
'figures of speech' he excels; above all, in the use of antitheses
(whether for the purpose of vivid contrast or of precise logical
expression), and of the rhetorical question, used now in indignation,
now in irony, now in triumphant conclusion of an argument: and at times
there are master-strokes of genius, which defy all analysis, such as
the great appeal to the men of Marathon in the Speech on the Crown.[13]
He does not as a rule (and this is particularly true of the Speech on
the Crown) cover the whole of the ground with the same adequacy; but so
concentrates all his forces upon certain points as to be irresistible,
and thus 'with thunder and lightning confounds'[14] the orators who
oppose him. It is no wonder that some of the greatest of English
orators, and notably of those of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, borrow from him not only words and phrases, but inspiration
and confidence in their cause, and look upon him as a model whom they
may emulate, but cannot excel.