THE VOICE OF DEMOSTHENES
In the Theatre of Dionysus the citizens of Athens were gathering for
the purpose of deciding whether to break their treaty with Macedon and
by one stroke revenge upon Alexander the wrongs and humiliations that
his father had made them suffer. Ariston walked through the spacious
Agora, surrounded by colonnades and embellished by the statues of
heroes and the Gods. The shopkeepers and merchants were closing their
places of business and joining in the human tide that was setting all
in the same direction.
Everywhere Ariston heard repeated the assertion that Alexander was
dead. The news was announced in tones of joy, and invariably it was
accompanied by an expression of desire for war while the enemy was
still unprepared. There seemed to be only one opinion among the
people. It was manifested in the clamor of gay and careless confusion
that betrayed the nervous tension of the throng.
Ariston's face became more thoughtful as he proceeded. He had no doubt
of what the Assembly would do if unchecked, and he foresaw the downfall
of his plans. A declaration of war with Macedon would be fatal.
Whatever the issue of such a conflict might be, it would certainly
delay Alexander's invasion of Persia and keep Clearchus at home. He
must be rid of Clearchus at all hazards, and without violence.
Moreover, he knew that the report of Alexander's death was false. It
was impossible that any person in Athens should have been able to
obtain information later than that which had been brought to him. He
felt assured that the young king was fighting his way out of Illyria,
with every prospect of escape, and that the report of his death had
been started by Demosthenes as a stratagem to dispose the minds of the
people to war. By preventing the success of this plan, he reflected,
he would not only be serving his own ends, but also performing a public
service. Such a coincidence had happened rarely enough in his career.
But he knew it would be useless to attempt any contradiction of the
report at that moment. He was too thoroughly acquainted with the
characteristics of his countrymen to think of it. They wished to
believe and they would not allow that wish to be thwarted. He must
watch and wait.
Pushing through the chattering crowd, he entered the Theatre. Before
him, in a great semicircle, hewn partly out of the solid rock of the
southeastern pitch of the Acropolis, he saw row on row and tier above
tier of his fellow-citizens,--the brilliant, unstable, cowardly,
heroic, passionate, generous, cruel democracy of Athens. Above them
towered the crag which they had crowned with triumphs of art and
architecture beyond the power of the world to equal, guarded by the
wonderful Athene, whose creator they had sent to die in prison. On the
left the great temple of Olympian Zeus raised its massive fluted
columns. In the Theatre where they sat their fathers had hissed or
applauded the masterpieces of tragedy and comedy. The babel of talk
and of light-hearted laughter, the shifting of many-hued garments under
the intense blue arch of the sky, reminded Ariston of the fickle sunlit
waves of the Ægean.
The cloud that for years had overshadowed Athens had been removed.
Philip, the tenacious, subtle, resourceful monarch of barbarous
Macedon, had fallen under the dagger of Pausanias, who had doubtless
been inspired by the Gods to punish him for his crimes against the
Athenians. Little by little, with a purpose that never swerved, he had
made himself master of their fairest possessions. Time and again they
had sought to shake him off with brief outbursts of restless fury; but
he held what he had won, and in the lull that followed the storm he had
never failed to creep nearer to their citadel. His advance seemed to
them as inevitable as fate.
Now he was gone, resigning his power and his ambitions to his son,
Alexander, a boy of twenty years, whom all Athens knew as a foolish and
rash youth. After laying claim to the honors that his father had
forced the states of Hellas to bestow upon him, he had marched into the
unknown wilderness of the north with his army and there had perished.
His fate had been told only in rumors at first, but had not Demosthenes
talked with a fugitive from the Macedonian camp, who had seen him fall
beneath a stone? Every Athenian felt that the time had come to place
the name of his city once more at the head of the civilized world.
Already the Thebans, aided by their subsidies, had risen against the
barbarian garrison and had shut the Macedonians in the Cadmea. The
reverses of the past had been forgotten and the lively imaginations of
the Athenians had carried them halfway to the goal of their hopes.
Ariston gazed about him at the shifting throng as though in search of
some one. The priests of Ceres, Athene, and Zeus stood talking in
groups with the officials of the city, or had already taken their
places in the cushioned marble arm-chairs, with curved backs, that
formed the first row of seats. Presently the old man caught sight of
Clearchus, and his friends, Chares and Leonidas. With them sat a young
man of singular appearance whom Ariston did not recognize. He wore a
splendid mantle of purple, embroidered with gold, a profusion of rings
flashed upon his fingers, and the odor of costly perfumes hung about
him like a cloud. It seemed as though he sought in his costume to make
up for the deficiencies of nature, for in figure he was short and
stout, with legs and arms of disproportionate slenderness, and his
narrow eyes were set beneath a square forehead from the top of which
the hair had been shaved.
"Greeting, uncle," Clearchus said cordially, as the old man forced his
way toward them.
Ariston sat down on the broad marble step in the space that Clearchus
made for him. He found himself between his nephew and the stranger.
"This is Aristotle of Stagira, but more recently of Pella," Clearchus
said. "He can talk to you by the hour, if he chooses, about Alexander,
whom you so much admire."
"Is he really dead, as they say he is?" Ariston asked doubtfully.
"I do not know," lisped Aristotle. "It is his habit always to expose
himself in battle."
"Can he make himself master of Hellas?" Ariston asked again.
"Only the Gods can answer that," Aristotle replied. "It is safe to say
that what human ambition can accomplish, he will do. He was my pupil,
and there are those who maintain that he knows more than his master!"
Although the philosopher spoke with a smile, there was a trace of irony
in his tone that did not escape the alert Athenian.
"You hear that?" he cried, turning to Clearchus. "Here is a boy who
begins by conquering his instructor. Where will he end?"
"They say he has ended already, up there among the savages," Chares
said lazily.
"I'll lay you a box of Assyrian ointment that Alexander is still
alive," Aristotle said.
"It's a wager," the Theban cried. "And the box shall be of gold."
"There goes Callicles. Hi, there, old Twenty Per Cent!" cried a youth
who was sitting in front of them.
"By the Styx, I wish I had what I owe him!" Chares remarked fervently.
A young man with oiled and curled ringlets, wearing a long silken robe,
and carrying a cane inlaid with mother-of-pearl, pushed toward them,
followed by a slave laden with cushions for him to sit upon.
"Do you know what Phocus has done now?" he asked in an affected voice.
"No," said Chares, coldly.
"He happened to go to the Lyceum the other day, and he overheard
Theodorus, the atheist, say that if it was praiseworthy to ransom a
friend from the enemy, it would also be commendable to rescue a
sweetheart from bondage. What does he do but buy Tryphonia her freedom
from old Mnemon. He vows that he will marry her."
Having imparted this bit of gossip, the youth lounged away to repeat it.
"Who is that young man with the red chiton?" Leonidas asked.
"He is Ctesippus, son of Chabrias," Clearchus replied. "He has spent
twenty thousand talents of gold since his father died--he and Phocus
together. He thinks he knows more about war than his father knew. He
drives poor Phocion almost distracted with his advice whenever there is
a campaign; and Phocion endures it because he is his father's son."
Throughout the Theatre rose the hum of gossip and malicious small talk.
Chares listened with indolent contempt. Leonidas studied the faces of
the men who had won distinction in war, such as Diopethes, Menestheus,
and Leosthenes, whom Clearchus pointed out to him. Aristotle continued
to lisp to Ariston concerning Macedon. The attention of the crowd was
diverted by the arrival of the Lexiarchs with their scarlet cords.
Stretching them across the narrow streets, they had been driving the
stragglers into the Assembly like sheep. The laggard whose garments
showed a trace of the dye with which the cords were covered was forced
to pay a fine.
"Look; there's Phaon with the red stripe on his back!" Chares cried,
standing up to get a better view.
A roar of laughter greeted the victim as he entered and his name was
repeated from all sides.
"Were you asleep, Phaon? Did your wife keep you at home? You should
drink less wine in the morning!" shouted his acquaintances.
Another unfortunate came to divert attention from Phaon, and still
others, until all the citizens were accounted for. The tumult was
succeeded by a hush as the white-robed priests solemnly advanced into
the open space in the middle of the semicircle, carrying a bleating
lamb. After an invocation to Athene, they cut the animal's throat
before the altar and sprinkled its blood in every direction upon the
pavement. The oldest of the priests then stood forth, raised his
hands, and looking upward, cried the accustomed formula:--
"May the Gods pursue to destruction, with all his race, that man who
shall act, speak, or plot anything against this State!"
The priests then slowly withdrew, and a herald mounted the bema to
announce, on behalf of the Proedri, the occasion of the Assembly. He
declared the question to be whether the treaty with Macedon should be
maintained or set aside, and he added that the Senate of the Areopagus
had referred the matter to the decision of the people without
expressing its opinion.
He was followed by a second herald, representing the Epistate, who,
with a loud voice, called upon any citizen above the age of fifty years
to speak his mind, others to follow in accordance with their ages. As
he ceased and descended, all eyes were turned toward a portion of the
Theatre where sat a gray-haired man, with shoulders slightly stooped, a
sloping forehead, and a retreating chin, partly hidden by a
close-cropped beard.
"Demosthenes! Demosthenes!" came from every part of the horseshoe.
The man to whom Athens turned in this crisis of her affairs sat unmoved
and apparently oblivious to the demand of the crowd. Accustomed as
they were to the oratorical combats of the Theatre, the citizens
understood that Demosthenes had determined to reserve to himself the
advantage of speaking last. They turned, therefore, to his chief
opponent and called upon Æschines.
With an affectation of carelessness, Æschines ascended the bema and
plunged at once into his argument, like a man who speaks what first
occurs to his mind. The burden of his contention was that Athens was
bound by her oath to observe her treaty with Macedon. To break it, he
declared, would be to sink to the depth of dishonor and to make the
name of the city a byword throughout the world. As he elaborated point
after point in his reasoning, all tending to confirm and enforce his
conclusions, it was plain that he was making an impression in spite of
the fact that all who heard him knew that he had been in Philip's pay.
He painted in dark colors the cost and danger of the war that would
follow the violation of the treaty and closed with a florid appeal for
constancy and forbearance, which he called the first of virtues.
He was succeeded by the dandy, Demades, whose robes of embroidered
linen trailed upon the ground, but who sustained the argument against
war with sledge-hammer blows of rhetoric. Glaucippus, Eubulus,
Aristophon, and other orators, less famous, sat nodding their heads
among their pupils and admirers, who clustered about them criticising
or commending each period that fell from the lips of the speakers.
Watching the effect of the speeches, the partisans of Demosthenes,
fearful that it might be disastrous to permit his opponents to hold the
attention of the people any longer, renewed their shouts for him. The
Assembly joined them. It had heard enough of the peace party, and it
was eager to know how Demosthenes would answer.
There had been hardly any cessation of the talk and laughter. Many
persons even moved about through the audience, chatting with their
friends, and the Scythians, whose duty it was to maintain order, did
not venture to interfere with them. Everywhere there was talk of the
advantages of peace. The fever for war had cooled before the logic of
oratory. Ariston, keenly attentive to all that was passing, was among
those who left his place and wandered about the amphitheatre, pausing
here and there to exchange a few words with an acquaintance. Behind
him, like a ripple on the surface of a lake, there spread through the
crowd the news that the story of Alexander's death was a falsehood
contrived by the friends of Macedon to entrap the republic into war.
Before the old man had returned to his seat, the contradiction had
reached Demosthenes, elaborated into every semblance of truth. He saw
that it was believed and that he had been robbed of the main theme of
his speech; for he could not prove that Alexander was dead. In
response to the cries of the multitude, he rose, and there was no
pretence in the reluctance with which he walked with head bent toward
the benia, considering what he should say. As he ascended, the
shouting died away, and for the first time there was absolute stillness
in the Theatre.
"Athenians!" he began, in a voice of moderate pitch, but of a resonant
tone that carried it to all parts of the circle, "by all means we
should agree with those who so strenuously advise an exact adherence to
our oaths and treaties--if they really believe what they say. For
nothing is more in accord with the character of democracy than the
maintenance of justice and honesty. But let not the men who urge us to
be honest, embarrass us and our deliberations by harangues which their
own actions contradict."
Ariston glanced about him with alarm, which was intensified as the
orator, with consummate skill, built up the argument that, having bound
himself by the treaty to maintain the liberties of Greece, Alexander
had violated his oath by reinstating the tyrants of Messene and by
disregarding other specific clauses. Artfully exaggerating the
Macedonian aggressiveness, recalling by flattering allusions the great
days of Athens, raising the hope of victory if war should be declared,
Demosthenes presented the situation to the Assembly in such a light as
to make it seem that Athens not only had a right to take up arms
against Macedon, but that it was her plain duty to begin the attack.
This impression grew out of his words without apparent effort to convey
it. There was nothing in his speech to indicate that he was a special
pleader presenting only one side of the case. He seemed the
personification of candor and fairness. As his voice and gestures
became more animated, and the flood of his marvellous eloquence swept
over them, it appeared to his fellow-citizens that the men who had
given expression to the desire for peace must be charlatans or worse,
who had been bribed by Macedonian gold, as in fact many of them had
been, to betray them into the hands of the enemy. In words that none
but he knew how to choose, he raised the spectre that had been laid by
the death of Philip and made it more threatening than it had ever been
before.
Under the magic spell of his voice old thoughts and feelings stirred
and woke in the hearts of the Athenians. For an hour they became once
more the men of Platæa and Salamis and of the hundred bloody fields
upon which they had measured their strength with that of their ancient
foes from the Peloponnesus. Their former greatness of soul flamed up
like a flash from a dying fire.
While Demosthenes spoke, not a word was uttered in the group around
Clearchus. The young man sat with flushed cheeks and shining eyes,
tingling with a desire to sacrifice life itself, if need there were, to
revenge the wrongs of Athens and crush the insolent Macedonian.
Leonidas listened with hands clenched and with every nerve at tension,
like a hound of pure race straining at his leash toward the quarry.
Aristotle was gravely attentive, and even Chares, though he could not
be aroused from his lazy pose, followed the oration with evident
enjoyment.
When Demosthenes ended and came down from the bema, the Assembly drew a
long breath, and instantly each man fell to discussing with his
neighbor what was best to be decided. Suddenly they realized with
astonishment that Demosthenes had failed to propose any decree and that
they had nothing before them upon which they might vote.
"I thought he was going to tell us how Alexander died!" Demades sneered.
"What has become of his witness of whom we have heard so much?" a
leather-dealer asked.
"He is afraid to propose war! He has offered no decree!" another
citizen cried.
These questions and a hundred others were discussed on every side with
a violence that swept away all semblance of dignity or restraint. The
factions quarrelled like children, and more than once came to blows in
their eagerness, making it necessary for the Scythians of the public
guard to separate them. At last the herald of the Epistate demanded in
due form whether the Assembly desired any decree to be proposed. Far
less than the required number of six thousand hands were raised in the
affirmative, and the gathering was dissolved, eddying out of the
enclosure in turbulent disorder.
"Is that all?" asked Chares, rising and stretching himself with a yawn.
"That is all," Clearchus replied sadly.
"With a phalanx of ten thousand brave men I could take your Acropolis,"
Leonidas remarked, measuring the height above his head.
"Yes, but where could you find them?" Aristotle said.
"Who knows? Perhaps in the camp of Alexander," the Spartan replied.
Ariston had slipped away into the crowd.