that remained to save Attica itself from the ravage of his armies, the limits of Athenian forbearance were reached. Rating at its true value the pretence that he came as the champion Fortification of Apollon to purge his temple of sacrilegious invaders, they sent out under Nausikles a powerful Athenians. force, which so rapidly reached and so effectually fortified the pass that Philip gave up all thought of attacking it.

of Thermo

pylai by the

Report of Philip's illdeath.

ness and

351 B.C.

Nothing more, we might suppose, could be needed to convince them that there was but one way of dealing with this indefatigable aggressor, and that this mode lay in that promptitude and vigour of action which could be secured only by large personal self-sacrifice. Opportunity after opportunity for checking his career had been allowed to slip, and they had already suffered his power to reach a dangerous height: but they should now at least have learnt the lesson that Athens could hold her own only by steady unintermitted watchfulness, and by the constant readiness of her citizens to undergo the hardships of warfare whether against Philip or in case of his death against those who might take his place. At the least their experience at Thermopylai should have taught them that the employment of mercenaries under professional condottieri was not merely a crime but a blunder, and that they were but playing their enemy's game in making use of men whose wages were most irregularly paid and sometimes not paid at all, and who therefore became a terror rather to their allies than to their adversaries. Events were soon to show how far they had learnt the lesson. Not many months had passed before the tidings that Philip was besieging Heraion Teichos (the wall of Hêrê) near the Thrakian Chersonesos renewed at Athens the feeling of lively alarm. The people again resolved on vigorous measures; but Heraion Teichos was more distant than Thermopylai, and more time was allowed to slip by in the task of preparation. In the meanwhile reports came first that Philip was ill, then that he was dead. The first report was true, the second false: but the Athenians could not be brought to see that if even his death should have furnished a strong reason for immediate action, his illness made the same course even more imperatively necessary. Now, if ever, we might have supposed that men like Phokion would have urged them vehemently not to let the grass grow under their feet; but Phokion either was silent or fostered the delusion that they might safely fold their hands and rest. One man only had the wisdom to see and the courage to tell them that with their present temper and habits they would soon raise up against themselves another Philip, even if the Philip whom they had scared away from Thermopylai should be dead.

the public life of Demosthenes.

353 B.C.

That man was Demosthenes, a man who from the first braced himself to the hardest of all tasks, -the guiding, namely, of a Beginning of whole people in a path which had become intensely irksome and tedious to them. No loftier image of duty cheerfully faced and in spite of a thousand temptations to easiness and sloth resolutely discharged has ever been furnished by statesmen of any age or country. As compared with a man like Phokion, he had good reason, and, it might be thought, full justification for taking the easier course. Wholly lacking the great bodily strength of that popular general, conscious probably that a weakly constitution left to him no great powers of physical endurance, and knowing certainly that he could pretend to no special military genius, he yet deliberately rejected the policy by which Phokion earned the favour of the people, and he did so because, even before he knew in what quarter the real danger lay, he saw the signs of the fatal disease which was paralysing the whole body of the state. With all the enthusiasm and the self-devotion of Sokrates, he consecrated his life to a work comparable strictly to that of the physician who can save his patient's life only by putting him to excruciating pain, Soon convinced that he had undertaken the mission of Kasandra, he allowed no failure to damp his energy, and was content to toil on in his thankless task, although he knew that every false step (and at this time the Athenians seldom took a step which was not false) rendered it more difficult to apply his remedies and more rash to look for any real benefit from them. Once only in his whole career were the eyes of the Athenians opened fully to the stern realities which had thrown for years their dark shadows across his mind; and then also, the burst of zeal awakened by his words and by the overpowering dangers of the situation came altogether too late. Thus Demosthenes had practically to go through life in a solitude which may well be called appalling,seeing that the danger to Athens and to Hellas generally lay in the aggrandisement of Philip as clearly as William of Orange discerned the ends for which Lewis XIV. was striving and plotting, yet unable to convince his hearers that his fears had any solid foundation.

of Demos

Left at the age of seven years on his father's death the heir to great wealth, Demosthenes found on reaching the age of citizenEarly life ship that the neglect and dishonesty of his guardians and training had reduced his patrimony to a pittance. With such instruction as he could get from teachers of rhetoric, the boy was compelled to appear before a jury court of his countrymen and plead his own cause. He gained the verdict which he desired; and if he found that even this verdict was in

theues.

effectual against the hard-hearted men who had robbed him, still it taught him once for all how great a power for good or evil was wielded by the orator. But for the present it left him also with an overpowering sense of his deficiency as a speaker. He could make no boast of bodily strength; the Muse of Eloquence had endowed him neither with richness of voice nor with readiness of utterance. The Phalerean Demetrios speaks of the orator in his later years as telling him that he corrected his stammering speech by declaiming with pebbles in his mouth, and the defects of his elocution by practising long periods at running speed, while he overcame the rudeness of his action by watching his gestures in a mirror. Whether Demosthenes, towards the close of his career, may have exaggerated unconsciously the difficulties with which he had to contend in his youth, we cannot say. The story went that constant declamation on the sea shore removed altogether the nervousness which he had felt in facing a formidable or un-ruly assembly, and that he completed his training by shutting himself up for months in an underground chamber with half his. hair shaved off by way of guarding against any temptations to show himself in public. But whatever his difficulties may have been, we know that they were bravely overcome, and that the instruction of the rhetor Isaios and the teaching, still more valuable perhaps, of the tragic actor Satyros, were supplemented by his unwearied study of the history of Thucydides. Eight times, according to one story, he wrote out the whole of it; ac-cording to another, he learnt it all by heart. But however this may be, the Thriasian Eunomos judged rightly when he cheered the youthful speaker in his most desponding moments by telling him that of all later Athenians he approached most nearly to the model of Perikles. How thoroughly he had imbibed the spirit and wisdom of that great man and of his not less illustrious historian,. his whole career furnishes abundant evidence. For the restoration of the old Athenian empire he knew that it was useless to hope; and dealing honestly with present circumstances he acknowledged that in the interest of Athens both Thebes and Sparta ought to be kept weak, and contended that Athens ought to reject without hesitation the Spartan request for aid against Megalopolis and Messênê. No bribe which promised to the Athenians the restoration of Oropos should induce them to lend a hand in breaking the fetters which Epameinondas had placed on the limbs of their ancient enemies. They should, rather, be ready to take those cities under their own protection, or even to ally themselves with the Thebans in their defence. Nor can it be denied that, as things went, he was right. It was this conviction which led him in his first public speeches before the Assembly to quiet the fears of Persian

RK

Beginning of the public life of Demosthenes.

353 B.C.

That man was Demosthenes, a man who from the first braced himself to the hardest of all tasks,-the guiding, namely, of a whole people in a path which had become intensely irksome and tedious to them. No loftier image of duty cheerfully faced and in spite of a thousand temptations to easiness and sloth resolutely discharged has ever been furnished by statesmen of any age or country. As compared with a man like Phokion, he had good reason, and, it might be thought, full justification for taking the easier course. Wholly lacking the great bodily strength of that popular general, conscious probably that a weakly constitution left to him no great powers of physical endurance, and knowing certainly that he could pretend to no special military genius, he yet deliberately rejected the policy by which Phokion earned the favour of the people, and he did so because, even before he knew in what quarter the real danger lay, he saw the signs of the fatal disease which was paralysing the whole body of the state. With all the enthusiasm and the self-devotion of Sokrates, he consecrated his life to a work comparable strictly to that of the physician who can save his patient's life only by putting him to excruciating pain. Soon convinced that he had undertaken the mission of Kasandra, he allowed no failure to damp his energy, and was content to toil on in his thankless task, although he knew that every false step (and at this time the Athenians seldom took a step which was not false) rendered it more difficult to apply his remedies and more rash to look for any real benefit from them. Once only in his whole career were the eyes of the Athenians opened fully to the stern realities which had thrown for years their dark shadows across his mind; and then also, the burst of zeal awakened by his words and by the overpowering dangers of the situation came altogether too late. Thus Demosthenes had practically to go through life in a solitude which may well be called appalling,— seeing that the danger to Athens and to Hellas generally lay in the aggrandisement of Philip as clearly as William of Orange discerned the ends for which Lewis XIV. was striving and plotting, yet unable to convince his hearers that his fears had any solid foundation.

of Demos

Left at the age of seven years on his father's death the heir to great wealth, Demosthenes found on reaching the age of citizenEarly life ship that the neglect and dishonesty of his guardians. and training had reduced his patrimony to a pittance. With such instruction as he could get from teachers of rhetoric, the boy was compelled to appear before a jury court of his countrymen and plead his own cause. He gained the verdict which he desired; and if he found that even this verdict was in

thenes.

effectual against the hard-hearted men who had robbed him, still it taught him once for all how great a power for good or evil was wielded by the orator. But for the present it left him also with an overpowering sense of his deficiency as a speaker. He could make no boast of bodily strength; the Muse of Eloquence had endowed him neither with richness of voice nor with readiness of utterance. The Phalerean Demetrios speaks of the orator in his later years as telling him that he corrected his stammering speech by declaiming with pebbles in his mouth, and the defects of his elocution by practising long periods at running speed, while he overcame the rudeness of his action by watching his gestures in a mirror. Whether Demosthenes, towards the close of his career, may have exaggerated unconsciously the difficulties with which he had to contend in his youth, we cannot say. The story went that constant declamation on the sea shore removed altogether the nervousness which he had felt in facing a formidable or unruly assembly, and that he completed his training by shutting himself up for months in an underground chamber with half his. hair shaved off by way of guarding against any temptations to show himself in public. But whatever his difficulties may have been, we know that they were bravely overcome, and that the instruction of the rhetor Isaios and the teaching, still more valuable perhaps, of the tragic actor Satyros, were supplemented by his unwearied study of the history of Thucydides. Eight times, according to one story, he wrote out the whole of it; ac-cording to another, he learnt it all by heart. But however this may be, the Thriasian Eunomos judged rightly when he cheered the youthful speaker in his most desponding moments by telling him that of all later Athenians he approached most nearly to the model of Perikles. How thoroughly he had imbibed the spirit and wisdom of that great man and of his not less illustrious historian, his whole career furnishes abundant evidence. For the restoration of the old Athenian empire he knew that it was useless to hope; and dealing honestly with present circumstances he acknowledged that in the interest of Athens both Thebes and Sparta ought to be kept weak, and contended that Athens ought to reject without hesitation the Spartan request for aid against Megalopolis and Messênê. No bribe which promised to the Athenians the restoration of Oropos should induce them to lend a hand in breaking the fetters which Epameinondas had placed on the limbs of their ancient enemies. They should, rather, be ready to take those cities under their own protection, or even to ally themselves with the Thebans in their defence. Nor can it be denied that, as things went, he was right. It was this conviction which led him in his first public speeches before the Assembly to quiet the fears of Persian

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