. to intimate, but of a man moderately rich, who got considerable by forges. Not that the birth of Demosthenes could derogate in the least from his reputation, whose works are an higher title of nobility than the most splendid the world affords. * Demosthenes tells us himself, that his father employed 30 slaves at his forges, each of them valued at three minæ, or 50 crowns: two excepted, who were without doubt the most expert in the business, and directed the work, and those were each of them worth 100 crowns. It is well known that part of the wealth of the ancients consisted in slaves. Those forges, all charges paid, cleared annually 30 minæ, that is, 1500 crowns. To this first manufactory, appropriated to the forging of swords and such kind of arms, he added another, wherein beds and tables of fine wood and ivory were made, which brought him in yearly 12 minæ. In this only 20 slaves were employed, each of them valued at two minæ, or 100 livres.t Demosthenes' father died possessed of an estate of 14 talents. 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 reward 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, with the excessive fondness of a mother that doated upon him, prevented his masters from obliging him to apply much to his studies. The school of Isocrates, || in which so many great men had been educated, was at that time the most famous at Athens. But whether the avarice of Demosthenes' guardians prevented him from improving under a master, whose price was very high, or that the soft and peaceful eloquence of Isocrates was not to his taste, at that time he studied under Isaus, whose character was strength and vehemence. He found means however to get the principles of rhetoric taught by the former: but ¶ Plato, in reality, contributed the most in forming Demosthenes; he read his works with great application, and received lessons from him also ; and it is easy to distinguish in the writings of the disciple the noble and sublime air of the master. ** But he soon quitted the schools of Isæus and Plato for another, under a different kind of direction; I mean, to frequent the bar, of which this was the occasion. The orator Callistratus was appointed to plead the cause of the city 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 that orator, and the importance of the cause, excited curiosity, and made a great noise in *In Orat. i. cont. Aphob. p. 896. About 41. 10s. 14,000 crowns. Isocrates-cujus e ludo, tanquam ex equo Trojano, innumeri principes exierunt. De orat. n. 94. About 221. 10s. ¶ Lectitavisse Platonem studiose audivisse etiam, Demosthenes dicitur: idque apparet ex genere et granditate sermonis. Cic. in Brut. n. 121. Illud jusjurandum, per casos in Marathone ac Salamine propugnatores reip. satis manifesto docet, præceptorem ejus Platonem fuisse. Quint. I. xii. c. 10. ** Aul. Gel, l. iii. c. 18. Demost. in Midi. p. 615. the city. * Demosthenes, who was then 16 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 power 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 himself wholly up to it, from thenceforth renounced all other studies and pleasures, and during the continuance of Callistratus at Athens, he never quitted him, but made all the improve ment 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 success. He had a weak voice, a thick way of speaking, and a very short breath; notwithstanding which his periods were so long, that he was often obliged to stop in the midst of them for respiration. 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 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 him the cause of his being 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 fone, 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, seemed 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 f he studied begins; and he was so short breathed, that he could not utter a whole period without stopping. He overcame these obstacles at length by putting small pebbles into his mouth, and pronouncing several verses in that manner without interruption; and then 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, and whilst the waves were in the most violent agitation, he pronounced harangues, to accustom himself, by the * A. M. 3639. Ant. J. C. 365. Rhetoric. VOL. II. 66 + Cic. 1. i. de orat. n. 260, 261. !! Quintil. 1. xi. c. 3. confused noise of the waters, to the roar of the people, and the tumultuous cries of the 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 a 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 was 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 the least success. He must have had a very high opinion of it, as to attain a perfection in it, and for the instruction of Neoptolemus, the most excellent comedian then in being, he devoted so considerable a sum as 10,000 drachms, 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, 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 an excellence 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 appearance in full light, and mounted the tribunal of harangues, to treat there upon public affairs; with what success we shall see hereafter. Cicero ¶ tells us, that his success was so great, that all Greece came in crowds to Athens to hear Demosthenes speak; * Quintil. I. xi. c. 3. Actio in dicendo una dominatur. Sine hac summus orator esse in numero nullo potest: mediocris hac iustructus summos sæpe superare. Huic primas dedisse Demosthenes dicitur, cum rogaretur quid in dicendo esset primam; huie secundas, huic tertias. Cic. de orat. l. iii. n. 213. About 2401. sterling. Cui non sunt audita Demosthenis vigiliæ; qui dolere se aiebat si quando opificum antelucana victus esset industria. Tusc. Quæst. l. iv. n. 44. Lucian. Advers. Indoc. p. 639. Ne illud quidem intelligunt, non modo ita memoriæ proditum esse, sed ita necesse fuisse cum Demosthenes dicturus esset, ut concursus, audiendi causa, ex tota Græcia fierent. In Brut. n. 239. 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; * I only consider its wonderful effects. If we may believe Philip upon this head, of which 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 ve“hement orator declaim, should have concluded the first, 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 Cheronea, 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, exposed himself and his kingdom. 66 Antipater spoke to the same effect of him, " I value not," said he, "the Piræus, the galleys, and armies of the Athenians: for what have we "to fear from a people continually employed in games, feasts, and Bac"chanals? Demosthenes alone gives me pain. Without him the Athenians differ in nothing from the meanest people of Greece. He alone ex"cites and animates them. It is he that rouses them from their lethargy "and stupefaction, and puts their arms and oars into their hands almost against their will incessantly representing to them the famous battles "of Marathon and Salamin, he transforms them into new men by the ar"dour of his discourses, and inspires them with incredible valour and for"titude. Nothing escapes his penetrating eyes, nor his consummate pru"dence. 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 were undone without remedy. "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 for66 merly to Aristides.” He was reduced by necessity to give this glorious testimony for himself in his just defence against Æschines 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, engaging expressions, magnificent pro"mises, hope, fear, favour, any thing in the world, have ever been able "to induce me to give up the least right 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 to the Macedonian gold. The sequel will show how well he supported that character to the end. * Art of studying the Belles Lettres, Vol. II. Lucian in Encom. Demost. p. 940, 941. ↑ Ibid. p. 931-930. Such was the orator who is about to ascend the tribunal of harangues, or rather the statesman, to enter upon the administration of the public afairs, and to be the principle and soul of all the great enterprises of Athens against Philip of Macedon. SECTION VII. DIGRESSION OF THE MANNER OF FITTING OUT FLEETS BY THE ATHENI ANS. THE subject of this digression ought properly to have had place in the fourth section of the tenth book, where I have treated of the government and maritime affairs of the Athenians. But at that time, I had not the orations of Demosthenes, which speak of them, in my thoughts. It is a deviation from the chain of the history, which the reader may easily turn over, if he thinks fit. The word trierarchs* 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. They were chosen out of the richest of the people, and there was no fixed number of them. Sometimes two, sometimes three, and even ten trierarchs, were appointed to equip one vessel. † At length the number of trierarchs was established at 1200, in this manner. Athens was divided into ten tribes: 120 of the richest citizens of each tribe were nominated to furnish the expences of these armaments; and thus each tribe furnishing 120, the number of the trierarchs 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 amongst such as were richest. Upon pressing occasions they advanced the necessary expences, 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 16 men, who joined in the equipment of a galley. That law was very heavy upon the poorer citizens, and equally unjust at bottom; as it decreed that this number of 16 should be chosen by their age, and not their estates. It ordained that all citizens, from 25 to 40, 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 supply an expence 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 opportunities for action. Demosthenes, always intent upon the public good, to remedy those inconveniences, proposed the abrogation of this law by another. By the latter, the trierarchs were to be chosen, not by the number of their years, but by the value of their fortunes. Each citizen, whose estate amounted to 10 talents, was obliged to fit out one galley, and if to 20 talents, two; and so in proportion. Such as were not worth ten talents, were to join |