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INTRODUCTION.

familiar names of Demosthenes and Cicero will always be linked together. They are specially representative names. The eloquence of the ancient world seems to be summed up in them. There is a further reason why we should think of them together. Both attached themselves to a falling cause; both had to go into exile; both had the satisfaction of being welcomed back from exile; both, finally, when all was lost, were willing to die rather than survive their country's disgrace. There is, indeed, a striking resemblance between the lives and fortunes of the two men, and none of Plutarch's parallels is more appropriate than that in which he has compared them.

The best and noblest eloquence must be the product of earnest political conviction, Cicero clung to the traditions of the old republic, and regarded the concentration of power in one man as equivalent to his country's degradation and fall. The Greek statesman A.C.S.S. vol. iv.