Page:Demosthenes (Brodribb).djvu/36



EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

cannot be quite certain about the year in which Demosthenes was born. The accounts are conflicting, and we are thrown back on somewhat doubtful inferences. The year, it seems, must have been either 385-384 B.C. or 382-381 B.C. His early life thus coincided with an eventful period, and witnessed more than one remarkable political change in the Greek world. In the years immediately after his birth the supremacy of Sparta was unquestioned. Greece lay at her feet. Her power had made itself felt far beyond the Peloponnese, even on the northern shores of the Ægean. She had overthrown the city which might have become an effectual bulwark against the terrible king of Macedon. Olynthus became her vassal in the year 379 B.C. All was changed eight years afterwards. The decisive battle of Leuctra, in 371 B.C., struck down Sparta and gave the ascendancy to Thebes. For a few years Greece resounded with the fame of her two illustrious citzenscitizens [sic], Epameinondas and Pelopidas. But when she lost Epameinondas, nine years after Leuctra, in the brilliant victory of Mantineia, she lost with him the supreme