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68 people and their leaders found themselves in a hopeless plight, now that they had renounced their connection with Athens, while the oligarchy was supported by Persian influence through Mausolus. When that king died and his queen Artemisia succeeded, the government became so intolerably oppressive that the popular party ventured to send an embassy to Athens, and humbly to implore relief. It was hardly to be expected that the embassy would be well received. The Athenians felt that Rhodes had inflicted a grievous injury on them by plunging them in a disastrous war, which had ended in dissolving their confederacy. They were in no mood to listen to the present petition. Nevertheless it was supported by Demosthenes.

It is a hard matter to soothe the temper of people when they feel, as the Athenians now did, that they have suffered much from ingratitude. Popular assemblies, under such circumstances, are apt to be peculiarly angry and excited. All that Demosthenes could do was to appeal to the better and more generous sentiments of his countrymen. They ought not, he argued, to brood over the wrongs done to them by these insignificant islanders, but to think only of what was due to Athens and to Greece. It was alike their duty and interest to vindicate the freedom of an oppressed Greek people, and to stand by the policy of supporting popular and democratic government against oligarchs and tyrants. Unless they resolved to act thus, the political constitution of Athens would itself be imperilled. If all democracies were put down, their own would fall at last. Demosthenes, we see, was