Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1001

Rh DKMObTlIENES. does not appear to have been always strictly observ- ed, aa it was merely intended to prevent frivolous and unfounded accusations. If, on the other hand, Demosthenes did receive the thirty minae, it does not follow that it was a bril)e, for that sum may have been required of him as a fine for dropping his accusation against Meidias, or Demosthenes may have regarded that sum as a satisfactory acknow- ledgement of the guilt of his enemy. This affair belongs to the year b. c. 353, in which also the extant oration against Meidias was written, but as Demosthenes did not follow up the suit, the oration was left in its present unfinished state. Demosthenes had some years before this event come forward as a speaker in the public assembly, for in a c. 355 he had delivered the orations agsiinst Leptines and Androtion ( Dionys. Ep. ad A mm. i. 4), and in B. c. 353 the oration against Timocrates. The general esteem which Demosthenes enjoyed as early as that time is sufficiently attested by the fact, that in b. c. 354, in spite of all the intrigues of Meidias, he was confirmed in the dignity of /SouAewTTjs, to which he had been elected by lot (Dem. c. Meid. p. 551), and that in the year following he con- ducted, in the capacity of architheoros, the usual theoria, which the state of Athens sent to the fes- tival of the Nemean Zeus (c. Meid. p. 552). The active part he took in public affairs is further attested by the orations which belong to this period: in B. c. 354 he spoke against the projected expedi- tion to Euboea, though without success, and he himself afterwards joined in it under Phocion. (Dem. de Paee^ p. 58, c. Meid. p. 558.) In the »ame year he delivered the oration Trepi (rv,ufiopiwv., in which he successfully dissuaded the Athenians from their foolish scheme of undertaking a war agjiinst Persia (Dem. de Rhod. lib. p. 192), and in B. c. 353 he spoke for the Megalopolitans (i)irep M^yaXoTToXirdv), and opposed the Spartans, vrho had solicited the aid of Athens to reduce Megalo- polis. The one hundred and sixth Olympiad, or the period from b. c. 356, is the beginning of the career of Demosthenes as one of the leading statesmen of Athens, and henceforth the history of his life is closely mixed up with that of his countrj^; for there is no question affecting the public good in which he did not take the most active part, and support with all the power of his oratory what he considered right and beneficial to the state. King Philip of Macedonia had commenced in b. c. 358 his encroachments upon the possessions of Athens in the north of the Aegean, and he had taken pos- session of the towns of Amphipolis, Pydna, Poti- daea, and Methone. During those proceedings he had contrived to keep the Athenians at a distance, to deceive them and keep them in good humour by delusions and apparently favourable promises. Demosthenes was not, indeed, the only man who saw that these proceedings were merely a prelude to greater things, and that unless the king was checked, he would attempt the subjugation, not only of Athens but of all Greece; but Demos- thenes was the only person who had the honesty and the courage openly to express his opinions, and to call upon the Greeks to unite their strength against the common foe. His patriotic feelings and convictions against Macedonian aggrandize- ment are the groundwork of his Philippics, a series of the most splendid and spirited orations. They DEMOSTHENES. 983 did not, it is tnie, produce the desired results, but the fault was not his, and the cause of their failure must be sought in the state of general dissolution in the Greek republics at the time ; for while Philip occupied his threatening position, the Pho- cians were engaged in a war for life and death with the Thebans ; the states of Peloponnesus looked upon one another with mistrust and hatred, and it was only with great difficulty that Athens could maintain a shadow of its former supremacy. The Athenians themselves, as Demosthenes says, were indolent, even when they knew what ought to be done ; they could not rouse themselves to an energetic opposition ; their measures were in most cases only half measures ; they never acted at the right time, and indulged in spending the treasures of the republic upon costly pomps and festivities, instead of employing them as means to ward off the danger that was gathering like a storm at a distance. This disposition was, moreover, fostered by the ruling party at Athens. It was further an unfortunate circumstance for Athens that, although she had some able generals, yet she had no military genius of the first order to lead her forces against the Macedonian, and make head against him. It was only on one occasion, in b. c. 353, that the Athenians gained decided advantages by a diver- sion of their fleet, which prevented Philip passing Thermopylae during the war between the Phocians and Thebans. But a report of Philip's illness and death soon made room for the old apathy, and the good-will of those who would have acted with spirit was paralyzed by the entire absence of any definite plan in the war against Macedonia, al- though the necessity of such a plan had been pointed out, and proposals had been made for it by Demosthenes in his first Philippic, which was spoken in B. c. 352. Philip's attack upon Olynthus in b. c. 349, which terminated in the year follow- ing with the conquest of the place, deprived the Athenians of their last stronghold in the north. At the request of several embassies from the Olyn- thians, and on the impressive exhortaticm of De- mosthenes in his three Olynthiac orations, the Athenians had indeed made considerable efforts to save Olynthus (Dem. de Fu/s. Ley. p. 426; Dionys. Ep. ad A mm. i. 9), but their operations were thwarted in the end by a treacherous plot which was formed at Olynthus itself, and the town fell into the hands of Philip. The next event in which Demosthenes took an active part is the peace with Philip, which from its originator is called the peace of Philocrates, and is one of the most obscure points in the history of Demosthenes and of Athens, since none of the his- torians whose works are exUmt enter into the detiiils of the subject. Our onl}' sources of infor- mation are the orations of Denmsthenes and Aes- chines on the embassy (irepl irafyaTrpecrSeias), which contain statements so much at variance and so contradictory, that it is next to impossible to come to any certain conclusions, although, if we consider the characters of the two orators, the authority of Demosthenes is entitled to higher credit than that of Aeschines. The former may, to some extent, have been labouring under a delusion, but Aes- chines had the intention to deceive. The following particulars, however, may be looked upon as well established. During the Olynthian war, Philip had expressed his willingness to conclude a peace and alliance with Athens, and the Athenians, who