Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1006

Rh •988 DEMOSTHENES. obstacles which his physical constitution threw in his way when he commenced his ciireer, were so great, that a less courag:eous and persevering man than Demosthenes would at once have been inti- midated and entirely shrunk from the arduous career of a public orator. (Plut. Dem. 6, &c.) Those early difficulties with which he had to con- tend, led him to bestow more care upon the compo- sition of his orations than he would otherwise have done, and produced in the end, if not the impossi- bility of speaking extempore, at least the habit of never venturing upon it ; for he never spoke with- out preparation, and he sometimes even declined speaking when called upon in the assembly to do so, merely because he was not prepared for it. (Plut. Dem. 8, VU. X Orut. p. 848.) There is, however, no reason for believing that all the extant orations were delivered in that perfect form in which the}' have come down to us, for most of them were probably subjected to a careful revision before publication ; and it is only the oration against Meidias, which, having been written for the purpose of being delivered, and being after- wards given up and left incomplete, may be re- garded with certiinty as a specimen of an oration in its original form. This oration alone sufficiently shews how little Demosthenes trusted to the ini- pulfiB of the moment. It would lead us too far in this article to examine the manner in which De- mosthenes composed his orations, and we must refer the reader to the various modern works cited below. We shall only add a few remarks upon the causes of the mighty impression which his speeches made upon the minds of his hearers. The first cause was their pure and ethical chanicter ; for every sentence exhibits Demosthenes as the friend of his country, of virtue, tnith, and public decency (Plut. Dem. 13) ; and as the struggles in which he was engiiged were fair and just, he could without scruple unmask his opponents, and wound them where they were vulnerable, thougii he never resorted to sycophantic artifices. The second uiuse was his intellectual superiority. By a wise ar- rangement of his subjects, and by the application «)f the strongest arguments in their proper places, he brought the subjects before his hearers in the clearest possible form ; any doubts that might be raised were met by him beforehand, and thus he proceeded calmly but irresistibly towards his end. The third and last cause was the magic force of his language, which being majestic and yet simple, rich yet not bombastic, strange and yet familial', solemn without being ornamented, grave and yet pleasing, concise and yet fluent, sweet and yet im- pressive, carried away the minds of his hearers. That such orations should notwithstjinding some- times have failed to produce the desired effect, was owing only to the spirit of the times. Most of the critical works that were written upon Demosthenes by the ancients are lost, and, independent of many scattered remarks, the only important critical work that has come down to us is that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, entitled irepl Ti)5 Tov Arj/jioaOevovs SetvoTTjros. The acknow- ledged excellence of Demosthenes's orations made them the principal subjects of study and specula- tion with the rhetoricians, and called forth nume- rous imitators and commentators. It is probably owing to those rhetorical speculations which began as early as the second century b. c, that a number of orations which are decidedly spurious and un- j DEMOSTHENES, worthy of Demosthenes, such as the yos imrd- <pios and the epwriKoy, were incorporated in the collections of those of Demosthenes. Others, such as the speech on Halonesus, the first against Aris- togeiton, those against Theocrines and Neaera, which are undoubtedly the productions of contem- porary' orators, may have been introduced among those of Demosthenes by mistake. It would be of great assistance to us to have the commentaries which were written upon Demosthenes by such men as Didymus, Longinus, Hermogenes, Sallus- tius, Apollonides, Theon, Gymnasius, and others ; but unfortunately most of what they wrote is lost, and scarcely anything of importance is extant, ex- cept the miserable collection of scholia which have come down to us under the name of Ulpian, and the Greek argumenta to the orations by Libanius and other rhetoricians. The ancients state, that there existed 6o orations of Demosthenes (Plut. Vi(. X Oral. p. 847; Phot. BM. p. 490), but of these only (il, and if we de- duct the letter of Philip, which is strangely enough counted as an oration, only 60 have come down to us under his name, though some of these are spu- rious, or at least of very doubtful authenticity. Besides these orations, there are 56 Exordia to public orations, and six letters, which bear the luime of Demosthenes, though their genuineness is very doubtful. The orations of Demosthenes are contained in the various collections of the Attic orators by Aldus, H. Stephens, Taylor, Reiske, Dukas, Bekker, Dobson, and Baiter and Sauppe. * Separate editions of the orations of Demosthenes alone were pub- lished by Aldus, Venice, 1504 ; at Basel in 153*2 ; by Feliciano, Venice, 1543; by Morellus and Lambimis, Paris, 1570; by H. Wolf, 1572 (often reprinted); by Auger, Paris, 1790; and by Schae- fer, Leipzig and London, 18'22. in 9 vols. 8vo. The first two contain the text, the third the Latin translation, and the others the critical apparatus, the indices, &c. A good edition of the text is that by W. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1 825, 3 vols, 8vo. We subjoin a classified list of the orations of Demosthenes, to which are added the editions of each separate oration, when there are any, and the literature upon it. I. Political Orations. A. Orations ayaiiid Philip. Editions of the Philippics were published by J. Bekker (Berlin, 1816, 1825 and 1835), C. A. Rudiger (Leipzig, 1818, 1829 and 1833;, and J. T. Voniel. (Frankfurt, 1829.) 1. The first Piiilippic was delivered in B.C. 352, and is believed by some to be made up of two dis- tinct orations, the second of which is supposed to commence at p. 48 with the words a /uef 7//u«?s. {Bionys. Ep. ad Aimn. i. 10.) But critics down to the present time are divided in their opinions upon this point. The common opinion, that the oration is one whole, is supported by the MSS., and is defended by Bremi, in the Philol. Beilr'dt^e am der Sckweiz, vol. i. p. 21, &c. The opposite opi- nion is very ably maintained by J Held, Proletjo- iiu'iia ad Dem. Oral, quae vidgo prima Phil, dicilur^ Vratislaviae, 1831, and especially by Seebeck in the Zeitschri/t fur d. AUerthumswiss. for 1838, No.91,&c. 2 — 4. The first, second, and third Olynthiac orations belong to the year B. c. 349. Dionysius