Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/294

 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. mental capacity and a power of making it felt by speech. The disproportion between the physical energy, and the mental f'orcej of Demosthenes, beginning in childhood, is recorded and lamented in the inscription placed on his statue after his death. 1 As a youth of eighteen years of age, Demosthenes found him- self with a known and good family position at Athens, being ranked in the class of richest citizens and liable to the perform- ance of liturgies and trierarchy as his father had been before him; 2 yet with a real fortune very inadequate to the outlay ex- pected from him embarrassed by a legal proceeding against guardians wealthy as well as unscrupulous and an object of dislike and annoyance from other wealthy men, such as Meidi&s and his brother Thrasylochus, 3 friends of those guardians. His family position gave him a good introduction to public affairs, for which he proceeded to train himself carefully ; first as a writer of speeches for others, next as a speaker in his own person. Plato and Isokrates were both at this moment in full celebrity, visited at Athens by pupils from every part of Greece ; Isseus also, who had studied under Isokrates, was in great reputation as a compo- ser of judicial harangues for plaintiffs or defendants in civil causes Demosthenes put himself under the teaching of Isasus (who is said to have assisted him in composing the speeches against his guardians), and also profited largely by the discourse of Plato, of Isokrates, and others. As an ardent aspirant he would seek instruction from most of the best sources, theoretical as well as 1 Plutarch, Demosth. c. 30. EfTTfp iarjv pufiriv yvufjij, Aj? / u6ffi9ei'f, OvTror' av 'E'Ahrjvuv rjp^ev 'Apr/f MaKfduv. Hivdapov, etc, (Lucian, Encomium Demosth. vol. iii. p. 499, ed. llcitz.) 3 Sec the account given by Demosthenes (cont. Meidiam, p. 539, 540) of the manner in which Mcidias and Thrasylochus first began their persecution of him, while the suit against his guardians was still going on. These guar- dians attempted to get rid of the suit by inducing Thrasylochus to forco upon him an exchange of properties (Antidosis), tendered by Thrasylochus, who had just been p nt down for a trierarchy. If the exchange had been cf fccted, Thrasylochui would have given the guardians a release. Demosthe- nes could only avoid it by consenting to incur the cost of the trierarchy 2C minsc.
 * Position of Demosthenes, nar^p rpnjpapxiKof xpvaea xp^v. if, /card