Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/311

 FIRST ADDRESS OF DEMOSTHENES. 285 Now it was against these rude Macedonians, to whom camp-life presented chances of plunder without any sacrifice, that the in Jus- trious and refined Athenian citizen had to go forth and fight, re- nouncing his trade, family, and festivals ; a task the more severe, as the perpetual aggressions and systematized warfare of his new enemies could only be countervailed by an equal continuity of ef- fort on his part. For such personal devotion, combined with the anxieties of preventive vigilance, the Athenians of the Periklean nge would have been prepared, but those of the Demosthenic age were not ; though their whole freedom and security were in the end found to be at stake. Without this brief sketch of the great military change in Greece since the Peloponnesian war the decline of the citizen for^e and the increase of mercenaries the reader would scarce- ly understand either the proceedings of Athens in reference to Philip, or the career of Demosthenes on which we are now about to enter. Having by assiduous labor acquired for himself these high pow- ers both of speech and of composition, Demosthenes stood forward in 354 B. c. to devote them to the service of the public. His first address to the assembly is not less interesting, objectively, as a memorial of the actual Hellenic political world in that year than subjectively, as an evidence of his own manner of appreciat- ing its exigencies. 1 At that moment, the predominant apprehen- sion at Athens arose from reports respecting the Great King, who was said to be contemplating measures of hostility against Greece, and against Athens in particular, in consequence of the aid re- cently lent by the Athenian general Chares to the revolted Per- sian satrap Artabazus. By this apprehension which had al- ready, in part, determined the Athenians (a year before) to make 1 The oration Do Symmoriis is placed by Dionysius of Halikarnassus in the archonship of Diotimus, 354-353 B. c. (Dionys. Hal. ad Ammseum. p. 724). And it is plainly composed prior to the expedition sent by the The- bans under Pammenes to assist the revolted Artabasus against the Great lung; which expedition is placed by Diodorus (xvi. 34) in the ensuing year 353-352 B. c. Whoever will examine the way in which Demosthenes argues, in the Oration De Symmoriis (p. 187. s 40-42), as to the relations of the Thcbans with Persia will see that he cannot have known anything about assistance given by the Thcbans to Artabazuj against Persia.