Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/315

 SPIRIT OF DEMOSTHENES' EXHORTATIONS. 28i) citizens as well as of the total financial and nautical means such as to ensure both the ready equipment of armed force when- ever required, and a fair apportionment both of effort and of expense among the citizens. Into the details of this plan of eco- nomical reform, which are explained with the precision of an ad- ministrator and not with the vagueness of a rhetor, I do not here enter ; especially as we do not know that it was actually adopted. But the spirit in which it was proposed deserves all attention, as proclaiming, even at this early day, the home-truth which the orator reiterates in so many subsequent harangues. " In the pre- paration which I propose to you, Athenians (he says), the first and most important point is, that your minds shall be so set, as that each man individually will be willing and forward in doing his duty. For you see plainly, that of all those matters on Avhich you have determined collectively, and on which each man individ- ually has looked upon the duty of execution as devolving upon himself not one has ever slipped through your hands ; while, on the contrary, whenever, after determination has been taken, you have stood looking at one another, no man intending to do anything himself, but every one throwing the burthen ot action upon his neighbor nothing has ever succeeded. Assuming you, therefore, to be thus disposed and wound up to the proper pitch, I recommend," ' etc. This is the true Demosthenic vein of exhortation, running with unabated force through the Philippics and Olynthiacs, and striv- ing to revive that conjunction of which Perikles had boasted as an established fact in the Athenian character 2 energetic indi- vidual action following upon full public debate and collective reso- lution. How often here, and elsewhere, does the orator denounce 1 Demosthenes, De Symmoriis, p. 182. s. 18. 'Ean roivvv Ttpurov ftsv r^f rrapaaKEVT/c, u avdfief 1 A.^7jvaloi, Kal {leyiGTov, OVTU diaKela&ai ruf yvufiaf i-lttif, U EKaHTOV EKOVTa TTpO&VflUS O,Tl U.V (5q? TTOLT](JOVTa. 'Qp&TE /up, U U.V- Jpff 'A&qvaioi, o T i, baa pev TTWTTOI? uTravref v ft elf ij /3 ov7i.fi &TJT e , Kal per a ravra rb TT PU.TTSIV airdf If/cacrrof i avr <p Tjyijcaro, ovdev TTWTTOI?' iifiuf t^E^vjev 6aa A' /lev, //era ravra rf' aTre/3 Ti-ity are Trpdf eiAX^/loi'j if aii TO f /lev e K aar o( ov ir o iqauv, T dv 6e irhi] a lov IT pa~ fovra, oudsv 7r<j7roi9' v/ilv kyivETO. 'E^ovrwv d' vftuv o v T a itai it a pu !-v fi /j. EV uv, etc. - Tliucyil. ii. 39, 40. VOL. xi. 25