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 DKMOSTHENES DE CORONA. 291 comiums which have been i^ronounced upon it with one oice. both in ancient and in modern times, as the unapproachable mas- terpiece of Grecian oratory. To this work it belongs as a por- tion of Grecian history ; a retrospect of the eiforts made by a patriot and a statesman to uphold the dignity of Athens and the autonomy of the Grecian world, against a dangerous aggressor from without. How these efforts were directed, and how they lamentably failed, has been recounted in my last preceding vol- ume. Demosthenes here passes them in review, replying to the criminations against his public conduct during the interval of ten years, between the peace of o4G b. c, (or the period immedi- ately preceding it) and the death of Philip. It is remarkable, that though professing to enter upon a defence of his whole pub- lic life,' he nevertheless can afford to leave unnoticed that por tion of it which is perhaps the most honorable to him — the early period of his first Philippics and Olynthiacs — when, though a politician as yet immature and of no established footing, he was the first to descry in the distance the perils threatened by Phil- ip's aggrandizement, and the loudest in calling for timely and en- ergetic precautions against it ; in spite of apathy and murmurs from older politicians as well as from the general public. Be- ginning with the peace of 34G i?. c, Demosthenes vindicates his own share in the antecedents of that event against the char- ges of -3]^schines, whom he denounces as the cause of all the mis- chief; a controversy which I have already tried to elucidate, in my last volume. Passing next to the period after that peace — to the four years first of hostile diplomacy, then of hostile action, against Philip, which ended with the disaster of Chasroneia — Demosthenes is not satisfied with simple vindication. He re-as- serts this policy as matter of pride and honor, in spile of its re- sults. He congratulates his countrymen on having manifested a Pan-hellenic patriotism worthy of their forefathers, and takes to himself only the credit of having been forward to proclaim and carry out this glorious sentiment common to all. Fortune has been adverse ; yet the vigorous anti-Macedonian policy was no mistake ; Demosthenes swears it by the combatants of Marathon, 1 Uemostlicn. De Corona, p. '111. fieAluv tov te idiov jScov Trairoj, t>f toiKC, "Xoyov didovai TT/iiepov Kai tuv Kotvy KeTzoXirevfiivuv, etc.