Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/447

417 DEMOSTHENES

Demosthenes, the world's greatest orator, was born near Athens, 384 B. c, probably in the same year as the philoso- pher Aristotle, and two years before the birth of Philip of Macedon, against whom many of his most important politi- cal measures were directed. He died in 322 b. c, within a month or two of Aristotle and a little more than a year after the death of Philip's son, Alexander the Great. When he was seven years of age his father died, leaving his son and a stiU. younger daughter, with considerable pro- perty, to the care of guardians, who were unfaithful and seem not only to have neglected the children's interests, but also to have taken wrongful possession of much of their pro- perty. Since Athenian law required that each suitor at law should plead his own cause before the court, the young De- mosthenes wa-s forced to study and practice rhetoric and law, in order to secure his rights from his guardians. His success as an orator in these suits seems to have turned the current of his life, and he appeared as a statesman before the great assembly of the Athenian people when he Vvas thirty years of age.

In the conflict between free Greece and the king of Macedon, Demosthenes was on the losing side, the side of the lighter battalions, and the Macedonians prevailed. Greece had been exhausted by the civil wars, which had continued for nearly a century, in which its best blood had been spilt. The younger generation was thoroughly demor- alized. Union against the Persian invaders, near the open- ing of the fifth century, had been glorious, but difficult : now effective union against the Macedonians Λvas impossible.