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392 392 On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes, speaks of a marriage which took place in the last month of the archon Polyzelus, immediately after which he was ad- mitted to his estate, and began to call his guardians to an account (In Onetor. i. p. 868). eyy]iuiaTo — eiri YioXvXrfKov ap-^ovTo^ ^KLpo(popL(Jovo^ jULtj^o^^ Tj o aTToXeL^l/i^ eypacptj Do- aeiSeoovo^ fJirjvo^ €7ri Tc/uLOKpaTov^^ eyco o evuv^ ^erd toi)? ydjuLov9 coKi/uiaaOei^ eveKoKovv Kal Xoyov^ aTrrirovv Kac irav- T(jt>v ctTroG'TepovjuLei'o^ tcl^ ciKa^ eXay^avov cttl tou avrou apyovTo^. After a few more sentences he produces some evidence of his assertions, and then proceeds : /uera toivvv TovTov Tov cip-^^ovra (Polyzelus) Kf}(pia6o(opo^^ X/wi/, eTrJ TovTwu eveKoXovv coKijULaaOei^y eXa'^op ce rrjv OLKrjv ewl Ti/uoKpaTov^. Mr Clinton conceives that these statements of Demos- thenes are wholly irreconcilable with the date of the Pseudo- Plutarch, and thinks that Corsini, who defends it, has for that purpose resorted to an eoctraor dinar y mode of computi7ig. Corsini's words are (Fast. Att. P. i. Dissert, xi. §. 6.) : De- mosthenis ortus ad exeuntem Scirophorionem 01. 98. 2. [June B.C. SS^^ referri debet; ut nimirum Scirophorione mense 01. 103. 2 [June B. C. S66] octavum decimum setatis annum absolveret. Quod si Demosthenes ipse testatus se vivente patre septennium, decennium vero defuncto patre sub tuto- ribus egisse, observari facile poterit tum septem turn decern etiam annos illos ita completos vel integros esse potuisse, ut ex utrisque una conjunctis integra octodecim annorum summa conficeretur. On which Mr Clinton remarks: By tvhat powers of computation this is to he accomplished it Hs difficult to imagine. But the difficulty which Mr Clinton finds seems to lie only in the words of Corsini, and not in their meaning. The words may perhaps be construed into the proposition that seven and ten make eighteen: but it is manifest that what Corsini meant was, that the two numbers used by the orator in speaking of his age at his father's death, and of the period of the guardianship, were round numbers, and each some months short of the real time, and that the sum of these fractions might have amounted to a whole year: and thus interpreted the language of Demosthenes is cer- tainly consistent with the statement that he was born in the year of Dexitheus. Neither does the supposition itself