Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/409

399 On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes, 399 on ^schinesj quoted by Boeckh, who remarks (in Ctesiph. p. 259 j3ekk.) : TroWaKi^ eyvcojueu^ on diro oKTooKaioeKa ctcov eveypacpovTo €l<$ to Xrj^cap'^^LKOv o 'A9r]vaL0L I and again (in Timarch. p. 723 Reisk.) : eveypacpovro U (eis to Xri'^iapyjiKov ypa^fxaTeiov) airo eroSr lt]^ kul cvo errj el? rov^ eCpiJlSov^ ereXovv. It is of more importance to inquire on what grounds Mr Clinton rejects the conclusion which others have drawn from the language of the orators. His reasons are contained in the notes to p. 350 and 352. He contends that the words both of Lycurgus and JEschines are used in a lax and general sense, and are not intended to convey a pre- cise definition : and he produces two arguments in support of this assertion. One is, that the term Xri^iapyjiKov ypain^ fxarelov is derived, not as has been generally supposed from TO Tcov Xr}^€ix)v apyeiv^ because those who were registered in it became masters of their estates, but, according to an ety- mology given in Photius and Suidas, from ^ Xrj^i^ toov dp-^tov^ because it contained the names 'AOrji^aicov twv kyovTo^v y]XiKiav ap-^^iv. The second argument assumes the correctness of the author''s inference from the language of Demosthenes, and that of a general proposition which he has founded upon it : that minors were admitted to their estates at sixteen, and the ephebi called to military service at home at eighteen. Hence he says : it is evident from Demosthenes^ who einerged from his minority in his seventeenth year^ that the register of the name in the Xr]^iapyjLKov yp. was not the period for the admissio7i of the ward to the estate. But as this latter argument would fall to the ground, if Demosthenes was in his eighteenth year at the time mentioned, and as this is one of the points in dispute, we cannot use this supposition in order to construe the expressions of iEschines and Lycurgus in a sense which is not certainly the plain and natural one. But the argument drawn from the object of the lexiarchich register, and the meaning of the term, deserves to be at- tentively examined. Mr Clinton objects to the derivation which connects it with X^^t9 in the sense of KXijpos and oJcr/a, because this meaning would only refer to the case of orphans, whereas every male Athenian of the age of twenty (according to the supposition he adopts) whether in the life- time of the father or otherwise was inscribed in that register. Vol. II. No. 5. 3 E