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402 402 On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes. anonymous author in Photius was mistaken about the origin of the word Xtj^iap-yiKov : though when he adds e^ cKeivcov rm ypafji/uLaTeLoov KKrjpovcn rds" ap'x^a^, he may be speaking either from good information as to one of the uses of the register, or from a conjecture founded on his erroneous etymology. We have observed that the difference between Mr Chn- ton's account of the a^e of Demosthenes at the time of his admission to his estate and Corsini's, amounts to exactly two years. This arises from a supposition which both of them have tacitly assumed as one of the bases of their calculation : that the ward was admitted as soon as he had attained the legal age, according to Corsini, eighteen, according to Mr Clinton, sixteen years complete. But this supposition is so far from being certain, that, although perhaps it cannot be proved to be erroneous, it seems to be the least probable of those which have been made on the subject. For it may certainly be imagined, with at least equal shew of reason, that, as the examination which determined the age of puberty took place on a certain day of the year for all, so that which marked the commencement of the next bitonial period, the ephebia, took place once for all at a stated time in the year. Boeckh conceives that this was the fact, and he endeavours to ascertain the time. He observes that in two cases of adop- tion (Demosth. in Leochar. p. 1092. 12. Isaeus de ApoUod. hered. p. 178) the registration in the Xrj^iap^iKov ypa/m/mareLOV is said to have taken place at the dpyaipeaiaL. If we might draw any inference from these cases as to the general rule, and if we might also suppose that the elections took place at the end of the year, we should certainly have in these casual notices an undesigned coincidence with the statement of Demosthenes taken in the strictest sense, which would imply that he was admitted in the last month of Polyzelus. But it must be allowed that too many of the elements in this calculation are unknown or uncertain, to permit us to consider it as anything more than a conjecture, though the general fact that the admission took place at a certain day in the year may still appear the most probable. Indeed it is so far from clear that cases of adoption warrant any con- it without any reference : and so it is repeated by Platner (p. 179) : I have not yet been able to find an example.