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410 410 On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes. oyo^ Kara Qeacrakov tj ATroWoSwpov ap^oi^ra TereXecrrai.) This was first pointed out by Mr Clinton, and it overthrows a hypothesis which Boeckh had made very plausible: that Dionysius had deduced his date for the action at Tamynae from that which he too hastily adopted for the oration against Midias. It is now clear that he founded it on some other ground, which may have been a good authority : and there- fore we are bound to admit it until some reason can be shown for rejecting it. A great part of Boeckh''s arguments are intended to prove, that the expedition to Olynthus alluded to in the orat. ag. Midias (p. 566^ 578), cannot have taken place in the cele- brated Olynthian war which began in the archonship of Calli- machus, though it was probably on the contrary opinion that Dionysius built his chronology with regard to Demosthenes. He observes that the orator speaks of this expedition (p. 566) as having preceded the campaign in Eubcea during which he suffered the outrage from Midias: and even if it could be supposed that, while writing as if the occasion of the speech was recent, he had introduced allusions to events of a subse- quent period, he could not have represented these as occurring before the epoch at which he feigned himself speaking. Our want of information about the expedition really mentioned cannot weaken this conclusion. Both the Euboean and the Olynthian expeditions must have occurred at or before a time of which the orator covild say, that he was then either in his thirty-second or his thirty-third year. This argument how- ever only proves that there is no necessity for supposing that the speech was not composed before 01. 107. 4 : it does not affect Mr Clinton's proposition, that the facts which occasioned the prosecution took place in 01. 107. 2. But in his Public Economy of Athens (ii. p. 109) Boeckh had already brought forward another argument, which, though it applies with greater force to the chronology of Dionysius, must be considered as a very powerful objection to Mr Clinton's. Demosthenes relates (Mid. p. 540) that while his cause with his guardians was pending (jmeWovaMv eidievaL twp cikwv el^ rj^epav wairepel TfTdpTrjv rj irejunrTfiv-^ therefore in the year of Timocrates), he received an insult from Midias, for which he afterwards brought an action