Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/12

 4 DEMOSTHENES. judge, whether that succeeded best in making them alike in their dispositions and manners, or this, in the coinci- dences of their lives. We will speak of the eldest first. Demosthenes, the father of Demosthenes, was a citizen of good rank and quality, as Theopompus infonns us, sur- named the Sword-maker, because he had a large work- house, and kept servants skilful in that art at work. But of that which yEschines, the orator, said of his mother, that she was descended of one Gylon, who fled his coun- try upon an accusation of treason, and of a barbarian woman, I can affirm nothing, whether he spoke true, or slandered and maligned her. This is certain, that Demos- thenes, being as yet but seven years old, Was left by his father in affluent circumstances, the whole value of his estate being little short of fifteen talents, and that he was wronged by his guardians, part of his fortune being em- bezzled by them, and the rest neglected ; insomuch that even his teachers were defrauded of their salaries. This was the reason that he did not obtain the liberal educa- tion that he-should have had; besides that on account of weakness and delicate health, his mother would not let him exert himself, and his teachers forbore to urge him. He was meagre and sickly from the first, and hence had his nickname of Batalus, given him, it is said, by the boys, in derision of his appearance ; Batalus being, as some tell us, a certain enervated flute-player, in ridicule of whom Antiphanes wrote a play. Others speak of Batalus as a writer of wanton verses and drinking songs. And it would seem that some part of the body, not decent to be named, was at that time called batalus by the Athenians. But the name of Argas, which also they say was a nick- name of Demosthenes, was given him for his behavior, as being savage and spiteful, ai-gas being one of the poeti- cal words for a snake ; or for his disagreeable way of speakmg, Argas being the name of a poet, who com-