Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/40

 32 DEMOSTHENES. the temple, and taking a scroll, as if he meant to write, he put the reed into his mouth, and biting it, as he was wont to do when he was thoughtful or writing, he held it there for some time. Then he bowed down his head and covered it. The soldiers that stood at the door, supposing all this to j^roceed from want of courage and fear of death, in derision called hira effeminate, and faint-hearted, and coward. And Archias, drawing near, desired him to rise up, and repeating the same kind things he had spoken before, he once more promised him to make his peace with Antipater. But Demosthenes, perceiving that now the poison had pierced and seized his vitals, uncov- ered his head, and fixing his eyes upon Archias, " IS'ow," said he, " as soon as you please you may commence the part of Creon in the tragedy, and cast out this body of mine unburied. But, gracious Neptune, I, for my part, while I am yet alive, arise up and depart out of this sacred place ; though Antipater and the Macedonians have not left so much as thy temple unpolluted." After he had thus spoken and desired to be held up, because already he began to tremble and stagger, as he was going forward, and passing by the altar, he fell down, and with a groan gave up the ghost. Ariston says that he took the poison out of a reed, as we have shown before. But Pappus, a certain historian whose history was recovered by Hermippus, says, that as he fell near the altar, there was found in his scroll this beginning only of a letter, and nothing more, " Demo- sthenes to Antipater." And that when his sudden death was much wondered at, the Thracians who guarded the doors reported that he took the poison into his hand out of a rag, and put it in his mouth, and that they imagined it had been gold which he swallowed ; but the maid that served him, being examined by the followers of Archias, affirmed that he had worn it in a bracelet for a long time.