Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/41

 DEMOSTHENES. 33 as an amulet And Eratosthenes also says that he kept the poison in a hollow ring, and that that ring was the bracelet which he wore about his arm. There are various other statements made by the many authors who have related the story, but there is no need to enter into their discrepancies ; yet I must not omit what is said by Demo- chares, the relation of Demosthenes, who is of opinion, it was not by the help of poison that he met with so sudden and so easy a death, but that by the singular favor and providence of the gods he was thus rescued from the cru- elty of the IMacedonians. He died on the sixteenth of Pyanepsion, the most sad and solemn day of the Thesmophoria, which the women observe by fasting in the temple of the goddess. Soon after his death, the people of Athens bestowed on him such honors as he had deserved. They erected his statue of brass ; they decreed that the eldest of his fam- ily should be maintained in the Prytaneum ; and on the base of his statue was engraven the famous inscrip- tion, — Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were, The Macedonian had not conquered her. For it is simply ridiculous to say, as some have related, that Demosthenes made these verses himself in Calauria, as he was about to take the poison. A little before we went to Athens, the following inci- dent was said to have happened. A soldier, being sum- moned to appear before his superior officer, and answer to an accusation brought against him, put that httle gold which he had into the hands of Demosthenes's statue. The fingers of this statue were folded one within another, and near it grew a small plane-tree, from which many leaves, either accidentally blown thither by the wind, or placed so on purpose by the man himself, falling to- VOL. v. 3