CHAP. XVIII.

Demosthenes.

DEMOSTHENES seems to have been born about 380 or S8+ years before Christ, though some say at an earlier period; he was citizen of Athens, of moderate condition. Being excited to a love of eloquence, though labouring under many constitutional impediments, he arrived by his exertions at such eminence as to be considered by Cicero a perfect orator, and to have left a name, the mention of which raises in our minds the idea of all that is consummate in the rhetorical art *.

Having in early life betrayed a want of courage in military services, he devoted himself to civil pursuits, and was enabled by his power of speaking to etablish much ascendancy at Athens, and to direct the views of

• Valer. Maxim. lib. viii. c. 7. p. 681. lib. viii. c. 10. p. 703.

his citizens to great and vigorous exertion against their enemies. He displayed in particular all the powers of his mind in resisting the endeavours of Philip and Antipater to oppress the liberties of Greece. He was accused of not having been proof against the corruption of the gold of Harpalus; but if we contemplate the general integrity of his character, and the readiness of the Athenians to calumniate the great men who directed their affairs, we may be disposed to assent to those who deny the charge *. He was opposed by other orators, particularly by Æschines, who declaimed against Ctesiphon for voting a golden crown to Demosthenes. Plutarch informs us, that it was remarked that Athens was preserved by the discord of its orators, ten of whom were eminent; for, as they rested on different grounds, security resulted from the emulation and mutual jealousy, which prevailed among those, who administered to the public service†. Demosthenes, apprehensive of being given up by his countrymen to appease Antipater, took poison at Calauria; and said to Archias,

* Pausanias in Corinthiac, p. 190. Edit. Lip. 1696. + De Audiend. Poet.

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an emissary of Antipater, you may per "form the part of Creon, and cast out this

carcase unburied." Plutarch represents Archias as reporting to Antipater, that Demosthenes had professed to have recourse to suicide under the impression as much that he might be corrupted from his principles by the kindness of Antipater, as that he might be destroyed by his resentment. It is melancholy to contemplate the fate of the distinguished men of antiquity, who so often terminated their lives by suicide, demonstrating how insufficient their principles were for the endurance of adversity. Pausanias remarks, that it was well observed upon occasion of the death of Demosthenes, that he had too much love for his country,—that a man who devotes himself unsparingly to a republic, and confides in popular favour, will never terminate his life happily *.

Demosthenes was attached to the Platonic philosophy, and Cicero leads us to believe that he was a hearer of Plato himself. Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote an epistle to Ammæus, which is still extant, to prove

Attic. lib. i. c. 8. p. 20.

+ Plutarch Tzetzes Chil. vi. v. 170. 186.

that Demosthenes did not borrow his rhetorical knowledge from Aristotle, or conformi to his precepts *.

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There is little in the remaining productions of Demosthenes, which illustrates the evidence of revelation, or which enables us to trace the extension of its principles. They exhibit, indeed, but few passages, which afford any detail of his opinions on subjects of religious interest; he affirms that there were some common principles of moral feeling, upon which all men were agreed. "Hath an injury," says he," been committed, it is followed by resentment and punishment; hath a man erred unwil lingly, he meets with pardon instead of punishment; is there a man, who hath "neither willingly or inadvertently offended, "who hath devoted himself to what appeared the true interests of his country, "but in some instances hath shared in the general disappointment, justice requires "that instead of reproaching and reviling "such a man, we should condole with bim†; "these points are all manifest, they need

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⚫ H. Stephen. 1554. and Demosthenes a Wolfii.

† De Corona.

"not the decision of laws, they are deter"mined by nature, by the unwritten precepts of humanity."

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With respect to his devotion he invokes all the deities of heaven, all the divine guardians of his country, particularly the Pythian Apollo, the tutelary god of Athens *. This indeed might imply no more than a conformity to popular opinions and forms of speech: in like manner as when in a passage which has been greatly admired as among the highest flights of his eloquence, he swears by the shades of those who were slain at Marathon and Salamis; and we find him elsewhere apparently intimating his reverence for the Supreme Being, when he declares that the final issue of all things depends upon God. The account which he gives of the Athenians, is strikingly calculated to correct that extravagant admiration, which, in the contemplation of this interesting republic, forgets all the moral principles upon which communities should be established, and the obligations by which they are all reciprocally bounden as by the common laws of nations.

Demosth. Orat. 19. De Corona, and Leland's translation, vol. ii. p. 594.