and other neighbouring cities; but the Athenians were induced to intervene, other States co-operated, Philip received a severe check, Athens regained her supremacy at sea, and the Assembly passed a vote of thanks to Demosthenes for his counsels and energy.

A sacred war was, however, soon afterwards originated by Æschines respecting the cultivation of some ground belonging to Apollo's temple at Delphi, and Philip was elected general of the Amphictyonic army. He at once advanced to Elateia, within sixty miles of the Athenian frontier, where he established a camp, and invited the co-operation of the Thebans in an attack upon Attica.

In the most famous of his speeches Demosthenes describes the impression which the news created at Athens. The whole city was in commotion; at break of day all the people assembled in the Pnyx; the hearld demandedWho desires to speak? But no one came forward, until at last Demosthenes gave his counsel.

Philip's object, he said, is to raise the courage of his friends, and to strike terror into his enemies. Therefore, shake of your panic, and show yourselves to the world in arms, in order that the party who have sold their country may know that your forces are at the disposal of those who would fight for freedom. Make no conditions with the Thebans, but simply declare your readiness to succour them. If they accept the offer, we shall have pursued a policy worthy of our country; and if anything should mar the project, they will have only themselves to blame.

His advice was adopted. He went on the embassy, prevailed with the Thebans, and the Athenian army crossed the Attic frontier into Bæotia as friends and allies.

The battle took place near Charoneia, the forces being evenly matched; but the Greeks had no general of any ability, whilst the Macedonian army was led by Philip and his young son, Alexander, and the issue was the fall of Greek independence. Demosthenes fought in the ranks, and pronounced the funeral panegyric over the fallen; and, although his efforts were not rewarded with success, he retained the confidence of the people.

Two years afterwards Philip was assassinated. But the

dream of Demosthenes that his country might again be free was never fulfilled, and the gold he obtained from Persia to aid her cause of no avail. A revolt in Thebes was speedily put down by Alexander, and every house in the city, except that of Pindar, razed to the ground. Fearing a similar fate, the Athenians obsequiously congratulated the conqueror, whose answer was a demand (afterwards waived) for the surrender of the anti-Macedonian orators, Demosthenes, of course, included.

The subsequent overthrow of the Persian empire, and the death of the King of Sparta in a brave struggle to restore the independence of Greece, having tended to rouse popular feeling at Athens against the advocacy of any opposition to Alexander, Æschines endeavoured to crush his rival by denouncing a proposal that a public testimonial should be presented to Demosthenes, on the ground that he had not been sincere in his professions, and was therefore undeserving of the honour. Demosthenes' reply is the vindication of his political life. He boldly told the Assembly that, had he foreseen the end, he would still have spoken and acted as he did; and that he reviewed his policy with satisfaction and pride. It was owing to the diplomacy of Æschines, he declared, that Philip was admitted to Thermopyla, which was the beginning of all the subsequent mischief; and, if it was dreadful to think of Greece as under a foreign master, it was a glorious fact that Athens had done her best to avert such a disgrace. Referring to some of the brightest passages in their past history, he reminded them that life must cease, death must come at some time, though one should creep into a cellar to avoid him; but their forefathers and they had ever been ready to venture on the path of glory, prepared to accept without a murmur the fate which heaven might ordain. Do not, he said, attribute all the misfortunes of Greece to Philip, but to many abandoned men, of whom one is Æschines, for the sower of the seed is answerable for the crop; and I wonder you did not turn from him the moment you beheld him; but thick darkness would seem to veil your eyes.

'I affirm,' he continued, 'that, had the future been apparent, Athens ought not to have deviated from her

course, if she had any regard to her own honour, the traditions of the past, or the judgment of posterity. He who looks upon himself as merely the child of his parents awaits death in the ordinary course of nature; but he who regards himself as the child of his country also, will hold death less terrible than the insults and indignities which the citizens of a State under a foreign yoke must endure. Do I take credit to myself for having inspired you with sentiments worthy of your ancestors? I say that these sentiments are your own, and that the spirit of Athens was the same before my time. Æschines, therefore, by impeaching your policy is really labouring to rob you of your everlasting renown. But you have not been in the wrong, men of Athens, in doing battle for the freedom and salvation of all; I swear it by your forefathers, who bore the battle's brunt at Marathon; by those who stood to arms at Platæa; by those who fought the sea-fight at Salamis; and by many more, whose resting-places in our national monuments attest that, as our country buried, so she honoured, all alike-victors and vanquished. She was right; for what brave men could do, all did, though a higher power was master of their fate.'

Thus he carried his audience with him, the reputation of his rival was ruined, and he went into voluntary exile.

The last days of Demosthenes, however, were darkened by his trial and conviction for having been a party to the disappearance of a portion of the treasure belonging to Harpalus, one of Alexander's satraps, who had fled from Asia to Athens, and endeavoured to incite her to defy his master. After a few days' imprisonment he escaped to Argos, from whence he was recalled, upon the death of Alexander, when another attempt was made to rid Greece of her invaders. But it was unsuccessful; Athens was occupied by a Macedonian garrison, and Demosthenes, leaving her for ever, took refuge within the precincts of the temple of Neptune in a neighbouring island, and swallowed poison.

Most of the professional speeches of Demosthenes were written for delivery by the plaintiff or defendant before juries of five hundred or even a thousand citizens, and contain many illustrations of Athenian life, as well as variations

of style adapted to his different clients. Thus he makes one say of the Sophists, that they are a bad lot, and of his adversary that, as he has learnt oratory, he will perhaps undertake to prove that black is white.

In another case, where a man has assumed the same name as his half-brother, he is reminded that whoever hears the name will have to ask which of the two is meant, and he may probably hear himself described as the one his father was compelled to adopt.

In an action against a fast young fellow for rolling a man in the mud, jumping on him, and then carrying him home, without his coat, to be washed by his mother and her maids, he makes his client ask the jury, 'Will you let him off because he and his companions say they were only merry-making? None of you would have laughed had you seen the plight I was in, and my mother rushing out, the maids wailing, and the neighbours sending to ask what was the matter. Many of you know the set, and that when they get together they stick at no wickedness or disgraceful conduct.'

As a statesman the career of Demosthenes was a consistent one, and in hoping against hope, amidst many discouragements, he displayed a moral greatness which posterity will always recognise.

As an orator he has, almost without exception, been unrivalled. His eloquence was the joint result of natural genius and elaborate study, and he was a most dexterous master of his art, for he knew how to say everything important to his purpose at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his hearers into the state most fit to receive it, as well as how to insinuate ideas which would have roused opposition if presented directly.

MEN ANDER.

DIED B.C. 291.

IN

|ENANDER was born at Athens, and won his first prize as a comic writer when he had barely attained manhood. Fragments only of his plays have been preserved, but their teaching is expressed in the following lines:

They appear to have contained hardly any broad fun or comic situations; but he had carefully studied the various phases of human nature, as a couplet written a century after his death testifies :

'Oh life, and O Menander! speak and say

Which copied which? or nature, or the play.'

The mask, which all ancient performers wore, made any play of the features impossible, and thus the sphere of the author's invention was restricted to generally recognised impersonations. The limited capacity, also, of the scenic arrangements required that the characters should be few and broadly marked. The action of a piece often depended upon the parts assigned to slaves, who were represented