CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024240800 *< I" ?^i- ■7..V^-,'C*>;|^ ;#", m} •/ - ^ - ' >*.,'- /5^Hf/eC®EN _} ■ PHOM THE ANTItJUE BUST. POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. DEMOSTHENES. WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS ORATIONS, AND A CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF THE "TRIAL ON THE CROWN." L. BREDIF, FORMER MEMBER OF THE SUPERIOR NORMAL SCHOOL 01" FRANCE, DOCTOR IN THE FACULTY OF LETTERS AT PARIS, PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF LETTERS AT TOULOUSEj RECTOR OF THE CIIAMEEKY ACADEMY, UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE, ETC. TRANSLATED BY M. J. MAC MAHON, A.M. CHICAGO: C. GKIGGS AND COMPANY. 1891. /CORNEIL'-V iuNivERC-rrvi V LIBRARY ^ -I , i .iiiif COPYBIGBT, 1881, . By S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY. I. KKISHT &. LEOHARD I TO HOK GJIORGE H. PAUL, op MILWAUKEE, WIS., PRESIDENT OP THE BOARD OP REGENTS OF WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY, AS A TRIBUTE OP RESPECT FOR EMINENT ABILITY AND OP GRATITUDE FOR VALUABLE SERVICE IN BEHALF OP PUBLIC EDUCATION, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. IT^HE author of this work has devoted twenty-two years to the study and teaching of Ancient Letters, and has particularly studied Demosthenes and his contemporary orators. If this were the only recommendation for the appearance of "Political Eloquence in Greece" in the English language, it would not, we think, be a slight one; but from the author's comparative study of ancient and modern eloquence, from his exposition of the passions, in- centives and convictions underlying those remarkable out- bursts of eloquence which culminated in a Demosthenes and an ^schines, in a Cicero and a Caesar, in a Mirabeau and a Bossuet, the student of history, oratory and philoso- phy will find this volume instructive. " To animate a people renowned for justice, humanity and valor, yet in many instances degenerate and corrupted; to warn them of the dangers of luxury, treachery and bribery; of the ambition and perfidy of a powerful foreign enemy; to recall the glory of their ancestors to their thoughts, and to inspire them with resolution, vigor and unanimity ; to correct abuses, to restore discipline, to revive and enforce the generaus sentiments of patriotism and pub- lic spirit," — these were the purposes for which Demos- thenes labored, and they may possibly recommend them- selves to the orator, the statesman, and the citizen of the nineteenth century. To the classical student who has read or is to read the Oration on the Crown and the Oration Against Ctesiphon, 6 translator's preface. Chapter XI will possess a particular interest. In it Pro- fessor Br^dif has drawn, with a masterly and impartial pen, a picture of the two great adversaries, of their times and their acts, their abilities and their failings, their rise and their fall. A love for the Greek language and literature, and a strong admiration for the scholarly manner in which the author has treated the king of the ancient tribune, might also be mentioned as incentives which induced the trans- lator to undertake this task. That the work is free from errors and worthy of the admirable original, we can by no means vouchsafe. So vast is the field of ancient litera- ture from which the author has gathered his rich mate- rial, that it has been difficult at all times to consult the original texts. Of the numerous extracts from the classical writers of antiquity, we have translated some from the original Greek and Latin, others we have taken directly from the author's faithful version, and in the orations of Demosthenes and .ffischines we have availed ourselves of the excellent translations made by Dr. Leland and Mr. Kennedy. The special thanks of the translator are due: first to the author himself, then to Major Geo. M. McGonnel, of Chicago, for valuable critical assistance, to Alfred Flinch, Ph.D., for advice on the last chapters, to the publishers and printers for their pains to issue the volume in its present form, and to many friends for their interest in the progress of the work and for their appreciated criti- cisms and suggestions. M- J- MacMahon. Chicago, Illinois, March 1881. AUTHORS PREFACE. " r I iHAT which distinguishes man from the lower animals, -L and the Greek from the Barbarian, is his superiority of intelligence and utterance." Isocrates might have added that the best use to which speech can be put is the examina- tion and defense of civic interests. Political eloquence was one of the essential elements and one of the least disputed glories of Athenian democracy. We cannot attempt to study in detail its various developments; The political eloquence of Greece, during the Persian inva^ sions and the Peloponnesian war, left no original monument of itself. It has been necessary to trace it through second- hand productions, — sometimes rendered faithfully enough (as in Thuoydides), but all rare and insuflBcient. On the other band, during the forty years which elapse between the cap- ture of Athens by Lysander and the appearance of Philip on the borders of Greece (404-359 b.c), Attic eloquence is especially judicial, — political eloquence merely incidental. Hence, while profiting by the writers whose recollections of early ages illuminate, in a general manner, the history of political eloquence, we have particularly sketched the image of that eloquence which rendered the Macedonian epoch so illustrious. Demosthenes and his contemporaries do not constitute the entire eloquence of Greece, but they represent it with the greatest 6clat at one of the most impressive moments in the life of the Greek world. Two great personages eclipse all others in the middle of the fourth century of Hellenic history (362-336 b.c): Philip and Demosthenes. They and the Athenians are the three 7 8 author's preface. actors in the national drama unfolded in Greece. "We have drawn a picture of the Macedonian king and the city against which he contended. In regard to Demosthenes, his achievements as a statesmah and as an orator fill and animate this entire vi^ork. At every moment he appears upon the scene as an actor or witness. Happy would it be if the reader found as much delight ih listening to his eloquent testimonies as the heliasts experi- enced in hearing those of Homer and Solon, Sophocles and Euripides, read by the court clerk. We have thought it possible to dwell upon the judicial eloquence of Athens with- out inconformity to the title of this work. The functions of advocate and political orator were so closely interlaced among the ancients that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate them. Private interests and political tendencies incessantly commingled in the cities where the retired and private man was but little sejaarated from the active citizen. Thus the bar was converted into a political arena. The' passions which agitated the assembled people might also move the tribunal. The debates presented a doubly interesting spectacle of opponents defending their life or their honor, while at the same time they took sides on affairs of state, — a public deliberation grafted upon a duel. Under such condi- tions, it is not surprising to hear an ex-consul, the prince of the political rostrum at Rome, assert the priority of judicial eloquence, — the most difficult, perhaps, of human accomplish- ments, but also the grandest.* A political trial was the origin of Cicero's masterpiece in oratory, Oratio pro Milone. One particular cause consolidated the union of deliberative and judicial functions at Athens: public administration was extended to the entire people. The accorded right, not to say the duty, imposed upon every citizen of investigating * In causarum contentionibus magnum est quoddam opus, atque baud scio an de humanis operibus longe maximum. {De Oratore, ii, 17.) author's preface. 9 political crimes and misdemeanors, favored the perpetual confusion of the tribune and the bar by inciting accusations in which private pique was too often armed under the guise of public interests. The only three orations of ^schines which remain to us are three political speeches. With the exception of the Philippics and the Olynthiacs, the finest harangues of Demos- thenes* are composed in about an equal measure of the deliberative and judicial element. Add to this that the Athenians did not have special judges for special cases. When there was a question of civil claims or a political debate, the tribunal was always a part, more or less respect- able, of the Athenian multitude, — a popular audience, whose minds the orator ruled and whose passions he swayed by appropriate arts. Whence among the Attics the affinity of oratorical customs at the tribune and bar, and the necessity, in order to thoroughly comprehend uue political orators of Athens, of seeing her advocates at work. A witness, to be proof against suspicion, should neither be a partisan nor a dependent of the litigant. To these conditions the tribunal of Letters might add another, that of not being his translator or his- critic. There is a com- mon inclination to become over-zealous in our admiration of a writer whom long and sympathetic communion has apparently made our own ; the exact truth sometimes suffers from this excess of good will. Great names add to this interested affection a prestige which favors illusion. Un- doubtedly, one should not speak lightly of such eminent personages; but if respect is due to their glory, the whole truth is due to the reader. We believe that we have studied the king of the ancient tribune with a veneration that is free from partiality. The citizen, the statesman, and the orator are sufficiently strong in him to sustain the re- * Contra Zeptinem, In Midiam, In Aristocratem, On tlie Affairs of the Chersonese, On the Embassy, and On the Crown. 10 author's peeface. proaehes which the man and the polemic did not always escape. Br^boeuf has been reproached for being more Lucian than Lucian himself (Lucano Lucanior). Many an inter- preter of Demosthenes, undoubtedly dissatisfied with his original eloquence, contributes to it what pleases his own taste. Unfortunately the Attics were not eloquent in the Gallic view; to adorn Demosthenes amounts to parodying him; to make him bombastic, does not render him more recognizable. When he recounts wrongs, the translator, with the best intention imaginable,- denounces crimes. " Eest in repose, confident and armed," becomes "Await without noise, confidence in your hearts, and your sword in hand." "I will speak with frankness," is cold; a substitute is made: " Nothing will enchain my tongue." These scruples ' are given with good intention, but they miss the mark. For want of stones, an indiscreet tenderness throws flowers and metaphors at this colossus. The greatest service which Demosthenes' friends can render him is to refrain from obliging hitn with this affectation. Do you wish that his beauty should enrapture? Then display him simply as he is. You will thus spare him the " calumnies " of which Addison* complained, and you will avert from yourself the application of the • adage, Traduttore, traditore. The translator should be the prime auxiliary of the critic; an ancient orator well translated has his commentaries half written. During long years devoted to secondary and higher in- struction, we have collected from the study of ancient liter- ature rich materials, which is to-day distributed into four- teen different courses. We offer the most recent of these courses to the public; it is also one of the most modern. May it be hoped that this conscientious study in which moral * I have been traduced in French. (The French word meaning translated is traduii.) author's preface. 11 philosophy, politics and literary criticism naturally lend their aid, will prepare the way for its seniors by meriting the indulgent approbation of its readers. Demetrius, the Phalerian, said of eloquence that in free states it is lite the sword in combat. Well organized re- publics should know no other civil battle-field than that of the tribune — a peaceful and fruitful arena where the issue is joined between intelligence and intelligence on a common ground of national devotion. When recalling the oratorical and sanguinary conflicts of the patricians and plebeians, at periods reputed the most flourishing of the Eoman Republic, the author of the Dia- logue of Orators charges eloquence with living upon sedi- tions. Free and united France nurtures eloquence with better aliments. The era of social seditions will never again interrupt her, and, thanks to the Constitution which has made her her own sovereign, she will avoid errors which might cause her to launch words of iron, as did Athens and Demosthenes, against foreign enemies. Far more fortunate in our day is the mission of the French forum. In profound peace its sole impulse is for good; it exhibits with pride the dearest interests of the country to all . eyes. Assisted by its powerful ally the press, it has become, by wise considerations, the political preceptor of the people; and by the dignity of its sentiments it nobly maintains the proud soul of France. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Translator's Preface, - - - . 5_6 Author's Preface, ----- 7-11 CHAPTER I. Introduction — The Three Ages of Attic Eloquence, 15-51 CHAPTER II. Philip — The Athenians, - - 52-82 CHAPTER III. Demosthenes — The Man — The Citizen, - - 83-117 CHAPTER IV. Demosthenes — The Statesman, - 118-166 CHAPTER V. Analysis of the Principal Elements and Charac- I TERISTICS OF DeMOSTHENEs' ELOQUENCE, - 167-198 CHAPTER VI. Analysis of the Principal Elements and Charac- teristics OF Demosthenes' Eloquence (con- tinued), . . - - 199-263 13 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Okatokical Contests in Political Debates at Athens, .... 264-289 CHAPTER VIIL Invective in Greek Eloquence, - - 290-337 CHAPTER IX. Greek Eloquence in the Lisht or Truth and Morality, ..... 338-371 CHAPTER X. I. Demosthenes as a Moralist — II. Relations of Justice and Politics- — III. Religious Senti- ment in Demosthenes, ... 372-411 CHAPTER XI. The Trial on the Crown, - - - 412-464 CHAPTER Xli. Conclusion, 465-488 Analytical Table of Contents, 489 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. CHAPTEE I. INTRODUCTION. IN the seventeenth century, when public speaking was restricted principally to the pulpit and bar, Fenelon restored the omnipotence of Grecian eloquence. To-day our assemblies are manifestly unceremonious; they exhibit great examples of the efficiency of elo- quence, but still they are far from those triumphs familiar to Greek antiquity. And so we can share even in these days the admiration of the author of The Letter to the Academy. Eloquence will never exercise over us the sovereignty which it enjoyed at Athens. This is attributable to the different conditions of public life among the ancients and moderns. From her cradle Greece grew up and waxed strong in the warm light of liberty. As long as her independence lasted she breathed the public life of the Pnyx and the Agora. In the popular assemblies, where the nation met for deliberation, eloquence was naturally called upon to play an important role. Polit- ical discussions took place in the open air; each delib- eration was like a drama played by a thousand actors, whose passions and votes depended on the master of the tribune. In the midst of democratic cities, justly jealous of governing themselves and examining care- is 16 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. fully their own affairs, "all could do everything."* The majority decided without appeal most important questions: the choice of alliances, peace or war, the life or death of the vanquished. '■'In a democratio state,'''' says ^schines, ''the private individual is a Icing hy right of law and suffrage.^'-\ Sometimes a great citizen appears to be king of a city; but this fragile royalty depends upon the favor of the people: the people, have instituted it, and the people at their will overthrow it, according to the impulse of the mo- ment. "What ally will aid the statesman in preserving the confidence of the city whose will he must obey?-^ Eloquence. In former times, says Aristotle,:]: the usurpers to whom the citizens submitted were generals. For then the sword was more skillfully handled, and was more powerful than speech; "but in our days, thanks to the progress' of eloquence, the faculty of speaking well will suffice to place a man at the head of the people. Orators are not usurpers on account of their ignorance of military art, or at least such an occurrence is very rare." Thus among the Greeks the multitude was master of everything, and oratory was master of the multitude. This power of eloquence produced surprising effects. The Athenian army falls into the hands of the victori- ous Sicilians. Diodes, a favorite orator, advises the Sicilians to kill the generals, to sell or throw the sol- diers into prison. The Sicilians applaud these vigorous measures. A citizen, Nicolaus (although the war has deprived him of his two sons) exhorts the victors to * Tacitus, Dialogue of Orators, 40. t '£v -aoXst dr]/j.oxpaTouiJ.ivrj avijp Idtmrrjq 'j6jj.m xm 4'yj jSaat- keuec. (Against Otesiphon). j^ Politics, viii, 4. • INTRODUCTION. 17 clemency. The people are touched, and are about to pardon them. Gylippus, a Spartan general, alarmed at this impolitic weakness, speaks in his turn : the mul- titude is exasperated, and votes the punishment.* Once, at Athens, the Mityleneans, having revolted, were condemned to death in mass by the advice of Cleon. The next day Diodotus made the people blush at such thoughtless barbarity, and the Mityleneans were spared, f Eloquence also reigned in the Amphict- yonic assemblies: a council of the states general of Greece, in which the interests, as well as the political and religious debates of the Hellenic family were dis- cussed. Thus public speaking was the main-spring of Greek society. From its origin eloquence flourished in Greece with- out effort or study, as if on a soil best adapted to it. This spontaneity sprang from qualities indigenous to the Hellenic race: customs and institutions nourished and bore it into full maturity. Sensibility, lively im- agination, flexible and delicate organs, electric sympa- thies, — nothing .prevented the Hellenes from acquiring the gift of speech without seeking it. The Grecian was born an orator [ptjTwp)^ and the social center in which he lived, since the heroic age, compelled him to provide himself with convincing and persuasive power. In his Theatre des rheteurs Father Cressolius, of the Society of Jesus, quotes a verse of the Odyssey (xix, 179) to trace the art of oratory, not to the deluge of Deucalion, but anterior to it: to Deucalion's father, Minos, who was converted into a profound sage and consummate reasoner by lessons drawn from conversa- tions with Jupiter. Without tracing it so far back, the * Diodorus Sicuhis, xiii, 19 et seq. t Thucydides, iii, 35 et seq. 18 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE EST GREECE. ingenious scholar might have been satisfied with the story of Peleus coniiding Acliilles to Phoenix that he might learn how "to speak and to act "; or with those verses of the Iliad which describe the oratorical con- tests with which the Achaean youth diverted the assem- blies.* This twofold influence of natural gifts and customs appears manifest in flomer. Pleroic feudalism discloses democratic inclinations in which the future institutions of popular government are foreshadowed. The counsel-beai'ing {pouXrupopoi) orators are but har- bingers of the ordinary counsellors and- ministers of Athens; even then we behold in Thersites the dawn of demagogism. The council of chiefs (/Jaa-iAEf?) deliber- ating upon public interests, and the assembly of the people ('^a«?), open to eloquence a vaster field on which glories equal to those of the battle-field are acquired; the whole is but a representation of the assemblies of the gods on Olympus, when they harangue one another in the hope of efl[ecting a better understanding. Achil- les is the first hero of the Iliad ; Ulysses is the next in rank. The lance of Thetis' son is most effective in combat; the oratory of Sisyphus' son is most eft'ective in council, t An irresistible orator, his voice is power- ful, his concise and weighty sentences demolish and sweep all before them like a torrent. lie has well shown how eloquence, like Achilles' javelin, can cure the evils which it has inflicted. :|: Outside of political life what a part eloquence is made to play in the drama * Iliad, ix, 443 ; xv, 283. + Iliad, ix, 441 ; iii, 221 ; Odyssey, xiii, 297; ix, 441. % The second book of the Iliad affords a memoiable example of this (verse 144 et seq.) Agamemnon wishes to test the army; he advises it to return home. His discom-se, more persuasive than even the orator himself had anticipated, is too effective; the Achjeams rush INTRODUCTION. 19 of the Iliad, teeming with sudden passion to be ex- haled, with impetuosities to be governed, resistances to be overcome! If the immortals laugh to their ' hearts' content, the kings below rival them in cursing each other. With great difficulty jSTestor calms the tumults of this stormy parliament. At one moment the stub- born wrath of Achilles draws forth the most eloquent supplications; at another old Priam's tears moisten the crimsoned hands of his last son; in still another place the tenderness of Andromache would disarm the rash valor of her husband: all pathetic inspirations which tragedy and eloquence have never surpassed. The power of public speaking and its important office in Homeric times explain the care with which the poet has drawn the characters and even the atti- tudes of his orators.* It also bears witness to these significant verses: "With partial hands the gods their gifts dispense; Some greatly think, some sjjeak with manly sense ; Here Heaven an elegance of form denies, But wisdom the defect of form supplies: This man with energy of thought controls, And steals with modest violence our souls; He speaks reserv'dly, but he speaks with force. Nor can one word be changed but for a worse; In public more than mortal he appears. And, as he moves, the gazing crowd reveres."t to their boats with joyful sliouts. Ulysses intervenes opportunely, and prevents tbe execution of Agamemnon's test, which proved too successful. " He said. The shores with loud applauses sound, The hollow ships each deaf ning shout rebound." * Iliad, iii, 209. f Odyssey, viii, 167. This apotheosis of eloquence is found in De Oratore, iii, 14. The eulogy of oratory was natural to a poet of whom 20 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. The power and necessity of eloquence increased in proportion as the spirit of aristocratic feudalism in the early ages gave place to democratic institutions, and consequently, that Greek race which became the most warmly attached to free government was destined to behold the art of eloquence flourishing most vigorously in it. This was the peculiar privilege of the Ionic family established in Attica, and became the treasure of Athens. The ancients were xinanimous in rendering to her this testimony: "The taste for eloquence was not common to all Greece, but it was the exclusive attri- bute of Athens. In verity, who knows any orator of Argos, of Corinth, or of Thebes, during this epoch ? As to Lacedsemon, I have never heard it stated that up to our days she produced a single one."* A Lacedaemonian system of rhetoric, like that of the Stoics, would have taught the art of silence. Could this singular faculty be peculiar to the very atmos- phere of Attica, and an omen of some mysterious link between the nature of the soil and the genius of its people ? " Scarcely issued from the Piraeus, eloquence sped over all the Grecian isles and spread throughout Asia; but, adulterated by foreign customs, it lost the pure and wholesome diction it brought from Attica, Qulntilian could say : " Rivers and fountains find Iheir source in the ocean, tlius Homer is the father and model of all kinds of eloquence." * Brutus, 13. Brasidas, however, was not deficient in eloquence, "for a Lacedaemonian." Thucydides iv, 84. The Spartans gen- erally mention Menelaus. Iliad, iii, 313. "When Atreus' son harangued the listening train. Just was his sense, and his expression plain. His words succinct, yet full, without a fault; He spoke no more than just the thing he ought." INTRODUCTION. 21 and nearly forgot its mother idiom." Eloquence in the East, even at Rhodes, divested itself of those quali- ties drawn from its natal soil, and Athens remained the privileged abode, the classical ground of oratorical talent. This predilection on the part of eloquence for the city of Minerva is explained by the nature of Athenian institutions. In Rome the patricians were not satisfied with having laid hands upon history which had been converted from the first into a pontifical code and par- tial guardian of the renown and privileges of their order, but they reserved to themselves the monopoly of legal knowledge and the forms of court procedure; so that when prosecuted, a plebeian client was at the mercy of his patron. At Athens there existed nothing like this pernicious guardianship. The law of Solon willed that every citizen should be as competent to "'' defend his rights by speech as by arms on the field of battle. The law enjoined upon him that he should create, by the practice of public speaking, a new guar- antee of his independence, — ^a pledge and warrant of his dignity. "If incapacity to defend one's person is shameful, it would be strange if the inability to defend one's self with speech were not equally so, for speech is befitting a man much more than corporal qualities."* Imbued with this spirit of democratic liberty and strong personality, the constitution of Solon gave to political life and open speech an impulse which the authority of the Pisistratidse might weaken but could not arrest. The foul* qualified classes established by the legislator constituted the assembly of the people, and furnished the tribunals with judges or heliasts. Thus all citizens, rich and poor, were admitted with * Aristotle, Rhetoric, i, 1. 22 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. the arclions and areopagus to share the sovereignty and to scrutinize public affairs. Persons of importance were obliged to give their logical advice in these assemblies. On ojjening the sessions a herald de- manded, in a loud voice, ' ' Who of the citizens above the age of fifty years will address the assembly? " The ' ' most virtuous and sage " obligation of fifty years, regretted by JEschines,* soon fell into disuse, and the right of all to mingle in public matters before the tri- bunal was developed every day along with the progress of liberty and the aggrandisement of the state, f The democratic:!: reforms introduced into the con- stitution of Solon by Clisthenes, chief of the Alcme- onidse, after the final expulsion of the Pisistratidte, impressed upon the' political activity of Athens a de- cided impulse, which exalted the conceptions of her citizens and the mission of eloquence. From- that time freedom rendered Athens capable of conceiving and of executing great things, as well as of transmitting them * Against Ciesiphon. t " The laws instruct the orator and the strategus, who wish to be held in good i-epute with the people, to have children conformably to the law, to possess real estate in the ten-itory, and to merely direct the people after having given all legitimate pledges." (Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes.) Plutarch {On tlie Love ofGMldren) attributes to Lycurgus and Solon a law against bachelors, which was in force at Sparta, but the Attic orators have not left in their works a trace of its application at Athens. This obligation of being married, father and proprietor, conditions formerly exacted by the theorists of a civilized countiy, but poorly conforms to the spirit of tolerant liberty in Athens, and the indulgent ease of its manners. Bachelors might there be of little importance, even ridiculed. Upon their tomb was placed a particular figure,— that of the hnjTpopi<;) argument;— such was the foundation of the sophists' doctrine. Philosophic scepticism was born in Greece from an excess of metaphysical speculation, just as the idealistic exaggerations of the Cartesians elicited the scepticism of the eighteenth century. But, if excesses are explained by reaction, they are never justifiable, especially when they step from the domain of pure ideas into that of morality in order to destroy it. The scepticism of the eighteenth century produced Hel- vetius, d'PIolbach, and Lamettrie;* the sophists of Greece did not hesitate, on their part, to draw from their doctrine its lurking poisons. Is the law of con- science indefeasible ? or is the law of nature the only true law? Is divine justice aught but an oratorical supposition? Does a successful crime cease to be criminal ? That is according to circumstances. Yes, if the thing suits you; no, if you find the contrary more advantageous. Thus Greece, by subtilizing, amused * "The sentiment of self-love is the only basis upon which a use- ful morality can be founded." (Helvetius, De I'Esprit.) " It would be useless, and perhaps unjust, to require man to be virtuous if he were not so without rendering himself unhappy: when vice renders man happy he Is to. love vice." (D'Holbach, Systeme de la Nature.) Lameltrie, Pamrn ." "Eemorse arises from the prejudices of educa- tion. * * * It is permitted, according to the law of nature and Puf- fendorff, to take by force a little of that which another has in excess." Lamettrie considers innocent "those philosophical demolitions of vices and virtues. That will not prevent the people, a vile herd of imbeciles, from continuing their course, from respecting the lives and purses of others, and from believing in the most ridiculous preju- dices." Such is the philosophy which he calls " our amiable queen," and Voltaire "execrable." According to this philosophical physi- cian, man is a " machine." The whole machine gets out of order if its springs are forced to overwork. The author of L'AH de Jouir died of indigestion. His landlord, it is true, Fredrick, " the Solomon of the North," wrote his funeral oration. 44 POLITICAL ELOQTJEWCli; IN" GEEECE. herself as if fencing with demonstrations or refutations of tlie most necessary moral truths. Protagoras, commenced one of his works with this peremptory declaration: "Are there gods, or are there no gods ? Two reasons prevent me from devoting my- self to the examination . of this question: the uncer- tainty of the thing, and the brevity of human life." Antiphon, although a man of grave character and weighty eloquence (he was surnamed Nestor), laughs at the prejudicial and religious beliefs of his contem- poraries. " Certain men do not live the present life, but prepare themselves with great trouble, as if they had to live another life, and not the present life; in the meantime the hours escape , them, and their Hme has past."* This present life, the sole object of the sophists, was precisely what Socrates disregarded for the life to come, ^—Socrates, a novice like the sophists as to scientific methods, but as hostile to their religious, and niiOral scepticism as to their filigreed language.. Sophistry, "a school of impudence, "had instructed, the great statesman of the Gorgiag. Callicles threw away the preconceptions of small minds as litter. The strongest reason is always the best. Might conquers right, — a theory upheld in our day by important per- sonages, with the annexation of provinces to support them; a theory formerly taught in certain schools of Greece, and put into practice by her statesmen, f By losing the sense of the true, the sophists ■ and the Athenians, their subservient disciples, lost the sen- timent of divine existence, of goodn.ess and justice, which are identified with it. That which the experi- * Oral. Attiei,, Didot, p. 338, § 135 ; G. Perrot, V Eloquence Judi- ciaire el Politique a Athenes- t Thucydicles, i, 76 ; iii, 37, 40 ; v, 89 et seq. INTRODUCTIOlSr. 45 ence of antiquity, with Hesiod and Jllsop, had only considered as a brutal fact,* the sophists had set up as a principle, and this principle they applied with a cruel logic worthy of Machiavel's Prince. These poi- soned maxims sooner or later destroyed those who fostered them.f Athens profited by the apology for tyranny and usurpation. Under the grasp of Philip she bitterly expiated her sophisms. The moral influence of the sophists was therefore very pernicious, but their influence on eloquence was not altogether bad. The Attic orators profited by their researches without sacrificing to their errors. The justness and stability of the Attic temperament had reacted against the allurements of Sicilian vices. In the hands of Lysias, IsEeus, and their school, prose, , judiciously elaborated, learned to adorn itself without coquetry, to blend simplicity and grace, vigor and ease. No longer were there evidences of efl'ort or laborious meditation, but an easy and fluent style, less solicitous to induce reflection than to instruct by its precision and clearness. No longer do we behold in it the glittering prisms of sophistry, with irredescent colors and flattering illusions. It is a transparent crystal, in which objects appear in their natural tints and propor- tions. Nor need the eye disentangle their real con- tours under artificial reflections and undulating naove- ments. It beholds them clearly drawn in mellow re- *^sop, T?ie Earthen Kettle and the Iron Kettle; Hesiod, Th^ Nightingale and the Hawk. f "Whoever plays the tyrant inevitably falls into the evils of tyranny, and suffers what he caused others to suffer. Athens has testified to this. She placed gan-isons in the citadels of other cities, and, as a result of this, saw the enemy (the Lacedaemonians) master of her own." Isocrates, Discourse on Peace, p. 113, § 91 ; Didot. J', 46 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. lief, like the tracery of cordage on a Pirgean ship under the fading rays of the setting sun. Third Period. — The Attics bequeathed to their suc- cessors an exquisite instrument, — a clear, expressive, /and sufficiently picturesque prose. Their eloquence was at all times a 'little wanting in action and heat.* This placidity, which, according to our taste, verges upon coldness, was imposed upon the orators by law. The Athenians knew themselves too well to trust them- selves to eloquence. Ulysses closed the ears of his companions to the song of the sirens; the Athenians captivated the mouths of the sirens f in the agora. / The law of the tribunals interdicted pathetic appeals. -t If the advocate attempted to use the pathetic, an officer recalled him to his duty. The Areopagus observed this rule with jealous respect; however, it was eluded on the day when Hyperides pleaded for Phryne. The mute eloquence of imveiled beauty touched the grave assemblage, — an overwhelming peroration not fore- seen by the laws. The mild eloquence of the genuine Attics was unequal to the agitations of the Macedonian period. Political orators then kindled the fire which Atticism had preferred to leave smouldering. The "clear fountain" became an impetuous torrent: the "gentle zephyr" a "tempest accompanied with thun- der-bolts.":!: This eloquence was not only artistic, but militant in the midst of impassioned contests between the adversaries and partisans of Philip. One side, *"We may mention, as an exception, the pathetic peroration of Andocicle's discourse On the Mysteries; Oratm'es Attici. Didot, p. 73 Sec. 144. ■f On Isocrates' tomb a column thirty cubits high was erected, upon which was surmounted a siren seven cubits in height. i Quintilian, vi, 1 ; x, 1. INTRODUCTION. 47 tlirougli venality or good faith, advised the Macedo- nian alliance. They saw in the father of Alexander, not an ambitious man, meditating, by craft and force, to strike the heaviest blow that the Greek world could suifer, — the destruction of Athenian liberty; but they looked upon him as the pacifactory arbiter of danger- ous' dissensions, — the future leader of Europe against Asia. The other party spurned this savior as the violator of Athenian dignity by his past life and des- tined course. Thej marshaled themselves against him with all the force of their genius, with the recollection of their ancient valor, which they laid before the eyes of those Athenians who were indifferent about the in- vader. At their head appeared Demosthenes, the voice of his mother country and the savior of Hellenic lib- erty, if it were possible to save it. But if Phocion was the "chopper"* of Demosthenes' arguments, Demos- thenes could not likewise be the "chopper" of Philip's actions, and as might triumphed over right, arms tri- umphed over eloquence. We will study this period, the most beautiful and last of Greek eloquence. After a sublime effort, and a burst of genius worthy of the patriotism which inspired it, eloquence fell and perished with everything else; it exhaled its last breath at Ca- lauria, on that day when, in the presence of the satel- lites of Antipater, the author of the Oration on the Crown expired. Let us here repeat a fact worthy of notice, and con- tradictory to the common ground of the joint respon- sibility of morals and eloquence. Messala {Dialogue of Orators) labors to find the causes of the decline of eloquence. He imagines he finds the principal one in * yj TU)v i/jLWv Xoywv zoffi? wAarazai, a saying of Demosthenes, according to Plutarch. 48 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE EST GKEECE, tlie decline of morals. Seneca* also affirms that morals are the regulators of eloquence. "As is life, so is the language; moreover, wherever you see a corrupt lan- guage, you can be assured that the morals are cor- rupted." This estimate is not altogether true. Style may undoubtedly be the mirror of character. Mecoe- nas and the Spartan Sthenelaidas, Nicias and Alcibia- des, had not the same soul; they did not speak with the same air. Eloquence often savors of a baseness of the heart, or reflects its nobility. But does it follow from this possible correlation that the decline of morals necessarily draws with it that of art and speech ? Lit- erary and political history deny this assertion; for the heart may remain pure when the taste becomes de- praved, and not unfrequently taste has been purified at an instant when the soul had lost its virtuous energy. Moral sentiment ennobles eloquence as well as the works of art in general, but it is not indispensable to them. And so the palmiest days of heroism in Greece were not the days of her eloquence. The soldiers of Marathon and Salamis were citizens rather than ora- tors: Themistocles must be excepted, for he was emi- nently both the one and the other. But even his example confirms the natural independence of genius an-d virtue. Aristides, morally his superior, stood far below him in political genius and oratorical talent. During the period intervening between the close of the Peloponnesian war- and the Macedonian interven- tion, f the sentiment of moral grandeur appeared to be banished from Hellenic society. And yet this was the epoch during which eloquence prepared itself for the * Ad Lu-cilium, 114. t Ot. Muller cited the fact without stopping to explain it, t. ii, p. 573, of the translation by M. K. Hillebrand. INTRODUCTION. 49 flight which was destined to carry it to perfection in the immortal productions of Demosthenes and ^schi- nes. This phenomenon is not at all surprising'. Al- ready eloquence had presented a striking contrast with morals during the struggle between Athens and the Dorian race. Who is not struck in Thucydides* with the somber picture of Greek profligacy, in the midst of the fearful commotions of the Peloponnesian war, and of rampant passions of the most detestable dye ? Eloquence had then lost much of its moral ex- cellence, but it retained its artistic worth. Alcibiades and Cleon, statesmen infested with the vices of their time, and worthy of the felicitations of Timon, the Misanthrope, were, to the misfortune of Athens, very powerful orators. This proves that moral conscience and taste (a kind of aesthetic conscience, applicable to the estimate of the beautiful), do not necessarily follow a parallel development. On the contrary, perfect elo- quence, the master of all its resources, presumes cul- ture and an advanced state of civilization, rarely the consorts of austere morals, f " Grand eloquence, like fire, requires aliments to nourish it, action to excite it; it is in burning that it displays its brilliancy. ":}: Now the most combustible substances are not always the purest. The scourge of war raises up great captains; eloquence lives on storms, on guilty angers or holy wraths. Demosthenes hated the invader with a zeal * iii, 83, 84. t Bauti'u's calumnious sally is well known, " An honest man and good morals do not harmonize " ; and this saying, which is surprising in a man of good taste, "The society of women corrupts morals and forms the taste." [Esprit des Lois, xix, 8.) These sentiments, if well founded, would justify J. J. Rousseau's paradox on the per- nicious influence of civilization and society. X Dialogue of tlie Orators, 36. 3 50 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. that did liim as much honor as his eloquence. Never- voiheless it must be conceded that the patriotic dislikes which were at the bottom of his heart were (to omit other weak points which it would be puerile to deny) allied to rancorous personal feuds: a source of action far from generous, albeit his eloquence was still admi- rable. His oration on the prevarications of the embassy equals, in an artistic point of view, his finest Philippics. The ideal definition of an orator given by Oato* is rather a wish than the statement of a general fact. How many men among the ancients and moderns have failed to maintain their integrity on the same elevation of their talents ! Satis eloquentice, sapienticB parum. Sallust applies this phrase to Catiline. It could be as appropriately applied to his historian and to other per- sonages. Thus it appears that bad taste and good morals are sometimes found together. In France the theorists of the charming, of the sensational, have often been a very estimable and extremely serious class of people. For instance, Father Bouhours and Montes- quieu {Essai sur le gout). "A magistrate rose by his merit to the highest dignity. He published a moral work in which the sarcasm is unique" (Labruyere). Taste, before the time of Boileau, was generally de- testable, but can it be said that the first half of the seventeenth century was inferior in its morals to the last half? Let us return to Greek eloquence. If, in the midst of the decline of private and public morals, when a Philoc- rates and a Timarchus were possible, in the bosom of tri- umphant egotism and venality, Greece, always proud of her past history, but incapable of sustaining it, produced her most famous orators, she owed it to circumstances * Vir bonus dieendi peritus. INTRODUCTION. 51 especially favorable which, made such orators contem- porary with the merciless duel between Athens and Philip, and the inheritors of the progress made in the art of speaking during the age of Pericles and the Attic school. A master of these treasures of experience and art, JEschines lavishly resorted to them, and used them with a talent difficult to excel. Demosthenes, like his adversary, sometimes took advantage of them under the goad of disordered passions. But in him the citizen fortunately governed the individual. His soul was purged of its impurity by the bitter toils of patriotism, he rose above his rival with all the superiority that the heart has over the mind. More firmly bound to the laws of honor than Pythia herself, and the faithful interpreter of Athens, enslaved, but proud in the midst of her defeat, when, after seven years of servitude, she at last, with the author of the Oration on the Crown, received her revenge of Chse- ronea, Demosthenes, the orator of duty, united in one finished work artistic and moral beauty. The galaxy of Grecian orators terminates in him as a theological system carries in triumph the statue of an immortal. Homer is the poet of all poets. De- mosthenes is eloquence personified. Men desirous of serving their country at the tribune should study him and become imbued with his eloquence, ever ancient, yet ever new. Demosthenes will therefore forever breathe his spirit and influence upon citizens burning to repel a public enemy with the sword of speech. He will ever be the law of eloquence,* the herald of national dignity and liberty. * Quintilian, x, 1, Lex Orandi. CHAPTER II. PHILIP— THE ATHENIANS. A FTEE the lapse of twenty centuries the harangues -Ol. of Demosthenes again delight the learned and instruct the philosophic historian. They remind him how the states went to ruin. The orator's counsels and reproaches to the Athenians should always be an ob- ject of meditation among people who desire to escape the failings which destroyed Greece forever. To thor- oughly appreciate the power of Demosthenes' eloquence, and the difficulty of the task which he confronted, it is necessary to have present in our mind the obstacles which accumulated before him; to be well acquainted with the public enemy, Philip, who had also become the orator's private enemy, and with his domestic ad- versary, the Athenian people, whose vices became the Macedonian's allies. "We will afterward see what resources Demosthenes could draw from his soul and genius to struggle against two antagonists equally formidable. I. PhilijD, detained several years at Thebes as a hostage, profited by his disgrace, and studied, in the heart of Greece, that military art which he afterward used so skillfully against her. At the school of the victor of Leuctra, Epaminondas, he conceived the idea of the Macedonian phalanx, formed on, the model of Thebes' sacred army, and destined to play so important a role in history. Thus Thebes educated the soldier who was PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 53 to crush the liberties of Greece at Chseronea. At the head of his phalanx, Philip routed the cohorts of the presumptuous Lysicles, and joined the victorious wing of his son Alexander. This powerful machine required careful management, otherwise it was but poorly adapt- ed to all kinds of action. Philip reserved it for decisive conflicts. He ordinarily avoided pitched battles. That he might more surely surprise his enemy, instead of heavy cohorts, he advanced and retreated at the head of a fly- ing camp, composed of archers and light cavalry. Alert and always ready — ^for he made no distinction between winter and summer — he changed his position at will and unexpectedly fell upon cities. The Athe- nians were not so active; they consulted the aspects of the moon; they followed old national customs which were disregarded by this barbarian king; they only waged war willingly during four or five months of fine weather. ' ' Our century does not at all resemble preceding cen- turies, and this is especially true in the art of war, be- cause it appears to have had action and progress. "* The Athenian strategy of the good old times was discon- certed, scandalized by these innovations contrary to all rules which had hitherto been respected. Likewise, the thundering marches of Bonaparte were incongruous to the sentiment of the old German generals who had been habituated to exact and methodical evolutions and to the patient combinations practiced during the thirty- seven years' war. Philip, like Csesar at a later day, believed he had done nothing if anything remained for him to do. He well knew how to prosecute everything with obstinate activity, to prepare everything timely, and to foresee everything; action, movement, was his sole life. As a general, he was diligent and inevitable, * Third Philippic. 54 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. and at all times displayed dauntless bravery. Demos- thenes paid him this homage: " I saw Philip, our adversary, braving all dangers that he might command and become master; I saw him deprived of an eye, his shoulder broken, his hand and legs maimed; I saw him freely and cheerfully resigning any part of his body which fortune pleased to take, so tharhe might enjoy the rest with renown and glory."* This passion for glory, vsrhich rendered Philip regard- less of hir, body and life, made him at a later period respect his vanquished enemy. He was urged to destroy Athens. "May it never please God," he responded, " that I should destroy the theatre of glory; my sole work is for it. " ' Pie also labored to satisfy an insatiable ambition; he himself confessed it: "I am at peace only with those who are willing to obey me." This thirst for rule led him to carry his arms into most opposite countries, from Phocis to the Danube, from the Hemus (the Bal- kans) to Euboea, from the Peloponnesus to Byzantium, and even into Scythia. Master of Illyricum, of Chalcidice, of theChersonesus, of Thermopylae, of all the avenues of central Greece north and south, no aggrandisement could satisfy him. "Greece and the barbarian countries were all too narrow for the ambition of this wretched mortal." In his eyes no conquest was small. Compelled to withdraw for a moment from Athens, his most coveted prey, he throws his army upon the "poor villages of Thrace, willing to brave toils, cold and hunger and extreme dangers for such conquests. * * * That he may plunder the Thracian vaults of their rye and mil- * Pro Corona, § 67. PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 55 let, he faces the stormy deep in the midst of winter. * * * A miserable Macedonian, born in a country where it is impossible to purchase even a good slave." He is raised over Greece, and appointed to preside at the Pythian games, the most august of her national solemnities. He receives the privilege of consulting the oracle first. Admitted with reverence into the amphictyonic council, the sovereign arbiter of Hellenic differences, the instrument of the gods' vengeance on their profaners, nothing satiates him. The undisputed ruler of all Greece, invested since Chseronea with the hegemony which was formerly an object of emulation among the great cities of Greece, he will not yet be at ease. Proclaimed generalissimo of the eastern forces against Asia, he will dream of the conquests reserved for his son, and at the moment of entei'ing upon this new career a murderer's dagger will consign him, at the age of forty-seven, to his first, his last repose. (336 B.C.) Philip's first entrance into the government revealed in him qualities characteristic of a great politician: he became a master of intrigues, and his intrigues were successful. At first, regent of Macedonia in the name of his nephew, Amyntas, he supplanted him. At the age of twenty-four, by virtue of his address and energy, sometimes criminal, he succeeded in maintaining him- self against his enemies at home and abroad. Of this number were the Athenians from the origin. They were the pai'tisans of Argseus, the foremost one of his competitors for the crown. The Greeks had long wished to interfere in his affairs. He paid them well for it. Their covetousness and traditional jealousies furnished arms against them, and the artful Macedo- nian use'd them with success. He besieged Amphipo- 56 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. lis, a position long disputed by Athens and Macedonia. The Athenians wished to aid it. Philip checked them by promising that he would surrender it to them when once captured. He took it and guarded it. (358 B.C.) A year afterward he deprived them of Potidsea, and gave it to the Olynthians, who were then hostile to Athens. Later, Olynthus was seized in its turn (348 B.C.). His device was to take advantage of divisions and conquer them. He saw that the Thessalians, the Thebans, the Phocidians, had become suspicious of one another. He duped them in their turn, and subjugated them all, one with the assistance of another. Against Sparta (for his ambitious activity embraced all Greece) he used the interested intervention of Argos and Mes- sene, or the antipathy of the Arcadians. He gave to one city what he plundered from another. In this way he was assured of accomplices. He fomented intestine hatreds; he baffled in advance all attempts at coalition. The cities, blinded by cupidity or municipal enmities, did not see that, in exchange for trivial advantages, — guarantees only as real as the rays of the sun given to the brothers of Perdiccas by the king of Sabsea, — the common enemy robbed them of their honor and their arms. Philip, in order to enjoy the right of contend- ing for the crowns at the Olympic games, proclaimed himself a descendant of Hercules. He was neither a Greek, nor allied to the Greeks, but worthy of being siich. He had many qualities in common with Homer's Ulysses. He was not only patient, inured to fatigue, but also sagacious, fertile in resources, and skillful in strategy. He could metamorphose* himself and im- personate different characters. He was a man compe- tent to do everything (jrai'oD^^'o?), to feign everything. * nuXorXai;, -uixiXu/j.TjTi<;, 7zoXu/j.TJ^ai'U(;, ■aoXurpo-aui;, PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 57 According to the state of his affairs, he alternately caressed or intimidated. His speeches were spirited or reserved, even humble (especially after the alliance of Athens and Thebes). He advanced or retreated, resisted or yielded, at the proper moment. Philip was a prudent politician, and practiced the diplomatic maxim of always giving the appearance of right to his own side; his clemency never despaired: ' ' Notwithstanding so many provoking iniquities, I have respected your city, your temples, and your territory. I could, however, have taken much, even captured all. I have persisted in my desire to submit our mutual complaints to a court of arbitration." The duplicity of his actions is especially apparent in his contest (always disavowed) against Athens. He has sworn to take it, and, as far as he is able, from the moment he steps on Hellenic ground he proclaims his fi'iendship for the city of Minerva. On all occasions he treats her with respect, and flatters her. He sends the Athenian prisoners, loaded with presents, back to the camp of Argseus; he treats the Athenian garrison of Potidsea with 'civility; later he will promise to liberate the cap- tives of Olynthus: "See how far my good will for you goes. I have given to you this island (Halon- nesus); your orators have not permitted you to receive it." After such pledges who would dare distrust him? His designs are innocent; his intentions equit- able and peaceable. "Let us have peace," is his cry. His partisans publish it; he himself declares it in writ- ing: and therefore we doubt the sincerity of his desire ! The Athenians are impressed by his peaceful measures, and observe the truce; Philip profits by it, and ad- vances his schemes. Athens is at peace with Philip, but Philip is not at peace with Athens. While his 58 POUTICAL ELOQUENCE IK GREECE. abused enemy is disarmed, the invader pursues his hos- tilities; he scales the ramparts without striking a blow. What need has he of violence when stratagem suf- fices ? There will always be time enough to draw the sword when the adversary, driven to desperation, revolts. Convicted, taken in the very act, he still denies his intentions. When necessary he aifects a hypocritical devotion to the victims whom he has already baffled; to the unfortunate Oretians he answers: " I have sent my soldiers to visit you; it is out of love for you, for I have learned that you are suffering from factions; the duty of an ally, of a true friend, is to present himself at such a crisis." Philip excelled in secret manoeuvres; in the face of hostilities he concealed his designs and retreated; in the meantime he strengthened himself little by little, and advanced. As soon as his knavery made him master he threw off the mask. Wo longer did he offer promises of friendship and protestations of innocence, but menacing reproaches. Here are a few extracts from a letter of this friend of Athens. " Notwithstanding my frequent embassies for the main- tenance of our oaths and agreements, you have never turned your attention to this side of the question. I believe, then, I ought to acquaint you with those points in respect of which I consider myself slighted. Be not at all astonished at the length of this letter: my grievances are numerous, and it is indispensable that I should explain myself clearly upon all of thera." The enumeration of the iniquities of Athens follows. The most grievous wrong on the part of the city is to have at last opened her eyes, and to have rendered war in return for war against this honest neighbor. PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. , 59 " Such are my grievances. You are the aggressors, and my moderation renders you bolder, and makes you more eager to do me all the injury within your power. It to-day becomes my duty to repulse you; I will call the gods to wit- ness, and I will settle the difficulty." Pliilip declai'ed war against the Athenians in this message. For twelve years he had been preparing for war. Athens was his sole object. The alarms of Athens increased in proportion as his oblique measures, his winding marches, dissimulated by pretense and decisions of every kind, progressed; but the Macedo- nian's oaths and machinations increased also, and the city, not seeing the danger, remained inactive. When once the adversary is at his mercy, Philip openly pre- pares for decisive action; a single blow remains to be given, and he feels himself the stronger; the key of the house, the house itself, is within his reach; what need has he to play the role of hypocrite any longer ? Philip knows where the nerve of Athenian power is located: in the preponderance of her naval forces, he endeavors to cause the maritime arsenals of the Pirffius to be burned: in the tributes accruing from her allied islands, he makes an effort to exhaust this source of her revenues. The Athenian piracy does great injury to Philip; it impedes importation and exportation from Macedonia: against a pirate a pirate and a half. The Macedonian piratical boats proceed to enrich them- selves by plundering the allies of Athens; they fall upon Lemnos, Imbros, Gerestos, and Marathon, from which they take away the sacred trireme. Philip, the corsair, aspires to the guardianship of the sea. The pirates infest the Archipelago and the coasts of Asia Minor. Philip is to intervene and assist the Greeks; this will give him an opportunity to inspect the coasts, 60 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. to practice intrigue among the islands, sometimes to take possession of them (thus he takes the island of Halonnesus from the pirate Sostratus); to favor the development of his marine, the most cherished of his aspirations; and, under the disguise of friendly coop- eration, he will corrupt the allies of Athens. He fol- lows his adversary over all lands; like a vigilant senti- nel he watches, and attacks him on all sides; he knows that whenever he assails he cannot fail to injure and finally to conquer. Philip is not only a friend of the Greeks, but also of their gods. Their religious quarrels during the Sa- cred War ofter him many an opportunity to become obtrusive. The pillage of the temple at Delphi (about 355 B.C.), and, later, the impiety of Cirrha in culti- vating a consecrated field, place a devout army -in the hands of this protector of religion. Invested by the Amphictyons with an absolute military command {arparriYiiv auTiiy.pn.Ti)pa), he marches at the head of his soldiers, and, like them, encircles his head with Apol- lo's laurel. He is the minister of the vengeance of the god who leads him. He writes to' the Peloponnesians : "With you I wish to aid the god and punish, those who transgress things held sacred among men," and piously he keeps his word. Sacrilegious Phocis is de- livered to conflagration, and its inhabitants to slaugh- ter. The Cirrhgeans, contemners of religious decrees, are chastised. All labor deserves its recompense. His first intervention opens to him without a struggle the pass of Thermopylae (346 e.g.); the second, by the cap- tui'e of Elatea (339 e.g.), the road to Attica. These two thunderbolts produced consternation in Athens; but did she not know that the gods protect the de- fenders of their outraged rights ? PHILIP THE ATHENIANS.. 61 Notwithstanding tliis protection, Philip sometimes founders. Checked the first time at Thermopylae, he postpones this blow. He knows how to await. He could not strike his enemy there; he hastens to meet him in his colonies of the Chersonesus, and marks all vulnerable points. Beaten in Thessaly by Onomarchus of Phocis, he displays in his defeat a new energy and destroys his adversary. Eepulsed from Perinthus, from Byzantium, driven from the Hellespont, he is not discouraged. Obstinate, tenacious, his eye fixed upon his object, he changes his means of attack, but not the end. He spies the shores of Greece as a wolf prowls around a sheep-fold; he explores Megara, Am- bracia, and Eubcea. He always appears at the post from which he can best hold his enemy in check. He varies his line of march that he may baffle the sus- picion of wise prophets. If a fortress is impregnable to engines of war, he causes its gates to fall before "an ass laden with gold." Afi'able, eloquent, capti- vating by his very person, he can use bribery at a longer range than his catapults. The gold mines of the Pangsea, without mentioning those of Thessaly and Thrace, give him a thousand talents per annum. He employs them in purchasing Greece, with her generals, her orators, and her oracles. Among those who draw salaries are skillful flatterers who lull the Athenian people to sleep by their deceptive promises, and who extol their indolence. Others surrender to him their troops or the strongholds which they have promised to defend. In this manner he takes possession of Pydna, Amphipolis, and Olynthus. He does not, it is true, always allow the traitors to enjoy the fruits of their treason. His object once accomplished, he dis- cards them. He fears to share the glory of success 62 POLI^riCAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. with them; and he is assured, notwithstanding these bitter returns, that he will never be in want of them. He declares the man contemptible who sells himself, and he does not count on his fidelity. Who had sacri- ficed the Hellenic cause for the profits of a Macedonian alliance more eagerly than the Thebans ? Neverthe- less the Thebans one day betrayed him; nor did the victor of Chseronea (338 b.c.) spare these deserters. He put them to the sword or sold them. Athens, on the contrary, alone of the Greek cities, always resisted his oifers and encroachments. He hated and esteemed her; he pursued her furiously, yet admired her; he returned her prisoners and spared her the dishonor of yielding to a Macedonian , garrison. Was it not as great a disgrace to her to be deprived of her liberty? Philip, in his eagerness to rule, appealed to the bad instincts of human nature: jealousy, cupidity, in short all the infirmities of egotism. He excelled in corrup- tion, and, by his corruption, in conquering. Yiolent and perfidious, mild and merciless, pious and cruel,* accord- ing to the views of his policy, disdaining mankind as all ambitious men have done, he himself had his vices, but instead of allowing them to obstruct his designs, he turned them into allies as efficacious as his good quali- ties: activity, indefatigable perseverance, heroic valor, military talent, profoundness and versatility, passion for glory, and finally that factitious grandeur accom- panying stupendous projects which were executed at the cost of an admirable unfolding of intelligence and * He cast three thousand prisoners of Phocis into the sea out of piety. In less than three years he destroyed thirty-two cities of Chal- cidice. At Olyntlius, he gave liberty to some friends of a Greek comedian, and killed his two brothers; lie had previously caused a third to perish. (Justin, viii, 3; ix, 8; Diodorus Siculus, xvi,54, 95.) PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 63 energy, but -without scruple and regardless of the means. Such was Philip, an enemy formidable in him- self and strengthened still more by the blunders of his adversaries. II. After Mantinea (361 e.g.), confusion and trouble reigned in all Greece more than ever. Never did the Hellenic cities, not even in the time of the Persian invasions, form a body of general confederation, capa- ble of uniting all the forces of the country against the public enemy. " I do not see the Greeks united by a common friendship. There are those vrho place more confidence in the enemy than in certain of their own body." The envious rivalries which divided Lacedae- mon, Athens and Thebes, omitting the cities which re- mained strangers to the practice or even covetousness of the hegemony, broke the union which it had been so necessary to form; and, if patriotism is the sympathy of all with all in a common order of ideas and sentiments, the object of which is the good of the common country, Greece never knew patriotism. Fear of the invader, the strongest bond of harmony, never made her entirely united around a common hearth, as was the Eoman republic in the face of tlie Gauls or of Hannibal. That altar of Yesta — a symbol of a country one and indivisible; those public penates; that temple of Jupi- ter Capitolinus — tlie unique seat of the Koman empire; and finally that strong cohesion of the whole people united in their convictions and faith in common desti- nies; — where could these be found in Greece, with her diversities or antipathies of race, and her parceling out of little personalities, active and vigorous in themselves, but weak as a whole on account of a distrustful and 64 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. jealous isolation? At Marathon, Athens was alone in line; Sparta waited, before marching, until the moon was full. At Salamis, Athens with her allies was the rampart of Greece. At Platsea, the struggle was sustained by the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians, the Tegeatans and Megarians, against the Persians and their Greek auxiliaries, among others the Thebans. At Chseronea, the last battle-field of liberty, Athens and Thebes alone met the enemy. Lacedaemon did not even appear too late then as she had done at Marathon. There was an intellectual Pan-Hellenism (Tracdela 'EUvjvu-^) ; there was no political, and even less a patriotic Pan-Hellenism. Greece was an aggregation of egotistical individualities incapable of disinterested sacrifices. In the oration On the JVavy boards, the ora- tor speaks of the design, ascribed to the great king, of attacking Greece : ' ' He will give gold, he will offer his friendship to some, while they, wishing to repair their individual losses, will sacrifice the common safety. Many might, without the charge of inconsistency, neg- lect the rest of Greece, while engaged in the pursuit of private interests"; and further: "the Hellenes might wish to place themselves on his pay-roll, not so much to procure any conquests for him, as to escape their poverty and acquire a little personal ease." Such are the dispositions of the Greeks in respect to this mon- arch, ' ' wealthier himself than all the Greeks together, and whose gold loads two hundred camels." They will be the same toward Philip, who is less opulent but more dexterous. He will know how to entice their cupidity and dupe them. Some will not entertain the design of giving him arms against the Hellenes, but the crafty statesman will know how to turn their pas- sions to his profit, even against their will. Never did PHILIP — THE ATHENIANS. 65 the Athenians consent to these shameful bargains, even by deceit ; but what other advantages they allowed Philip to take against them!* They dread Philip as the enemy, not of their liberty, but of their repose. Careless, buoyant, a mere trifle distracts them from their duty. In the midst of the most important deliber- ation, if a child's story had been narrated to them they would have received extreme pleasure from it. And in fact a short tale was sometimes necessary to compel the frivolous multitude to listen. "Without being devoted to laughter perpetually, like the Tirynthians, the happy subjects of Amphitryon, who was the king beloved of Jupiter, the Athenians acquitted the greatest criminals, even when convicted, "in return for one or two witty re- marks." Instead of delighting in the reasoning of the orator, they are carried away by nicknames and jokes of which he is the object before the tribune; they turn everything to pleasantry. A rhetorician at Olympia pledges them to union. ' ' This man exhorts us to con- cord," remarks an auditor, "and in this he cannot per- suade the three persons who compose his household, his wife, himself and his servant." Such is the fruit which they draw from his harangue. It is necessary to divert them in order to win them. Leo of Byzan- tium is deputed to Athens; he appears; a general laughter welcomes his small stature. "Ah! what would you think," says the clever ambassador to them, "if you should see my wife; she scarcely reaches to * The author intended here to portray only the traits of Athe- nian character which pertain to this part of his subject. A complete portrait would be more favorable, and would recall the canvass on which Parrhasius essayed to picture the contradictory qualities of a fantastic and unequable people. (Pliny, Natural History, xxxv, ch. 36, § 5. Cf. Thucydides, i, 70 ; Plato, Laws, books i and ii.) 3* QQ POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. my knee " ? The laughter and cheers redouble. "And yet, as small as we are, when we have a dispute between us, Byzantium is not large enough to contain us." Athenian gayety respects nothing, not even the venera- ble Areopagus. A member of that convention, when it was assembled before the people, used, in regard to a decree of Timarchus, and without thinking of any evil, terms implying double meanijigs, in which the malignity of his audience saw an allusion to the ques- tionable houses which that personage used to frequent. Several times the hilarity of the public underlined cer- tain expressions of the honorable and candid orator; but behold, when, with a deep tone, he entered into details, the assembly no longer governed itself, it burst out in laughter. The crier interceded: "Do you not blush for laughing thus before the Areopagus? " What could he do ? The wanton laughter was like a panic, irresistible; and it was not at Athens that the people thought of subduing it.* The Athenians were amused at the disputes of their orators as they would be at cock-fights. Demosthenes ill understands how to amuse them on every occasion. He is a water-drinker. He constantly entertains a people entirely devoted to pleasure with their trouble- some duties. Loving leisure, they passed their time pleasantly chatting in the barber's or in the perfumer's shop. Fond of news, they went to and from the agora asking one another, What news ? For want of news they forged it. ' ' The sublimity of the newsmonger is chimerical reasoning on politics " (Labruyere). The Athenians reasoned, conjectured, interpreted Philip's designs. They described what he had never done, and refused to believe what he was seen to do every * .iEschines, Against TirrmreUua, § 81. PHILIP — THE ATHENIANS. 67 day. Each one forged his own fable, scrntinized the future; no one thought of his present duty. After magnificent decrees they laid down their arms on a slight rumor, just at the time when the report announc- ing Philip's death or illness should have aroused them to immediate action more than ever before.* Always with humor to give in excess, they passed from ex- treme discouragement to extreme confidence ; from pre- sumption to despair. Credulous to whosoever flat- tered them, they closed their ears to the admonitions of Demosthenes; they opened them with complaisance to the pacific counsels of Phocion, to the naive illu- sions of Isocrates, and to the cleverness of those coun- sellors of injustice, the detestable authors of belligerent motives. Obstinately blind, the Athenians found it more convenient to turn their eyes from danger than to meet it. Philip has seized Thermopylae. At this news there is great agitation in the agora. The subject is dis- cussed, accusations are made, the people are excited; then, with the aid of their egotism, they come to tran- quillizing reflections. It is still far from Thermopylae to the Piraeus. No danger in delaying. However, if Philip has overleaped the rampart of Greece, it is for the sole object, — he himself has given his word for it, — of concluding the Sacred "War, which has stained Greece with blood for more than ten years (367-346 B.C.). Atherts does not oppose these charitable meas- ures. With a light heart she assists in the destruction of the accursed Phocidians. Philip, master of Phocis, descends toward the south. The Athenians are dis- * In an analogous circumstance, Phocion will tell them at a later time : " Do nothing hastily. If Alexander is dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow and the following days." 68 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. turbed only in a moderate degree. Philip has not yet attacked the Theban power. Now, Athens has con- quered the Thebans. Thebes is threatened, — Athens' consolation: since Mantinea, Theban arrogance has humiliated Athens. Did not Epaminondas dare to say to the multitude that "it was necessary to trans- fer the Propylaea of the Acropolis to the vestibiile of the Cadmea ? " And then these BcEotians are as stupid and heavy as the air that nourishes them. Why should any one at Athens be interested in people who have no spirit and eliaracter? Breotia is subjugated, the Thebans desti'oyed, and the invader has reached a new halting place. Athens begins to take the hint. The great justiciary of the sacrileges of Phocis and of The- ban insolence always advances. He is about to touch the point. In vain Demosthenes has given the alarm: To arms, Athenians ! Those machines erected against Thebes are going to demolish your own walls. If Boeotia perishes, you will perish, for you are the par- ticular men whom the Macedonian fears and wishes to annihilate. "Wealthy men, give your gold; wealthy and poor, mount your galleys, seize the oar and spear j^ * * * Demosthenes, a disagreeable prophet, an inex- orable patriot, is not listened to; for ^schines tran- quillizes them. His brow is serene. He pronounces the suspicions of this morose orator falsehoods injuri- ous to Philip. He advises the Athenians to spare their money, their lives, and to continue in the enjoyment of their rest. This agreeable language is a feast for them; and while treason and violence pursue their work, unfortunate Athens does not stir. At the most, she is only agitated, but she does not act. Too often her movements are as fruitless for her as- is her repose. She is generous, and adopts I'esolutions PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 69 worthy of her in favor of the oppressed, but sne does not adhere to them. An orator proposes an expe- dition. Act to-day^ cries the assembly; and neither on this day nor on the next is anything accomplished. She votes forty triremes and sixty talents. She sends ten empty boats with five talents of silver, and at another time "a general without troops, a decree with- out force, and the boastings of her tribune." She wages against Philip a clamorous war of decrees. Wliat fruit does she derive from it? Long ago had the Macedonian been chastised, if the decrees had that virtue; but in spite of their zealous speeches he al- ways progresses. The Athenians carry off the palm for orations, Philip the palm for action. ' ' That Philip, a general and soldier, putting himself in the fore- ground, animating all with his presence, losing no opportunity, not even an instant, triumphs over men given to delays, to decrees, and to conjectures, I am not astonished." Harangues, even those of Demos- thenes, are not sufficient to conquer in war. "With- out action all eloquence is powerless, especially the eloquence of Athens; for we pass for the cleverest speakers of Greece. " Quick to understand themselves and to comprehend the ideas of another, they adopt resolutions, but make no effort. That people who formerly aroused all Greece to defend the rights of the Hellenes, at the very moment \^hen the people themselves are plundered, slumbers, and allows the despoiler to go unpunished; and yet she loves glory, she admires the glory of her ancestors, and rejoices in hearing it , celebrated. But she contents herself with applauding her ancestors, the saviors of Greece, with- out having the courage to imitate them. At one mo- ment aroused (what apathy would not be aroused?) by. 70 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. the eloquence of Demosthenes, she votes war by ac- clamation, but she leaves the care of waging it to others. Instead of serving in person, the Athenians hire mercenaries; good citizens as to desire and inten- tion, patriotic warriors by proxy. The time was not long past when, before a Spartan assembly, their enemies rendered this homage to the Athenians : ' ' They are prompt to imagine and to exe- cute what they have conceived. * * * For their country they risk their lives and expose their bodies as if they were of least importance to them. * * * They know no other pleasure than the accomplishment of their duty."* What a contrast between the Athenian of Pericles' (432) day and the Athenian of Demosthenes' (360) time! The latter before all things looks to his own well-being. It is repugnant to him to quit a laughing sky, the chats of the Porticos and the Agora, the thousand artistic and literary amusements con- stantly renewed in a city not only the school but the rendezvous of pleasure for all Greece, and to go in the midst of winter into a barbarous climate to meet rude soldiers accustomed to dare everything and to suffer everything. The enjoyments of body and mind to which he has habituated himself have rendei'ed him unfit for the severe toils of war. The poor man is devoted above all to the three obols of the tribunals which enable him to li'^^e; to the two obols which assure him an entrance to the theater. He repairs to the assembly "as to a feast at which the scraps are to be divided." The wealthy man ' ' measures happiness by the capacity of his stomachf and by the most shameful pleasures," * Thucydides, 1, 70. f " What nonsense are you relating to us here ? You are talking for pleasure: Lyceum, Academy, Odeum, Thermopylae, the nonsense of PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 71 without any regard for the happiness of serving no master, "an advantage once esteemed in Greece the greatest and highest degree of felicity." It is suffi- cient to say that the wealthy and poor are ill-disposed to expose their bodies to that monstrous beast, all bristling with iron, which is called the Macedonian phalanx. They reserve themselves for more agreeable contests. Instead of fighting Philip, they fight their counsellors and generals. "Is it the author of your misfortunes that you hate ? ISTo, it is the citizen who has spoken to you of them last," when he was about to oflPer a remedy for an evil of which he himself was innocent. A military enter- prise has failed. A speaker attributes its failure to Diopithes, Chares and Aristophon. The crowd ex- claim "he is right! " and the general is summoned to trial. ' ' Brave to condemn, cowards to act, " they hold him responsible for their own faults ; or, if he himself has committed any, they punish him with a severity which they could use to a better purpose against the great criminal, Philip. What is the result of these injustices or excessive severities ? The generals desert Athens. Each one of them in all security goes to wage war where his interests call him. * Thus the Athenians do the work of their enemy, not their own. sophists. I see nothing in these worth our attention. Let us drink, Scion, let us drink to excess and make life happy as long as opportu- nity and means permit. Join in the uproar, Manes ; nothing is dearer than the stomach. The stomach is your father, the stomach is your mother. Virtues, embassies, commands, vain glory, vain turmoil of the land of dreams. Death will strike you on the day marked by des- tiny. There will remain to you only what you shall have drank and eaten. The rest is dust. Dust is Pericles, Codrus, Cimon." (Alexis, The Lord of Debauchery, frag, of the Comic Poets. Cf Plutarch, Moralia.) * Thus Timotheus and Chabrias sold their services to Persia against Egypt; Chares became a lieutenant to Artabazus; Iphicrates con- 72 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. "What shall we say concerning the election of magis- trates ? Socrates and his followers in general were not very sympathetic with Athenian democracy. Socrates dared to ridicule ' ' the fullers, shoemakers, masons, coppersmiths, petty tradesmen and peddlers, — all im- portant personages of whom the assembly of the people was composed." Politics was, in his eyes, a compli- cated science, as virtue itself was an art. "Was the ignorant multitude capable of arriving at the one or the other ? Montesquieu is more indulgent. " The people are admirable to choose those to whom they are to entrust any authority. They have only to deter- mine from the nature of things which they cannot be igno- rant of, and from facts which fall under their knowledge. They know very well that a man has often been in war; that he has had such or such success. They are then very capable of choosing a general. They know that a judge is assiduous; that many classes go away fi-om his tribunal satisfied with him ; that he has not been convicted of corruption. This is enough to choose a pretor. They have been struck with the magnificence or wealth of a citizen; this is sufficient to choose an sedile. All these things are facts of which they can better inform themselves in public places than can a monarch in his palace."* The Athenians, if Demosthenes is to be credited, ill justify the good opinion which Montesquieu has in this respect. They give offices to the wealthiest, not to the most worthy. -f- They name their political or military ducted twenty thousand Greek mercenaries to Artaxerxes; the old pirate Charidemus gained possession of small cities on the coasts of Asia, and reigned there. * JEiprit des Lois, ii, 2. f Demosthenes, In Midiam, passim. PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 73 leaders with as mueli levity as their priests. It should be required, for example, that a cavalry general could hold himself in his saddle. Now Midias, promoted to this dignity, cannot, even in the solemn processions, becomingly cross the public place on a horse. With such aptitudes for positions due to intrigue, what won- der if, on the day of action, these incapable aspirants use every evasion to escape the obligations of their duty ? They have coveted dignity. They no longer wish office if it threatens to become effective. If they decree to send out cavalry, the cavalry general sud- denly becomes enamored of the sea and runs to the triremes. If a naval expedition is decided upon, they must wait until the sailors rejoin their squadron. "How does it happen (Isocrates, after a severe crit- icism of the political customs of the Athenians, puts this objection into the mouth of a contradictor) that with a similar conduct we are not destroyed, not even inferior in power to any city ? " It is because the enemies of Athens, the Thebans and Lacedsemonians, are no longer discreet. Athens has for a long time owed the maintenance of her prosperity to the faults of her adversaries. With Philip it must be otherwise. The king of Macedonia was not a man who would be apt to become an instrument of success for the Athe- nians. " To such circumstances are you reduced by your supine- ness, that I fear (shocking as it is to say it) that, had we all agreed to propose, and you to embrace, such measures as would most eiFectually ruin our affairs, they could not have been more distressed than at present. At present your con- duct must expose you to derision. Nay, I call the powers to witness that you are acting as if Philip's wishes were to direct you. Opportunities escape you; your treasures are 4 74 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. wasted; you shift the weight of public business upon others; break into passion; criminate each other."* Instead of adopting measures most agreeable to the •enemy, why do they not hasten to do what he would not fail to do were he in their place ? But their char- acters are very different. Philip deliberates upon the future; the Athenians quarrel over the past. Philip anticipates emergencies; the Athenians follow him as if towed. " Just as barbarians engage at boxing, so you make war with Philip; for, when one of these receives a blow, that blow engages him ; if struck in another part, to that part his hands are shifted; but to ward off the blow, or to watch his antagonist, for this he hath neither skill nor spirit. Even so, if you hear that Philip is in the Chersonesus, you resolve to send forces thither; if in Thermopylae, thither; if in any other place, you hurry up and down ; you follow his stand- ard. But no useful scheme for carrying on the war, no wise provisions, are ever thought of, until you hear of some enter- prise in execution, or already crowned with success. This might formerly have been pardonable, but now is the very critical moment when it can by no means be admitted."! The Athenians are absolutely wanting in the justly appreciated quality of the Greeks, — opportuneness (euxaipia); they do everything at the wrong time, too late or too early. "The people always have too much or too little to do. Sometimes, with one hundred thou- sand arms, they overthrow everything; sometimes, with a hundred thousand feet, they only go like in- sects." ;]; "And now, Athenians! what is the reason (think ye) that the public festivals in honor of Minerva and of Bacchus are * Third and Fourth Philippics, §§ 1, 30. t First Philippic, § 40. :{ Esprit des Lois, ii, 2. PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 75 always celebrated at the appointed time, whether the direc- tion of them falls to the lot of men of eminence or of persons less distinguished (festivals which cost more treasure than is usually expended upon a whole navy, and more numbers and greater preparations than any one perhaps ever cost); while your expeditions have been all too late. The reason is this: everything relating to the former is ascertained by law, and every one of you knows long before who is to con- duct the several entertainments in each tribe, what he is to receive, when and from whom, and what to perform. Not one of these things is left uncertain, not one undetermined. But in affairs of war and warlike preparations there is no order, no certainty, no regulation. So that when any acci- dent alarms us, first we appoint our trierarchs; then we allow them the exchange;* then the supplies are considered. These points once settled, we resolve to man our fleet with strangers and foreigners, then find it necessary to supply their places ourselves. In the midst of these delays, what we are sailing to defend the enemy is already master of; for the time of action we spend in preparing, and the junctures of affairs will not wait our slow and irresolute measures. These forces, too, which we think may be depended on until the new levies are raised, when put to the proof, plainly discover their in- sufficiency."! Omitting the vices of the military and financial or- ganization, the Athenian always depends upon his neighbor.:]: He would like to apply the law to his *''AvTid<>ffi<;. Eveiy citizen who believed himself taxed unduly or to excess had the right of demanding thai a wealthier man should be charged with his liturgy. If the latter refused under pretext that his resources did not permit him to do it, the law compelled him to exchange his goods for those of the demander, — a law equitable in principle, but a source of delay and of debates very prejudicial to the harmony of the city and to the promptitude of military operations. t First Philippic, § 35. X Cf. Aristophanes, TJie Assembly of the Women, the law of com- munism in theory and practice. 76 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. neighbor and be exempt from it himself. He indif- ferently comes to the place of action at the latest possible moment, in the hope, secretly caressed, of escaping from a painful duty. We see how at Pydna, Potidsea, Methone, Pagasse, they arrive just in time to witness Philip's triumphs and their own confusion. "Can the people conduct an undertaking, know the places, opportunities, moments, and profit by them ? No, tliey cannot,"* and the Athenians less than all others. All at Athens is capi-icious, tumultuous; no decided impulsion, no regular counsels, no unique au- thority. All is done by intermittent passion, by jerks and twitches. How different it is with the despotic invader ! His finances are in a sound condition, his veteran soldiers always under arms. "What he judges proper to do he does immediately, without public de- liberation or a proclamation of decrees. He is neither calumniated before the tribunals, nor accused as a transgressor of laws, nor amenable in person; but everywhere a universal arbiter and an absolute master. In the face of such an adversary what do we see ? A people aggravating by the disorder of the time, one of the vices connected with the democratic constitution, a multitude "blinded, as it seems, by an evil spirit," an "old man in delirium tremens," as ^schines ex- presses it. In Aristophanes the favored orators of the people cajole and dupe them; in the time of Philip they fiat- ter and betray them. The spirit of vengeance forced * Esprit des Lois, ii, 2; cf. v, 10, Be la Promptitude de V Execution dans la Monarchie : " Cardinal Richelieu wislies the people to shun the thorns of societies in monarchies, societies which form difficul- ties for everything. Although the cardinal could not have had des- potism in liis heart, he miglit have had it in his head." PHILIP — THE ATHENIANS. 77 Alcibiades to desert his country. The ambitious fugi- tive wished to punish her for her intended ingrati- tude, and employed against her the talents for which he deemed himself poorly paid. Then, when the chas- tisement was consummated, he returned to her and was loved, inasmuch as he had caused her to feel the value of his favors. The return of the victor was a triumph. "The Athenians lauded what he had done for the city, and did not admire less what he had done against her." During the Macedonian epoch duties toward the country were no better known, and forfeit- ures arose from a source more impure than from the wounds of pride, — from venality. "A contagion, a terrible and cruel pest, came and spread over Greece." Magistrates and private citizens emulously called for the Macedonian's gold and servitude. The epidemic at first reached Thessaly, penetrated the Pelopon- nesus, "provoked the massacres of Elis, and became intoxicated with a furious madness of the pitiable classes who, in order to elevate themselves one over another, while extending their hands to Philip became covered with the blood of their relatives and citizens. " Far from resting here, the scourge gained Arcadia and Argolis, and finally crept into Athens. " "Whilst it has not yet spread, watch over yourselves, Athenians, stigmatize those who have imported it. Else fear lest you may recognize the utility of my counsels when a remedy shall have become impossible."* The disease, pointed out in vain in 342 e.g., continued to spread; the orator of the Oration on the Crown (330 e.g.) should have recalled the sad effects of it. In this re- spect the Athenians might have received lessons from the Spartans. Pausanias sacrificed the interests of * Demosthenes On the Embassy, § 259. 78 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. Lacedsemon to the favor of Xerxes. Convicted by the ephors he fled into the temple of Minerva. His mother was the first to place a stone at the door and shut him in. Athens did not consider things so seriously. Are Philip's friends really traitors ? Some call them pro- moters of peace, saviors and champions of the true interests of the state, as were Fouche and the auxil- iaries of the allies in 1815. The Athenians forgot to distinguish between the sincere citizen who was de- ceived and the egotist who thought more of himself than of the republic. Formerly Arthmius of Zelia, an Asiatic city, brought gold from the Persians into the Peloponnesus. The ancestors of those Athenians who were fighting Philip declared him an enemy, himself and his race infamous, and considered him an outlaw. At another time the Athenians, jealous guardians of the dignity and safety of Greece, engraved upon bronze the infamy of corrupters. How times have changed! "Envy toward him whom gold has seduced; jests and laughter if he confesses it; pardon if he is convicted; hatred against his accuser."* Such were the senti- ments awakened by the trafiic of the country. Is it astonishing after this that the Macedonians in the Pi- raeus multiplied, and, shielded from contempt, exhibited for sale a shameles simony ? Yotes, decrees, admin- istration, war, finances, — they sold everything in full market, and preached peace for ready cash. They vied in their emulation to become purchasers. " Philip was not satisfied with hearing the traitors' propo- sitions, and he did not know what prey to seize first. He took, in one day, five hundred horsemen with their arms, delivered up to him by the leaders themselves, a capture hitherto unequaled. The light of day, the soil beneath their * Third Philippic, % 39. PHILIP THE ATHENIANS. 79 feet, temples, tombs, — the guilty traitors regarded nothing, not even the reputation which was to shed infamy upon such acts. Such great venality, Athenians, strikes men with de- rangement and madness ! " Ptilip, it is true, neglected no opportunity, as he did at Dium after the capture of Olynthus, to display a liberal magnificence by which the greedy poverty of the Greeks was dazzled and enticed. Athenseus* has transmitted to us the description of a feast ' at a Mace- donian wedding, so sumptuous and splendid that it might render Trimalcion jealous. Caranus' guests re- turn from the banquet not only deliciously feasted, but loaded with gold and silver plate, enriched for life. Let an Athenian now come and talk to them o'f the meager fare of his feasts; they will send him back ridi- culed to his rockets and onions. "We do not know the bill of fare of the banquets offered by Philip to his hosts from Athens, but his liberalities are known to us. One brings back from Macedonia timber to cover his house, another sheep and horses; for the most skillful artisans the highest salary. Philocrates, the principal author of the fatal peace, which took its name from him (347 b.c), received lands whose revenue was a talent, besides the grain and gold with which he openly carried on commerce on the bankers' tables in the Agora. He brought back from Olynthus freed women, captives to gratify his pleasures, and besides this he was seen going the rounds of the market, and, a fine connoisseur, " purchasing women and fish." Demos- thenes has named several of these traffickers of the Hel- lenic family whose eloquence had a fixed tariff. ' ' The day would fail me if I should recount their names." He paints the least shameless of those who realized ' Banquet of the Sophists, iv, 3. 80 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GBEECE. their fortunes of real estate and retired into Mace- donia. He also represents those traitors in Macedonia who betrayed their country, seated at Philip's table with cup in hand, drinking the public liberty. Such charac- ters justified the insulting contempt of the princely purchaser of Greece. See in what a strain he speaks of the few orators who remained faithful. "It would be easy for me, by throwing a little gold before them, to check their censures and convert them into eulogies; but I would blush to be seen purchasing the friendship of such men."* They likewise justify this cry of Demosthenes: " TFe have inured a formidable enemy against ourselves. Let whoever denies it appear be- fore me and say where Philii^ derived his power if it was not in the heart of Athens." In fact, did not Athens send him deputies who were emulous to dejDrecate their country before him ? ' ' The people, a restless mul- titude, are the least stable, the most vacillating, of all things. They are like the waves of the sea which a slight breeze agitates: one comes, another goes away; no one cares nor studies public affairs. It therefore behooves you to have friends at Athens who will do and regulate all according to your will. Take care of this support and among the Athenians you will make all yield to your pleasure, f Philip was careful not to allow these charitable encouragements to pass gratui- tously. It was far less expensive for him to, hire a few men than to conciliate the entire city by honorable means. In this way he succeeded well. The same tongues calumniated Athens in Philip's presence and exalted Philip himself before the Athe- nians. No, never was man seen ' ' so gracious, so * On the Embassy, passim. t Demosthenes, On the Embassy, § 136. PHILIP — THE ATHENIANS. 81 amiable " ; he was gallant, he was eloquent, he was the "most Grecian" of those who were not Greeks; and what a drinker! They did not add that this accom- plished prince was an excellent payer, but the Athe- nians, when advised, discovered it. Thanks to the connivance of these allies, he deferred the oaths which were at some time to bind his hands, for three whole months. In the mean time, he pilfered and appropri- ated on all sides; he esteemed as a good capture what- ever he could possess before signing the peace. It was still in the heart of Athens that he found accom- plices always ready to become the echo of his fallacious promises, sometimes even to exceed them. This was ap- parent after the treaty and peace of 347 b.c, from which Philocrates, ^schines and their associates perfidiously allowed the Phocians to be excluded, against the will of Athens. How could the people escape becoming the laughing-stock of their machinations ? Sent to Philip in order to treat with him directly, and to exam- ine on the spot the true state of things, they were the sole official authority to decide; their falsehoods were dexterously colored, and enforced belief. Contemporary history has presented certain examples of these decep- tions of a nation by ministers employed to enlighten it, and throwing it into fatal adventures when misguided by forged declarations. "Yes," said ^schines, ' ' Philip has passed Thermopylae. What signifies ? Do not be alarmed, all will go according to our wishes ; in two or three days you will learn that he has become the enemy of those whose friend he appeared, and the friend of those whose enemy he proclaimed himself" Athens was often deceived by these phantasmagorias of her orators, but she was also often the victim of her own illusions, and of faults attributable to herself. 82 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. She had a right to cry out treason; but did not the entire people betray themselves by their weakness and follies ? " Oh, gods ! we have suffered all these plunders ; we have, if I dare say it, coBperated with him in them, and now we will seek the authors of our misfortunes ! for I know too well we will take care not to confess ourselves guilty. In the perils of war no fugitive accuses himself, but always his gen- eral, his comrade; he accuses all rather than himself; never- theless all the fugitives cause the rout. This accuser of another could have held his ground firmly, and if each had held firmly, they would not have been vanquished."* Never, indeed, did Athens accuse Demosthenes: this was justice. No man was more passionately de- voted to the difficult work of the common safety. In Philip's time, Athens numbered as many citizens (about twenty thousand) as in the days when she repulsed the barbarians, and disputed the empire with Lacedsemon; she had preserved her numerical forces, but not her valor. Let us now see what resources Demosthenes, the citizen, the statesman and the orator, used in his endeavor to restore her valor and thus save her liberty. * Third OlyntUao, § 17. CHAPTEK III. DEMOSTHENES — THE MAN — THE CITIZEN. "T'ou-. ys xaO^ abrbv fiyjriipa'; (s^w dk Uyou rlOe/iat ^wxlcova) xai Tip jSiu) -scapTjXOe : " He was the most upright of the orators of his time, excepting Phocion." (Plutarch, Life of Demostlien.es.) " My character has never been compromised. I was never known to prefer the favor of the great to the rights of the people. And, in the affairs of Greece, the bribes and flattering assurances of fi-iend- ship which Philip lavished never were so dear to me as the interests of the Hellenes." {Oration on the Crown.) IN Demostlienes, the citizen, the statesman, and the orator, were equal to the task which he volun- tarily imposed upon himself. Before entering upon his political career, the young son of a sword-cutler was in danger of being deprived of his inheritance, and said to the judges: "You have not yet put me to trial, and do not know what I can do for the state; but, may I hope, I will not be of less service to it than my father was." * This modest prevision of the young man of nineteen years was more than justified. Forty years later the patriotic exile could write to his citizens, in demanding of them a reexamination of his trial: "I yield to no one in affection for the people. Not one of my contemporaries has done more for you, none given more proofs of his devotion, "f * Second Pleading against ApTwbm, § 32. t Second letter of Demosthenes, fin. Some moderns have dis- puted the authenticity of these letters recognized by Cicero. We accept them as a faithful proof of the sentiments of ancient Greece toward their patriotic orator. 83 84 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. I. The Man. — Demosthenes had from his youth given proof of a character fitted for strife. The ath- lete, who was destined some day to bear up against Philip with all his strength, .had first tested his powers on himself. Less fortunately endowed than some of his rivals in eloquence, he resolved to repair nature's work and to remake himself His ohstinacy remained ruler. This tenacious firmness, perpetuated in legend like all that strikes man's imagination, permitted Va- lerius Maximus to say: "If his mother brought one Demosthenes to light, art begat another with toil."* ^schines several times rebuked Demosthenes with the title of Scythian. ' ' Demosthenes is neither of our soil nor of our race. * * * On his mother's side he is a Scythian, a barbarian, a Greek only in language, his heart is too perverse to be an Athenian." His grand- mother, in fact, was a woman from the Bosphorus. The stifi'ness of his character, wanting in Athenian flexibility and playfulness, was due, perhaps, to the influence of his maternal blood. At all events, his youth was not in every respect similar to that of the sons of Athenian families, but more worthy, in cer- tain respects, of the young Anacharsis. His midnight studies remain celebrated. Who is ignorant of them ? Says the author of the TusculancB Disjjutationes : " He was grieved if it happened that an artisan began work earlier than himself, "-f According to his own testimony he became an orator by using more oil than wine. It was not the oil of the palestra, ^schines reproached him for not having cared for the well-being * Valerius Maximus, viii, 7 ; Demosthenes, bora in 384 or 885, died in 333. t Tusadanae Disputationes, iv, 19 : " Qui dolere se aiebat si quaudo opiflcum anlelucana victus esset industria." DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 85 of his body in the gymnasia. Neither had the chase any charms for him. He disdained the amusements enjoyed by companions of his age. Athenian orators more than once drew unfavorable inferences from the indifference of their adversaries for the accustomed amusements of the Greeks. To pass the time pleas- antly chatting before the bankers' counters, in the per- fumer's shop, or in the barber's shop, was one of their favorite pleasures. Aristogiton did not engage in these pastimes. He lived a stranger to the pleasures of so- ciety. His accuser did not forget to charge him of this crime. Demosthenes likewise sought isolation for him- self. To what end ? To accustom himself to the chi- canery and to the artifices of a rhetorician greedy of the goods of another. Thus speaks the accuser of Ctesiphon. Plutarch gives curious, if not authentic, de- tails of the studious practices of the stubborn wrestler. His half-shaven head, his cave, his great mirror before which he was wont to declaim, his sword suspended over his shoulder to check its disagreeable shrugs, the pebbles in his mouth, and, finally, the different painful or whimsical exercises to correct the imperfections of his voice, are at least proofs of the impression left upon the ancients by a will power which has become traditional. Plutarch means that the youths should go to the gymnasium and to the chase, exercises more ennobling than fishing.* The latter has, however, one advan- tage: it does not cause fatigue, which is, according to Plato, the enemy of knowledge. Of these Demosthe- * On the Education of Children. Cf. Animals of Land and Sea. Apollo and Diana received their surnames from destroying wolves and conquering slags. No god vcas ever named from exterminating congres and surmullets. 86 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. nes enjoyed neither the one nor the other. He cared not to run in the forests like Hippolyte, and he devoted his leisure hours to pleasures which the chaste friend of Diana would have despised. Before his severity in prosecuting his guardians had given him the surname of Argas (a kind of serpent) his youth had received, not from his nurse, but from fame, according to JEsclii- nes, the name of Batalus* The customs of his manly age were not without reproach. Demosthenes' differ- ent speeches cut the characters of the gilded youth of Athens to the quick. Perhaps the accuser of Conon and Nesera has exaggerated these traits a little. The eulogies conferred upon the family life of the Athenians by Aristogiton's adversary cannot be sus- pected of exaggeration. " Naturally kind and indulgent toward one another, you conduct yourselves in this city as do families in their homes. One house contains a father, his sons, who have grown to manhood, and perhaps their children. In these three genera- tions there are necessarily numerous and essential differences of taste: the young neither speak nor act like the old. And yet, if the young people are observed, they desire in what- ever they do to escape notice, or at least they clearly show their intention to conceal themselves. If the old men, on their part, notice that the young are given too much to ex- penditure, to wine, and to the pleasures of their age, they see it without the appearance of seeing it. Thus each follows his own tastes, and all goes well."f * Demosthenes' busts have the lower lip raised against the gum, a customary habit with stammerers. For a long time he was unable to pronounce the letter R. His nurse might have designated by this nick-name an effeminate stammering like that of the Incoyables. Battos (whence ^dTTaXtx;), king of Cyrene, was famous for his stammering. Machines naturally adopted an interpretation less in- nocent. t This is an exaggeration of the Athenian quality praised by Thu- DEMOSTHENES THE MAST. 87 Timarchus is an incorrigible debauchee. How can it be helped ? Leave him to his evil propensities, with this simple restriction: "With respect to those who give chase to the young, — a prey always easy to cap- ture, — compel them to turn themselves toward foreign- ers and alien settlers. They will thus be able to sat- isfy their passion without injuring you."* Timarchus would be a very bad citizen if he did not profit by so con- ciliating a concession. JEschines endeavors to associ- ate the names of Demosthenes and Timarchus. "We know what to think of these calumnies, but of calumny something always remains. "If these fine garments, these soft underclothes in which you are dressed when you write orations against your friends, and which cause them to. pass into the hands of the judges, were taken away from you, no one would know, I believe, unless informed, whether these garments belonged to a man or to a woman, "f Demosthenes, like Hyperides and others, had easy manners, and participated in recreations before which the old men of Athens closed their eyes. However, he excepted wine from these pleasures. Did he abstain from it out of taste or cal- culation, and ought this proscription of wine to be added to the voluntary ordeals which his desire to attain eloquence imposed on him? Unlike Horace, water was perhaps his Hippocrene. Cleon: "Do you wish that I should tell you what has happened to you? You have, like so many others, gained a small case against a foreigner. Did you mutter it suiBciently all night, declaim it in the streets, recite it to every comer? Did you di'ink enough of water to inspire cydides (ii, 37): a fine condition of social relations and indulgence of good taste among a people who Imow how to live. * Against Timarchus, § 195. t Against Timarchus, § 285. 88 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. you? " Tlie Butcher: "And what do you drink tHen in order to be capable of astounding the stupefied city with your clamors ? "* Cleon follows Philocrates' re- gime. "He waters a fresh fish with a large jar of pure wine." Demosthenes' method is different. He needs more to calm than to animate himself Eratosthenes speaks of his bacchic [T^apd^axxov) frenzy; Demetrius the Phalerean, of his "enthusiasm " at the bar. What would all this have been if he had loved his wine? Pythagoras proscribed the bean as contrary to the serenity of philosophic meditation. Our orator like- wise distrusts the exciting liquor of Bacchus, and his good intention is turned against him. Water drinkers are abominable. Demosthenes often heard this epithet applied in connection with that of morose and coarse. Solon, even in his old age, enjoyed the sweet gifts of the gods. Demosthenes seemed never to unbend his stern and imposing brow. A similar contrast marked his whole life. His career gave proof that he pos- sessed a sensibility accessible to human weakness, and an austere firmness in mastering himself as soon as a higher interest of his own choice imposed upon him its duty. This man, unsparing of himself, was always so to- ward the enemies of his country. The bitter humor aroused by his political foes was not at all surprising in a citizen moved by the dangers of Athens, and by the animosities of the uViequal contest which he sus- tained for her. The sad thoughts of his mind dark- ened the traits of his character. This orator, with careworn visage and evil predictions, will be treated with curses after Chferonea. Before the disaster Ma- chines was contented to abuse his morose character * Aristophanes, Knights. DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 89 and his gross manners. What differences between these two counsellors of the people! The one sport- ive, amiable, has the smiles and indulgence of Plii- linte. He has had the good taste never to trouble any accountable person; he never banishes any person into exile. He is easy, accommodating; he views things on the agreeable side, and adapts himself to the times. He loves Athens, the liberty of Athens, as Philinte loves truth and virtue; a little less than his comforts, and on condition that it will cost him nothing. De- mosthenes is not, like him, a gallant man. He injures the Macedonians in order ,to convince them that he is their enemy; he insults Philip at the risk of implicat- ing the city; he is brutal, ill-advised; he does not know how to live. He has no heart; it is scarcely seven days since his daughter, who first gave him the sweet name of father, expired. Demosthenes, crowned with flowers, dressed in a white robe, celebrates Philip's death in a public sacrifice ! He violates the most sa- cred laws of nature and religion. He dares to say in public that he believes himself bound more by the duties of patriotism than by the rights of hospitality. He causes to be put to torture an Oritian who was sus- pected of high treason, and whom he had formerly welcomed under his roof. He accuses his colleagues in the embassy of prevarication, even after having par- ticipated with them in the repast of the Prytaneum. A blind enemy of Alexander, he persuades, even while in exile, the Athenians to revolt. His obstinate resist- ance is like that of a madman. * * * These traits de- picted by JEschines were intended to dishonor Demos- thenes, but in fact they honor him. JEschines further calumniates him when he insinu- ates that he was sold to the enemies of the republic. 90 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. In Demosthenes the citizen was irreproachable, if the man was not. Like Mirabeau, Demosthenes loved money, and for the same reasons. Plutarch reproaches him for having increased his wealth on board of mer- chantmen, which was then considered the greatest usury.* On this point modern men are justly less rigorous than the ancients were. Money is a com- modity as well as anything else. Commerce with money is therefore legitimate on land and sea. Plu- tarch accuses Demosthenes of another charge, equally trivial. The Athenian orator was never intrusted with an important commission or command like Cicero. Does the biographer wish us to understand that per- haps he would have enriched himself like Verres' ac- cuser, or that at the head of an army he would not have been more scrupulous or sparing of others' prop- erty than Diopithes or Timotheus ? f These insinua- tions should be withdrawn: opportunities are rarely wanting to him who would offend, ^schines and Philip's well-paid friends have clearly proven it. De- mosthenes was fond of luxury and its accompanying pleasures; no one lias ever convicted him of having betrayed his duties as a citizen in order to gratify his inclinations.:]: The stenographer's eloquence sufficed to delight him. Often has he himself in' his speeches stigmatized, in the name of his litigant, the greedy venality of those who deal in orations, ^schines has a right to censure him for deserving that his own in- vectives against covetous orators should be applied to himself; but is this gain, whatever may be thought of * Comparison of Demostlienes and Cicero, chap. 3. f Oration on the Chersonesus, and Against Timofheus, passim. X ^schines insists upon the Euhoean aflfairs, but without proving anything. DEMOSTHENES THE MAW. 91 it, comparable to that of Philocrates ? The author of The Lives of Illustrious Men expressed regret, and all share it, that Demosthenes was not sufficiently dar- ing in war, nor ' ' sufficiently guarded and fortified against presents." These two qualities would cer- tainly liave crowned his glory; but what his defects have left to him is still grand; and as Plutarch has said of him, if Demosthenes in some respects did not escape the common vices of Athens, he was the most honorable orator of his time with the exception of Phocion. It was no small merit during the Macedo- nian period to be, we will not say perfect, but even moderately virtuous, — the only assumption Demosthe- nes ever entertained.* Eloquence was the great power at Athens, but too often gold actuated it. Without mentioning the cor- ruption of magistrates and judges (thus Chares through his immense wealth escaped death whicli his colleague Lysicles had already suffered), the orators of Athens sold their eloquence and their silence in turn. Those whose heads Alexander demanded owed their safety to five talents which Demades accepted for shielding them, by a skillful expedient, from the vengeance of his friend, the Macedonian prince. In the case of Harpalus,t this same Demades laughed at the money- cold ascribed to Demosthenes. It is well known how Philip paid his partisans for speaking or remaining silent. He became so accustomed to success over these venal souls that he was filled with hatred toward the upright counsellors of Athens. "I would blush to * tuasi iiirpiov tcoUttjv. (Pro Corona.) t Harpalus fled from Asia to Athens (327) in tlie hope of escaping Alexander's wrath and enjoying the fruits of his extortions in peace. He succeeded in bribing several orators, but not the city's protection, and had to flee to Crete. 92 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. purchase the friendship of such men." We have little faith in a scruple of delicacy on the part of Philip. If he did not seduce Demosthenes it was not because of his disdain, but because he was unable. To bribe Demosthenes was to terminate the war at once; but if the zealous patriot accepted gold from the Medes to procure arms against the Macedonians, as the Euro- pean powers unscrupulously received gold from Eng- land with which to defeat Napoleon, never did he stain his hands with presents from his enemies. In an oration * in which he succeeded, by force of reason and elevated sentiments, in calming the Athenians who were enraged against him, in the midst of the double scourge of the plague and of the war, Pericles recalls his principal claims to their confidence, and especially his integrity, — superior to riches, — a rare quality, which the historian insists is one of the causes of his long power over the Athenians. ' ' Pericles, as eminent by his intelligence as by the respect shown him, mani- festly invincible to the seduction of presents, governed the multitude. He did not allow himself to be led by it, but he led and guided it." Demosthenes' political integrity was in like manner one of the secrets of his strength against Philip and his influence over Athens. " If on all these occasions it is evident that I have foreseen the future more clearly than others, I do not assume vanity, nor do I flatter myself with the belief that I am possessed of a remarkable sagacity. To two causes, Athenians, I will attribute all the honor of my intelligence and presentiments: the first is fortune; * * * the second the disinterestedness with which I judge and reason on all things. No; no man can show a single present attached to my actions, to my words and speeches in the administration of duty." f * Thucydides, ii, 60-65. f Oration on tlie Peace, § 11. DEMOSTHENES — THE MAN. 93 Money is the offensive arm of the ambitious. All usurpers establish their power on corruption. While Philip was buying Greece rather than conquering her, our orator's integrity remained impenetrable to seduc- tion. By that means he again acquired the right of comparing himself to Pericles and claiming honor like him. " If it is asked by what means Philip succeeded in all his enterprises, everybody will answer, By his army, by his presents, by the corruption of those who Were at the head of affairs. * * * In refusing his gold, I have conquered Philip; for if the purchaser triumphs over the traitor who sells himself, that man who remains incorruptible has tri- umphed over the seducer. Athens, therefore, has been un- conquered on the part of Demosthenes." t Demosthenes several times made allusion to the re- proach of timidity which was imputed to him. "He is weak and without courage. He counsels war and dares not propose it by decree ! " In fact, he objects to it in the fourth Philippic (341), and explains his objection by motives of prudence. The fierce reply of Hegesippus on this occasion is well known: "But it is war that you propose ! Yes, war, and with it mourn- ings, public burials, funeral eulogies, — everything that ought to make us free and save our necks from the Macedonian yoke." Demosthenes does not view it in this light. He does not conceal his apprehension of being treated, in case of failure, as traitors more justly would be dealt with. During the previous year (342) he extricated his cause from that of ^schines, a prevaricating deputy, and disavowed the criminal manoeuvres, in the expiation of which he feared that he would see, in days of anger, his innocence entan- * Pro Corona, § 247. 94 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. gled. In the third Philippic he calls to mind Eu- phrseus, the Oritian: "Kather die a thousand times than complain like a coward to Philip and deliver up any of your faithful orators." Demosthenes did not flatter himself in saying that he foresaw the future, ^schines was to accuse him of ruining Greece, and Alexander was to demand his head. From 352, in the first Philippic, he declares himself resigned to suffer everything if success deceives his expectation, and at the same time he would wish to be assured, he said, that it would be as advantageous to himself to give good counsels as to the Athenians to receive them. Notwithstanding his uncertainty he gives his coun- sels, for he knows them to be useful. "Audacity is often the child of ignorance, and hesitation that of deliberate consideration. The truly great mind is that which clearly perceives wherein is pleasure and pain, and which, in the meantime, never turns away from dangers." * Demosthenes saw the danger. "With- out fear or boasting he felt it approaching and boldly faced it. In these conditions the cautious prudence of certain apparent timidities exalts, if it can be said, the courage of principles and general conduct. According to ^schines, Demosthenes was wanting in assurance before the multitudes {Ssikbv Tzpd<; t«u? (i/kuu^y "As regards his courage I have only a word to say: If he did not acknowledge his cowardice and you were not con- vinced of it as he is, I would stop for a moment to prove it to you. But since he himself recognized it in our assemblies, and since you do not in the least doubt it, it only remains for me to remind you of the laws directed against cowards." f Thus an enemy could describe him. Some lines of * Thucydides, ii, 40. t Against Otesiphon, § 175. DEMOSTHENES — THE MAN. 95 the oration In Midiam imply a discreet acknowledg- ment of the facility with which he faltered. Midias endeavored to obtain from him a nonsuit at the cost of gold. At the sight of the banker Blepseus approaching Demosthenes, the fear of seeing him ac- cept a settlement provoked the people to such clamors that the terrified orator left his mantle and hastened his flight, "almost naked, in his shirt," before the pur- suing financier. To fly before gold and shouts is in- deed characteristic of a man very easily influenced. Demosthenes was impressible to an extraordinary de- gree. He did not always possess that firmness which permits one, without stumbling, to look in the face the situations in which coolness is necessary to escape from all danger. Demosthenes had a nervous and sensitive nature, ^schines compares him to a woman on account of the vivacity of his sentiments, and re- proaches him for weeping more easily than others laugh. He was, as often happens, very firm, very decided, in his ideas, but timid in his actions. A little was suflicient to throw him off his balance. The nil ad- Tnirari, which constitutes the virtue and happiness of Horace's sage, was not his lot. He was a man aston- ished at the most trifling things. How much he suf- fered from this weakness ! Sent on an embassy to Alexander, then encamped under the walls of Thebes, he was seized with fear and returned with the precip- itation of a "fugitive." Appalled at the march of Alexander on Thebes after its revolt, the Athenians instructed deputies to announce to Philip's son that they recognized his hegemony and that they decreed him divine honors. The author of the Philippics had not the courage to cross the Cithseron and to place at the feet of the prince whom he had mocked the proof 96 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. of his country's and his own humiliation. Dare we blame him for it? If the sentiment which inspired Demosthenes' retreat was such as we believe it was, ^schines' raillery is rather a praise than a reproach to him. But why so freely accept a mission if his courage to accomplish the task was not assured ? De- mosthenes feared, perhaps, that he would falter before the young conqueror, as he had done before Philip. In the presence of the Macedonian's court, and with- out the excuse of the military apparel which was des- tined one day to paralyze the flowing eloquence of the defender of Milo, the deputy from Athens lost his memory and stammered, a disgrace obvious to an orator who was ^schines' colleague. That nature which Demosthenes subdued at the tribune of the Pnyx was predominant at Pella. Others before him and less timid than he had experienced similar failures. Alcibiades was wanting in self-confidence at the tribune, and often broke down. One day, while haranguing the people, he let a quail escape. The Athenians ran after it, caught it, and returned it to him. Did Alcibi- ades, who was fond of diversions, premeditate this very thing in order to conceal the treachery of his memory and to give himself time to think ? An idol of the Athenians, he well knew that he was not speaking before hostile hearers. Demosthenes, in the presence of Philip, lost his self-possession as if he were before an enemy. His timidity was too manifest to think of concealing it; he could only essay to apologize for it. " Hardy, shameless, impudent, I am not, and do not desire to become so. Nevertheless, I esteem myself much more courageous than these intrepid statesmen without shame. To judge, to confiscate, to distribute the property of others, to DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 97 accuse, without regard to the interests of the country, does not demand any courage. When one has for a pledge of his own safety the faculty of speaking and of governing to please you, boldness is without danger. But, for your good, to resist your wishes, to give you advice not agreeable, but always the most useful to you, to follow a policy in which fortune rules more often than sound calculation, and never- theless to declare myself responsible both for fortune and calculation, — this, I say, proves a man of courage."* -iEscMnes taunts him for his cowardice. And didst thou not, replies Demosthenes, during the prosperous days of our country ' ' live the life of a hare ? Fear- ful, trembling, thou hast constantly expected to be struck and chastised for the crimes vs^ith which thy conscience has reproached thee. At the hour of our misfortunes thy assurance has struck every eye."f Demosthenes' timorous humor discloses the charac- ter of the citizen, resolved to brave the dangers con- nected with the political role which honor had com- manded him to choose. "Was that orator cowardly who, assailed by sarcasms, by cries, by menaces, and at the risk of being " torn into pieces," repulsed with his inflexible views and patriotic zeal the assaults of beasts (Orjpia) which had been let loose on him ? Some- times he seemed to hesitate to commit himself. What is the usa of incurring enmities which do not profit the commonwealth ? But when solemn circumstances de- manded it, as on the day after Elatea, and on the eve of the Theban alliance, far from sparing himself, he devoted himself entirely to the common interest. Civil courage is valuable at a time when the country is in danger and summons us, and when the sentiment of duty binds a citizen to bear alone, or more than all * Oration onthe Ghersonmts, § 68. f P''o Corona, § 263. 5 98 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. others, the hazards and responsibilities of the future. Cicero, consoled by Cato, displayed this courage against Catiline; Demosthenes displayed it against* Philip with no other ally or inspirer than the genius of the Athens of the past. The comic poet Timocles pictures De- mosthenes as a warrior in battle array, a "Briareus, an eater of lances and catapults."* The irony is keen when we consider that this warrior had fled at Ohse- ronea. Here it would be pleasing to use the eraser and draw the curtain. Nevertheless, if Bourdaloue marked the six circumstances in extenuation of ' ' the eclipse " of Louis of Bourbon at the head of the Spanish army, it is equitable, not to palliate Demosthenes' fault, but to show why his compatriots pardoned him. On this point Machines, a brave soldier, had fine play against the warlike orator who deserted his post. The law of Solon condemns to civil degradation the coward who throws away his buckler; and he, — he claims a crown! In vain Demosthenes, in order to escape his adver- sary's blows, intrenches himself behind his oratorical ability: at the tribune, in the embassies, in the public councils, I have served the state better than any other man. The minister of Athens has always done his duty; let the statesman acquit the soldier. This apol- ogy is more adroit than solid, and his answer to ^s- chines' sarcasm in this proverbial verse, which Aulus Gellius puts in his mouth, is truly characteristic, — " He who fights and runs away, Will live to fight another day," — a verse which the poet Horace, without doubt, agreed to on his return from Philippi. "Yes, my friends, I fled, but with you." Thus Xenocrates, not merely a * Fragments of Comic Poets. DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 99 soldier bnt a general, without further troubling him- self, replied to his companions in the rout. In like manner Demosthenes followed the general rout; he fled from the battle-field, but in fact he returned to his duty. "While he was stealing away conquered from the arrows of the Macedonians, what was ^schines doing ? ^schines has neglected to tell us. "Was he behind Philip's army, awaiting the issue of the combat, hoping, perhaps, for the defeat which must necessarily strengthen his party ? He himself took care to give us in detail an account of his services in the campaigns previous to the year 350. Nowhere has the glorious soldier of Thamines, crowned for his bravery against the Euboeans,* made allusion to his participation in the battle of Chseronea. It would have been very difficult to repulse with liis arms an enemy whose complaisant policy had prepared the road. Demos- thenes is worthy of blame, but we are not willing that ^schines sliould address him on this subject, ^schines did nothing to avert the disaster, nothing to repair it. Even after Chseronea, Demosthenes was a better and more useful citizen than ^schines. De- mosthenes' safety served Athens better than if he had suffered a courageous death. It was he, with Hyper- ides, who organized the resistance and forced Philip, by the city's resolute attitude, to treat her with care and respect. Yiewing things in a certain light, all the works of genius combined are not worth one good action. And yet, if one of these works is fitted to inspire us with virtuous acts, can we not show some indulgence to the weakness which made it possible ? The author of the Oration on the Crown did not fight like a hero, but that oration inspires heroism. It * ^schines, Embassy, § 167. 100 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. would have been a great loss to Athens if the trial on the crown had not occurred. For if she saved the honor of the Hellenes by fighting at Chasronea, she consecrated her own by justifying Ctesiphon's decree. There are fortunate mistakes against which posterity has not always the courage to protest. Let us pardon this confession. We are very well satisfied that Demos- thenes ill sustained his maxims of war to the knife on the field of battle. His death would hare confirmed his orations, but how dearly would this confirmation have been bought ! The Athenians themselves, if consulted, would not have wished it at that price; they owed gratitude to the counsellor of the city for the generous words which had awakened their zeal. Like the The- bans, they were touched with this magnanimous trait. "Thebans, you refuse to give us your alliance; very well, we will fight alone. Only permit us to pass over your land to go to Philip! "* How many times did they applaud his manly counsels without having the fortitude to follow them ? Demosthenes, in his turn, forgot what he had said concerning the duty of dying for his country, and his fellow citizens had the gener- osity not to remember it. The orator of the Philip- pics conceived courage without realizing it. He mag- nificently traced the idea of it, as J. J. Eousseau adored virtue, with a Platonic passion. Human weak- * ^schines {Against Ctesipfwn) has the unskillfulness to find fault •with this eloquence, worthy of the sublime apostrophe of Ajax to Jupiter : " Oh, King! oh, J'ather! hear rry humble prayer: Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore ; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more ! If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the light of day." (Ittad, xvii, 645 et seq.) DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 101 ness will always justify Montaigne's saying: "We must consider the sermon and preacher separately." Never would Demosthenes have made a public con- fession of his timidity if he had not known that he could do it with impunity. Athens even gave him remarkable proofs of p&rdon. It would not have been surprising, immediately after the disaster, if the people persecuted him with their resentments as the author of the public distress. On the contrary, the whole city turned toward him. It adopted his decrees, it spurned the accusers who wished to profit by the pub- lic misfortunes and overwhelm him, — a conduct equally honorable to Athens and to the orator. Yery soon the city confirmed its esteem for him by a testimony still more striking. Let Demosthenes himself speak. To quote him here oflfers him an opportune chance to avenge himself: "When the peopie came to elect a person to make the funeral oration over the slain immediately after the battle, they would not elect you, although you were proposed, al- though you are so eminent in speaking; they would not elect Demades, who had just concluded the peace, nor Hege- mon, no, nor any other of your faction. They elected me. And when you and Pythocles rose up (let Heaven bear wit- ness with what abandoned impudence!), when you charged me with the same crimes as now, when you pursued me with the same virulence and scurrilitj' ; all this served but to con- firm the people in their resolution of electing me. Yqu know too well the reason of this preference; yet hear it from me. They were perfectly convinced both of that faithful zeal and alacrity with which I had conducted their affairs, and of that iniquity which you and your party had discovered, by pub- licly avowing, at a time when your country was unfortunate, what you had denied with solemn oaths while her interests 102 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. flourislied. And it was a natural conclusion that the men whom our public calamities emboldened to disclose their senti- ments, had ever been our enemies, and now were our de- clared enemies. Besides, they rightly judged that he who was to speak in praise of the deceased, to grace their noble actions, could not, in decency, be the man who had lived and conversed in strict connection with those who had fought against them; that they who, at Macedon, had shared in the feast and joined in the triumph over the misfortunes of Greece with those by whose hands the slaughter had been committed, should not receive a mark of honor on their re- turn to Athens. Nor did our fellow citizens look for men who could act the part of mourners, but for one deeply and sincerely affected. And such sincerity they found in them- selves and me; not the least degree of it in you. I was then appointed; you and your associates were rejected. Nor was this the determination of the people only; those parents also jnd brethren of the deceased who were appointed to attend the funeral rites expressed the same sentiments. For as they were to give the banquet, which, agreeably to ancient usage, was to be held at his house who had been most strictly con- nected with the deceased, they gave it at my house, and with reason, for in point of kindred each had his connections with some among the slain much nearer than mine; but with the whole body none was more intimately connected; for he who was most concerned in their safety and success must surely feel the deepest sorrow at their unhappy and unmerited misfortune." Bdelycleon, an advocate of Labes, excuses a thievish dog in these terms: He is a poor ignorant brute. "Pardon me, he cannot play on the lyre." The re- mark is comic and profound. Vice has often other roots than ignorance, but it is also often born of ig- norance. The followers of Plato only erred by exag- geration when they confounded science and wisdom, DEMOSTHENES THE MAW. 103 in other respects a less dangerous prejudice than that of the Cartesians attributing errors to the will. Igno- rance is not alone the origin of culpability. One is born a fool, another becomes one; the latter is culpa- ble, since he has perverted his nature. The former is innocent because he is from birth what he is. The gods made him so. Antiquity was very indulgent toward moral iniirmities attributable to nature. Want of courage was of this number, and this consideration sometimes tempered the severity of punishment. Isoc- rates never dared to mount the rostrum, and he spent ten years in composing one oration. He was evident- ly interested in placing eloquence above all things. He also declared that it gave a man more honor than wealth, coiorage, and the other gifts of fortune and nature. The author of the panegyric on Athens has chiseled out gems. He is a goldsmith who pleads for his art. He may be right, but this disdain for courage, a pure gift of nature, is remarkable, for it implies in- dulgence to him who does not possess it. This dispo- sition of the ancients to condemn the weaknesses of nature gave to Demosthenes a distinction at which the moderns are at first astonished. Midias, said he, will become humble, in order to disarm your justice; be so much the more inexorable to him. "For if incapable of curbing his pride, — he had been so haughty and violent all his life by the power of nature and fate,— it would be just to moderate your rigor; but if, capa- ble to adapt himself, whenever he wishes, to moderation, he has adopted a contrary plan of life, it is very evident that after having deluded you to-day he will become to-morrow the same man you know him to be." This is saying: "Strike Midias without pity, he is not incorrigible"; and if he were manifestly in- 104 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. corrigible, would it be necessary to save him from punishment? "Well authenticated incorrigibility is an argument which, among modern nations, the advo- cates of capital punishment endeavor to establish. On the contrary, it forced the ancients in certain cases to use clemency. "There are passions which emanate from nature. Thus a son, appearing before the tribunal for having struck his father, defended himself by saying: 'But he also struck his father!' and he was acquitted; for it appeared to the judges that it was a natural failing which was in the blood, " Intemperance seems to be more voluntary than coward- ice; it also makes us the object of more legitimate re- proaches. * * * Cowardice does not seem to be voluntary in all cases, when they are examined in detail. It is not it- self grievous, but the circumstances under which it is pro- duced (the fear of servitude and death) cause pain which places man beyond his control; it compels him to lay down his arms or to commit other acts as unbecoming {dff^Tj/Jiovelv). This is why it appears to be real violence," * like the act of striking his parents by virtue of a heredi- tary disposition. It would be easy for us to multiply these citations. They all prove that, in the opinion of the Stagirite, man is not responsible for the physical emotions that actuate him, nor for acts provoked by those emotions. There are many forces which habit- ually triumph over human nature, and consequently the motives or intemperances to which we yield, shrink from the judgment of morality and human justice. A madman tears out his hair and gnaws it, — is he to be blamed for yielding to the pleasure of this phantasy? No, no more than he should be praised * Niconiacliean Ethics, iii, 13. DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 105 for controlling it, or at least victory or defeat are of very little importance here; for they depend almost entirely npon the intensity, more or less great, of the physical impression. Now, natural passions are as excusable as unhealthy intemperances. Here, then, is a formal consecration of the body's triumph over the soul, of destiny over will. All is reduced to the knowledge of knowing with what com- plexion each is born. Gall had predecessors among the ancients.*' Metoscopy and physiognomy were the legitimate children of a belief in fatality; this prejudice was so strong that it inspired JEschines with scruples against reproaching Demosthenes for his cowardice, — a trait for which nature alone was re- sponsible. ' ' It will perhaps be surprising, " said he, "that we should prosecute a man for a vice attributable to nature {^Oirewi; ypaipal).'" And in fact if natural dis- positions are sovereign in this respect, is it logical to bring men controlled by them before the courts? "Was Isocrates, then, justified in stigmatizing the in- nate baseness of the Barbarians, or Demosthenes in doing honor to the Athenians for having obeyed the generous impulses of their natural character ? The ancients, in general, under the weight of dogmas and fatality, ill-knew and ill-defined human liberty. Aris- totle attributed it to original inclinations; his theory opens the door to the convenient excuse of necessity, f * See Aristotle, History of Animals i, 9, and the Elder Pliny (Book xi, 114), here a compiler of the Stagirite and of Trogus Pompeius. f " I think that there does not exist, that there never has existed, any art capable of making men who are born depraved conform to justice and virtue." (Isocrates.) Seneca's maxim, Ars est bonum fieri, is nearer the truth. " With necessity all is well " ; this is the conclusion of grave Pindar celebrating the ex-voto of a happy lover, and an Aun- dred young courtesans broug-ht by Xenephon to the sacred grove of 106 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. "We cannot absolutely say with Socrates that cour- age, no more than virtue, is a science. For courage, in a great measure, depends on temperament; but are flesh and blood the ruling power in man ? The sovereignty of instinct prevents perfectness in ani- mals. Never will the hare of the fabulist be a thunder- bolt of war, whatever he may think of it, even by comparison. But liberty gives to man the power of ruling his physical complexion. Socrates, by his confessions, justiiied Zopyrus, the Lavater of his times; but the vigor of his mind surmounted nature. Whoever is born without courage ought to acquire it. Turenne felt his carcass agitated on the battle-field; he ruled it by throwing it into the greatest danger.* The man of courage conducts his body where he pleases, and moulds it to his liking. Did not De- mosthenes conquer rebellious organs ? Did he not resist, at his will, the allurement of pleasure and ac- quire his eloquence by the power of his will ? So strongly organized a mind was in all respects worthy of repairing nature's work. In a city where the poets (^schylus and Sophocles) skillfully handled the lyre Cypris. Pindar here speaks like an oracle : " There is in Phocis a temple to Hercules Misogynes, and its priest is bound to be chaste during the year of his ministry. Thus old men are ordinarily chosen as priests. In later times, a young man of noble birth and mild temper secured the priesthood. He was at the time in love with a young lady whom he took great care to shun. One day she came to surprise him at the hour of repose, after the dance and festival- He was unfortunate enough to forget himself. Seized with trouble and fear he ran toward the oracle, and inquired if there was any means by which he could expiate his crime. He received the fol- lowmg answer: Tlie god pardons all that is necessary." (Plutarch, Why PytMa no longer gives her oracles in verse.) * " Thou tremblest, carcass ! Thou wouldst tremble much more if thou knewest where I am about to conduct thee." DEMOSTHENES THE MAN. 107 and sword in their turn, he could have united the two qualities necessary to a Grecian statesman.* He ought to have done it; he was competent to do it. His entire life, save Chseronea, and his death prove it. Isocrates, according to tradition, punished himself for his great illusions by permitting himself to perish of starvation. Euphraeus, a clear-sighted patriot, a ridiculed prophet, "cut his throat," and thereby proved his sincerity. Demosthenes preferred a bitter struggle to a fortunate submission. This timid man braved Philip and Alexander; he pro- voked Antipater's deadly wrath. Was this the con- duct of a man without courage ? f In the silence of moral deliberation, face to face with honesty, his soul, inaccessible to fear, yielded to the calls of duty.:]: In the midst of the unaccustomed clash of arms, his body regained its empire, and . the great emotion of combat, which sometimes makes cowards forget their fear, deprived him of his firmness. The Athenians pardoned this surprise of the senses; let us regret it without branding him with injurious re- proaches which his enemies lavished upon him. Let us rather reflect on the grief by which the patriot's soul was certainly penetrated at that moment when, deceived in his dearest hopes, he quitted the battle- field on which the liberty of the Hellenes was en- tombed forever. * MuOcuvre (lyiryp k'/xn/ai np-qxr^pd re epywv. Iliad, ix, 443 ; Ora^ torem verborum aUoremque rerum. (Cicero.) ■f- When the Macedonian's assassins, at the threshold of Neptune's temple, were about to kill him and he asked of them a few moments' respite, they insulted him ; they were ignorant of what he was about to do. (Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, chap. 29.) t Too TO. Siovra Tzoistv uppijv. 108 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE, Thirteen years later (325) Demosthenes withdrew from his native soil, vanquished this time by his ene- mies' hatred. Condemned at the trial of Harpalus to pay a fine of fifty talents, then thrown into prison as insolvent, he succeeded in escaping from it and depart- ing from Attica. He could undoubtedly have found relief from the chagrin of exile in the consciousness of his devotion to the Athenians and in the thought of their ingratitude. Nevertheless his eyes could not turn toward Attica without shedding tears. Plutarch blames him for having shown such manifestations of weakness during his exile, ill according with the fiery energy of his administration. This tenderness was not at -all surprising in so sensitive a soul. Dishonored and separated from Athens, Demosthenes did not con- ceal his afiliction, but his grief remained dignified. He submitted to the unjust arrest by his country with a filial respect which recalls the Crito. " Do not think that these orations have inspired me with anger. I do not wish to be irritated against you, but com- plaint offers a kind of solace to the victims of injustice, as weeping does to the sick. I have affection for you, which I might wish you had for me. Such has been, such ever will be, my maxim. From the beginning I thought that every man connected with public affairs, if he was a good citizen, ought to hold in respect to all members of the city, the feel- ings of a son toward his parents. He will hope to find them as equitable as possible, but he will bear with them, such as they are, with a benevolent resignation. Defeat in such a case is a grand and honorable victory in the eyes of the wise. Be happy." * Demosthenes' piety toward his country was natural- ly associated with piety toward the gods. At first a * Third Utter, § 10. DEMOSTHENES THE MAN, 109 fugitive at Troezen, he leaves this place for a safer asylum, Neptune's temple at Calauria. " Respect toward the god will, I hope, furnish me a safeguard. And yet how do I know ? When we are at the mercy of another, we live from day to day without ever being assured of the morrow." These presentiments were justified. At the moment when Antipater's soldiers, conducted by an old comedian, Archias, surnamed the exM-hunter {(poyadoOijpaq)^ invested the sanctuary where Demosthenes had fled, the great man at first thought that he ought not to desecrate the god's threshold. He then sucked the poison from his pen, which was to assure him a franchise more certain than that of Neptune's temple. After this he arose. " Now," said! he, "you may act the part of Creon* in the play as soon as you please, and cast out this carcass of mine unburied. For my part, gracious Neptune! I quit thy temple with my breath within me, but Antipater and the Macedonians would not have scrupled to profane it with murder." Demosthenes succumbed under the enemies of Greece, and he fell in protecting his country's re- ligion. The foresight of this unworthy end of a generous life sometimes inspired him with bitter feelings. Young men frequently visited him in his exile and sought his counsels, but he dissuaded them from public life. " If at the outset two roads had been proposed to me, the one leading to the tribune and assemblies, and the other direct to death, and that I could have foreseen the evils, fears, jealousies, calumnies, and struggles inseparable from public life, I would have chosen the road to death." * Alluding to that passage in the Antigone of Sophocles where Creon forbids the body of Polynices to be buried. 110 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. If devotion to one's country was always recom- pensed, no man could have deserved a happier death. Cicero, himself a victim to the patriotic ardor of his Philippics^ sketched from Plato the outlines of a good citizen.* Disinterested devotion, which is the prin- cipal characteristic of the good citizen, was Demos- thenes' eminent virtue. " I am passing my life in giving you counsels, which place me lower in your estimation than many others, but which would make you great if you would follow them. I can imdoubt- edly speak thus without exciting envy. No, I cannot reconcile the character of the true patriot with a policy which would readily place me in the first rank among you and you in the last rank in Greece; but by the administration of faithful orators the country ought to prosper, and their duty to all is at all times to pro- pose, not the easiest measure, but the best. Common instinct will suffice to propose the first, the wise ad- vice of a good citizen ought to conduct us toward the second." t II. The Citizen. — Power is the test of character (a saying of Bias). Demosthenes sustained this test with honor. The man of the people, as he calls himself in an exordium, was the most useful servant of the peo- ple whom he wished to save. Faithful to a promise made to the judges of Aphobus, "scarcely had he grown from infancy " when he contributed and sup- ported the public charges. "When a man, he aided the state not only by his counsels, but also by his funds. He equipped three galleys for the expeditions to Eu- boea, to the Hellespont, and to Byzantium; he turned eight talents into the public treasury; he ransomed * De Offlciia, i, 25. f Oration on the Ohersonesus, § 72. DEMOSTHENES — THE CITIZEN. Ill Athenian prisoners in Macedonia; he gave doweries to poor daughters, and went bail for insolvent citizens. After Chseronea Demosthenes alone furnished three of the ten talents appropriated for repairing the walls. He wasted his fortune on private individuals and on the state to such an extent that he was unable in his turn to pay the fine imposed upon him by the Areopa- gus. But these were not the claims which he believed he ought to plead with his fellow citizens: he did not imitate the selfish orators who preferred their own in- terest with the people and with Philip to the safety of the state. It is in the following that he gloried: — he always contended with them and refuted them with boldness, — among others Python of Byzantium, the Macedonians' regular ambassador, and Pytheas of Ar- cadia, a treacherous democrat in the pay of Philip. "While these mercenaries were stirring up hatreds, ce- menting discord among the cities, Demosthenes was laboring to efface hostilities, to foment coalitions, and to conclude alliances. Greece was still less united against the Macedonians than she had been against the Barbarians; the motto, each one in his own house, each one for himself, had then become general. And so, instead of all contending together and at the same time, she exhausted herself in isolated and successive efforts. Athens fought at Chseronea in 338, Thebes revolted in 336, Sparta with Agis struck for deliver- ance in 330. Each of the capital cities contended alone and at its own time; no powerful movement in unison. These practices of individual efforts, so fatal to Hel- lenic interests, were instinctive among the Greeks. The cities, in their turn leaders of the hegemony, con- tributed to establish them. "It is of importance to 112 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. our city that Thebes and Lacedsemon do not become too powerful; that the first should have to contend against Phocis, the second against other enemies. These are the conditions of our security and of our greatness." Demosthenes, in 352, had not yet seen that these maxims, favorable to the preeminence of his own city, were preparing the overthrow of Greece; later he strove to reunite what political selfishness had studied to sever. What Athens had done for her own aggrandizement Philip used against her. His aim was to divide; Demosthenes', to reconcile. The Hellenic family, a privileged race, endowed with the national qualities of Europe and Asia, might have been able, if united into one state, to rule the universe.* Demos- thenes did not dream of universal rule for her; fortu- nate if she found power to sever herself from Philip's embrace. On the ground of reconciliation the orator succeeded once in conquering; he triumphed over the mutual antipathy of Athens and Thebes, and united them against the invader. This alliance had for a long time been the dream of far-sighted citizens. JEschi- nes names six political persons who, before Demosthe- nes, had endeavored to bring it about, but none suc- ceeded. "The occasion, fear, and want" compelled the Thebans to accept it: they saw war at their gates. Demosthenes, said ^schines, cannot therefore claim the honor. He did, however, claim it; to him alone was due an unhoped for success which caused Philip's star to grow pale for a moment, and which the orator considered the grandest triumph of his life. Demosthenes' indefatigable activity embraced all di- visions of the state: marine, land forces, finances, and the administration. He is always in the breach; * Aristotle, Polities, Iv, 6. DEMOSTHENES THE CITIZEN. 113 at the least attempt of Philip he proposes either em- bassies or expeditions. If Philip sends envoys, De- mosthenes refutes them. If Philip hires negotiators at Athens, Demosthenes unmasks them. When Philip sends an emissary, Antiphon, to burn the arsenals of the Piraeus, Demosthenes, ever on the watch, seizes him and has him condemned to death. A watchful patriot, he anticipates Philip, and reveals his plans. He can anticipate and foresee all. He is not one of those experts who, while serving the commonwealth, guard their retreats and fortify themselves beforehand against the accidehts of the future. He gives himself up to his task without consideration or after-thought; he has no other care than his duty and his country's safety. He alone provides for all. He proposes a resolution, draws up the decree, and charges himself with its execution.* He follows the Macedonian step by step; he throws himself in the way of all his de- signs; he arrests his course at Ambracia, and again at * The spirit of the Athenian democracy was equality of rights and duties, whence the distribution of public functions by lot, the obligation of not filling important offices several times in succession, and finally the distribution of public authority: several citizens share the different parts of the same political action. One proposes, a second has it decreed, a third executes. The duties as- signed in certain modern constitutions to the cabinet, to parliament, and to the executive power, are divided among three citizens or three groups of citizens. The Athenians found a double advantage in this distribution of r61es. The honor of the enterprise, in case of suc- cess, did not fall to one alone: in case of failure the responsibilities were shared by several. Demosthenes sometimes recoiled from the responsibility of a decree, and his enemies attributed this prudence to his timidity. Sometimes, also, in pressing dangers, when no one dared to share it with him, he took all upon himself. He took into his own hand all powers, as he did at the time of the Theban alliance : rd-j aukXii[3d-qv &-daaq !:&<; 'AOrjvvjffiv ap-(ag ap/ovTa. {Against Ctesi- phon.) 5* 114 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. Byzantium. It is he who organizes Phocion's victory in Eubcea. ," Philip has been driven from Euboea by your arms, and also (certain envious aspirants ought to choke with anger) by my policy and decrees." It is he who, at the greatest crisis, is the inspirer and soul of all Greece. "Who will save the Hellespont from the rule of a foreigner? You will, men of Athens! "When I say you, I mean the commonwealth. Now who consecrated his orations, his counsels, his labors to the commonwealth ? Who devoted himself entirely to it? I! " After the fall of Elatea (339-338), in the midst of the city's agonies, the herald, the voice of the country in distress, calls the good citizens to the trib- une. No one dares to mount it. Who courageously seized the helm at the approach of the storm ? "It was I ! " It is Demosthenes, always Demosthenes. He is everywhere.* Why this ardor to place himself fore- most at the post of danger ? It is from his conviction that his devotion is necessary to the state. "I have persuaded myself, perhaps it was foolish, but in short I have persuaded myself that no man could propose anything better than what I proposed; that none could do anything better than what I did." Was this pre- sumption on his jDart ? No ! The very defeat at Chse- ronea justified him in it. He always spoke to the Athenians in the name of honor; it was due to him that her honor at least was saved. At Philip's death, Demosthenes, an irreconcilable enemy of the Macedonians, endeavors to arouse Greece against them. Alexander, ' ' the youth, " re- veals his intentions by the sack of Thebes. Greece has only changed her master: she receives a new one, and a more terrible one. At Alexander's death, * Pro Corona, passim. DEMOSTHENES — THE CITIZEW. 115 Demosthenes, then in exile, hastens to Greece and manifests all the ardor of his youth against the con- querors of his country. He encourages the ambassa- dors at Athens to form a new league, and he visits the cities in person, summoning them to liberty. Everywhere he searches for enemies against Mace- donia, as Hannibal traversed the earth to arouse enemies against the Eomans. Even the time of his banishment was not lost to the contest which had become his life. At the Olympic games, Isocrates, a childish old man, preached the crusade against the Persians and peace with the Macedonians.* Demos- thenes made better use of his eloquence. Lamachus, of Myrrhenus, was reciting before the assembled Greeks a panegyric on- Philip and Alexander, in which^ Thebes and Olynthus were vilified. Demosthenes arose: by facts and reasoning he proved, on that great day, the claims of the two cities to the respect of the Hellenes, and the calamities due to the flatterers of the Macedonians. The auditors turned around and cheered Demosthenes with enthusiasm. The sophist, fright- ened by the tumult, escaped from the assembly; De- mosthenes thus avenged himself on the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens. Cicero passed the whole time * Philip lias kidnapped Amphipolis ; Isocrates excuses him for having taken his precautions against Athens: "If we change our conduct toward him and give him a better opinion of us, he will not only not touch our territory, but he will be the first to yield us some of his own, in order to gain the useful friendship of Athens." (On the Peace.) Farther on: "Let us renounce the hegemony; in- fluenced by this disinterestedness, the people of their own accord will offer it to us." Are we to believe that an Athenian, a rhetorician, can be so innocent? Manifestations of aged simplicity arc not rare in Isocrates. He himself felt that he was the least fitted of all the Athenians for public life. " I have not sufl5cient voice or hardiness." There was still another quality wanting in him. (Address to Philip.) 116 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. of his exile in Macedonia, and in the greatest idle- ness; Demosthenes' exile was a continuation of his public administration: "he went to several cities of Greece, strengthened the common interest, and de- feated the designs of the Macedonian ambassadors; in which respect he manifested a much greater re- gard for his countiy than did Themistocles and Alci- biades, when suffering the same misfortune. After his return, he pursued his former plan of government, and continued the war with Antipater and the Mace- donians.* An adversary of this character was not one of those who could be bought. Philip could not silence him with his gold. Alexander meant to put an end to the seditious and incorrigible orator, and demanded his head. Phocion had the shameless cour- age to vote that he should be delivered up; a cun- ning evasion on the part of Demades spared the Athenians this crime. Later, Antipater wrested from their impotency the proscription of the orator who was ever dreaded, even when the Hellenes were held in bondage. Demosthenes escaped the sword of the soldiers sent in his pursuit, as he had often before been obliged to ward oflf the blows with which the Mace- donians of Athens had attempted to crush him. Many a time summoned to justice before Chseronea, he was assailed on all sides after the disaster. This was a dreadful exasperation. "I was accused nearly every day,"t and with what hatred, the invectives of Dinar- * Plutarch, OomxMrigon between Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 4. f Where there were so many laws and decrees, often contradictory, passed by the people in moments of excitement, it was difficult for an author of a new law to avoid stumbling against the dangere of a previous law. Whence that accusation, so frequent, of infringement upon laws, TzapamjjM'J. Give me two lines of an Athenian decree, and I will hang its author. The general Aristophon, of Azenia,. DEMOSTHENES THE CITIZEN. 117 chus and ^schines can give some idea. Notwith- standing the odious address of these imputations, which -were the fei-mentations of unhealthy passions and selfish resentments, Athens, which had not the courage to follow Demosthenes' counsels in time, had not the cowardice, at least, to abandon him to his enemies. She respected in him the virtues which she did not possess herself ; she remembered the crowns which she had decreed him in return for the successes to which he had led her. boasted that he had undergone sixty-five accusations as an infringer of laws : he was acquitted sixty-flve times. Cephalus was never ac- cused : he was cited as a prodigy. (Cf. Aristotle, Politics, vi, 4.) CHAPTER IV. DEMOSTHENES — THE STATESMAN. " Tb piXriarov as\, [j.tj to fiaarav Xiyiiv: Counsel the best always, the easiest never." (Oration on the Ohersonesus.) BOEIST in 385, Demosthenes, at, the age of thirty, by his oration against the law of Leptines (355), entered upon a political career that proved to be both glorious and bitter. Lucian put these words into Philip's mouth: "What Themistocles and Pericles were once for the Athenians, Demosthenes is now for his fellow citizens." By this Philip meant that De- mosthenes was his country's bulwark. Upon a closer examination the comparison is still good. Like The- riiistocles and Pericles, Demosthenes had both eloquence and experience in state affairs, a union always good, but especially so for the Athenians, among whom ora- tory had rapidly declined into a pretty exercise or an instrument of popularity. In Demosthenes the orator was merely auxiliary to the statesman. He never talked to gain success at the tribune, but to reform, organize, and create resources. At thirty-one (354) he submitted to the people a scheme of maritime re- organization ( On the Navy Boards), the following year a proposal to reorganize the land force. When he advised to begin war, he at once explained the plans of campaign. He reproved the Athenians. ' ' But what shall we do?" they asked him. "The contrary to what you are doing." To this reply, excellent and decisive, but a little compendious, he added immedi- 118 DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 119 ately: "I will enter into all the details, nevertheless, and may you be as prompt to act as to question." Having established the necessity of levies, he ex- claimed: "What will be these troops, their number, the subsidies destined to sustain them? How shall these measures be executed? I will explain all and in order." I. Political sagacity never deserted Demosthenes. Leptines wished, in the name of equity and the reve- nues, to reform the laws of exemption. Demosthenes proved that his zeal mistook the true interests of the commonwealth. Athens was prosperous, but was her prosperity assured forever? "Those who delivered Pydna, Potidsea, and other strongholds up to Philip, what motive induced them to injure us ? "Was it not evidently a hope of a prince's largesses? Would it not be better, Leptines, to persuade our enemy, if you could, not to reward those good servants, instruments of his own wrongs to us, than to propose a law that takes away a part of the gifts derived from bene- factors ? * * * Athenians, fear to sanction an evil law. If successful, Athens would be disgraced; if un- fortunate, she would be dejjrived of her defenders." No war ! cries a politician and short-sighted econo- mist. War is a waste of our revenues. We must prevent extortions or correct them. Impoverishment of treasure lost not Orisa and Olynthus; but treason and improvidence. But war costs dearly. It will cost more to recede before the expenses it requires. Is not Athens rich enough to pay for safety ? * Another * Oration on the Cliersonesua. An effort to give a portion of his revenue to save all her possessions is, tlien, truly magnanimous. " Ah, gentlemen ! it is simple arithmetic. He who will hesitate can only disarm our indignation by the contempt which his stupidity in- spires." (Mirabeau: Session of September 26, 1789) 120 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. time warlike humor pervades the assembly. War is decreed and in gigantic proportions. We speak of ten, of twenty thousand mercenaries, — armies magnifi- cent upon paper (i-tffroXc/xawuq duydfj.ea;). Such zeal in- spires little confidence in Demosthenes. "You be- lieve you cannot do too much. Begin with a little, and if that is not suificient add what is needed. Of what good is too great an army ? You could not support it. Let Athens' actions be measured by her resources and necessities. At first we must carry on a piratical war (Xrjtrzeueiv). Ordinary forces will sufiice for that. Macedonia greatly favors it. Philip has the advantage in pitched battles." History has been called the master of life, the dangerous school where we learn both good and bad lessons. The true master of human life is good sense. With Demosthenes pa- thetic good sense made the orator, and shrewd good sense the statesman. Demosthenes had a strong judgment, never influ- enced by favor or resentment. He discerned the good and supported it with the cool firmness of a statesman who subordinates all feeling to the public weal. Thus he successfully resisted a people always ready to sacri- fice public policy to sentiment. Philip planned the siege of Byzantium, which had revolted from the rule of Athens. The people were little interested in the fate of the rebel city. "By heavens ! These people, misled by an evil genius, carry their folly beyond all bounds. Agreed, but I admit that we must spare these fools, for the safety of Athens is at stake." Archidamus, king of Sparta, was about to attack Me- galopolis, a city of Arcadia, allied to Thebes. Some orators pleaded for Arcadia, and others for Lacedse- mon, with bitterness and passion. Were it not for DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 121 their Attic tongue they would have been mistaken for citizens of these two countries. No one spoke for Athens. Megalopolis had recently fought Athens. Let us forget the past. The interests of the common- wealth lie in the weakness of Sparta and Thebes, our neighbors. It was necessary to succor Megalopolis. Rhodes in the social war had escaped from the au- thority of Athens and substituted an oligarchic for a democratic form of government. Oppressed by aris- tocracy, the people of Ehodes implored aid of Athens. Athens ought to have aided them. She would have conciliated all popular governments and strengthened her own constitution, of which oligarchy was the im- placable enemy. The Rhodians failed, but they were unfortunate. "Shall we say that the Ehodians merit their misfortune? The .time is not well chosen for us to rejoice. In prosperity we should show great benevolence to the unfortunate, for the future is veiled to all men." It was necessary, then, to fight for the liberty of the Khodians, and in a manner worthy of Athens. "You listen joyfully to eulogies of our an- cestors, you contemplate their exploits and their tro- phies. Now know that these trophies were erected to inspire in you no sterile admiration, Rut a desire to imitate tlie virtues of the heroes who consecrated them." Later, Demosthenes would have persuaded the citizens to follow, in regard to Thebes, this course of intelligent generosity. "When he expressed that sentiment it was to unite it with practical reason. The well ordered interests of the state were always the decisive rule of his counsels. When the ques- tion was Lacedsemon, or "accursed Euboea,"or "im- pious" Phocis, as JEschines called it, Demosthenes did not care to consider "the virtue" of the threat- C 122 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. ened people, but only Athens' duty in not dishonoring herself by refusing her aid to oppressed Greeks. The political sagacity of Demosthenes never knew the ingenious prejudice or selfishness of narrow souls. One of the special arguments of Philip's partisan ora- tors was that it had been necessary for thein to use his power in order to punish the barbarians. Demos- thenes, more sincere and judicious, persuaded the Athenians not to make war upon the Great King (354). " For the sake of our welfare, in the name of the troubles and suspicions sown in Greece, do not assail him. If we could throw ourselves upon him with one accord, I would say, Attack him, 'tis right; but since unity does not exist, let us not give the kitig one pretext for making himself arbiter of the rights of other Greeks. When tranquil, we make him suspected of a desire to attempt perhaps a thing of that kind; when we attack, we authorize him to seek aid against our hate in the friendship of other people. Do not expose the wounds of Greece by an appeal to arms, that will never be answered, nor by feeble hostilities; rest calm, confident, pre- pared!. Great Gods! let not the monarch know that the Hellenes and Athenians are embarrassed, discouraged, and alarmed; truly, very far from it; but let him know that if falsehood, perjury, were not a disgrace in the eyes, of Greeks, as it is a title of honor to his followers, you would have marched against him long ago; and that, not disposed to as- sail hira now, for your own sakes, you pray the Gods to scourge him with the same vertigo which formerly visited his ancestors. If he happens to consider, he will see that your resolutions lack no wisdom." * In counselling the defiant and prudent attitude, De- mosthenes, having hardly entered upon his public ca- * On the Navy Boards. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 123 reer, gave proof of Sagacity and of elevated sentiment that never deserted him. Cardinal Eichelieu allied himself to the Protestants of Germany, Francis the First to the Turks. Athenian Demosthenes persuaded the commonwealth to form an alliance with the barbarians. "For all these reasons, I think you should send ambassa- dors to treat with the king; and lay aside those idle preju- dices which have so often been injurious to your interests, — that he is a barbarian, our common enemy, and the like. For my own part, when I find a man apprehending danger from a prince whose residence is in Tusa and Ecbatana, and pro- nouncing him the enemy of our state, who formerly reestab- lished its power, and but now made. us such considerable offers (if you rejected them,thatwas no fault of his), and yet speaking in another strain of one who is at our gates, who is extending his conquests in the very heart of Greecfe, the plunderer of the Greeks, I am astonished, and regard that man, whoever he is, as dangerous, who doth not see danger in Philip." * Demosthenes, true to himself, did not hesitate to em- ploy the gold of the great king against the gold of Philip, at the risk of being accused of reserving a part for himself. His fearful apprehensions were at length allayed by the realization of his prophecies, and the sight of Persian satraps helping the forces of Athens to deliver Perinthus. This same good sense, free from all prejudice and fas- tidious regard. of scruples, shone out again at the time of the accusation of Diopithes. This general, had suc- cessfully, with his own authority, but for the benefit of Athens, attacked the Macedonian cities of the Helles- pont, ravaged maritime Thrace, and imposed heavy contributions upon the Grecian colonies of Asia. These * Fourth Philippic. 124 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. colonies complained to Philip, already imtated by the devastation of his territory. This prince demanded justice of Athens. Orators of the Macedonian party accused Diopithes of violating the peace and law .of na- tions. Demosthenes defended him. The Athenians alone were guilty of those actions imputed to the bold general. " We have no desire to contribute our own means, nor courage to fight ourselves, nor strength to renounce the bounties of the treasure, and furnish Diopithes the promised supplies; and instead of rejoicing in the riches he has gath- ered, we discredit him with an inquisition, jealous of the means he will employ, of the course he will pursue, in fact, of everything. If we send him no help, if he cannot sustain his troops alone, whence should he expect supplies? From heaven? Impossible! Then he must live from what he collects or begs or borrows. * * * I hear these rumors: He will besiege Candid, he is hetrctymg Greeks. For such a man is full of solicitude for the Greeks of Asia. Undoubtedly it is more jpraiseworthy to care for foreign land than for home! * '^ * If Diopithes committed these acts of vio- lence and captured these vessels, a few lines from you, Athe- nians, a few lines can arrest him." Diopithes' accusers demanded the recall of the gen- eral and the disbanding of his army. Splendid result ! Ask Philip if he desires another; to answer his prayer would be foolish. " Why license Philip to do all things, while he lets Attica alone, if you will not even permit Diopithes to succor Thrace without being accused of inciting war? But, by Jupiter, say the accusers, our mercenaries and Diopithes acted like true pirates. Our duty is to suppress these disorders. Be it so: admit it. I suppose the interests of justice alone have prompt- 'ed this counsel; but. these are my thoughts; you will accom- DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 125 plish the dissolution of one of the armies of the common- wealth by defaming the general who found the means of preserving it. Well, prove that Philip will also disband his troops, if Athens listens to your wishes. * * * Athe- nians, do not be deceived; only words and false pretexts are given you ; 'tis only plotted and contrived that you remain inactive within and unarmed without, and permit Philip to execute all his plans in security." Diopithes was maintained in his command: a just and wise decision, due to the politic good sense of the ora- tor. Demosthenes preferred the safety of Athens to a great record of scruples. To disarm Diopithes before Philip, would have been to ally himself to the Macedo- nians. Demosthenes did not follow the love of an ab- solute equity to a candor that bordered upon desertion. II. Theophrastus wrote a treatise on "Politics Adapted to Circumstances." This work, inspired per- haps in the contemporary of Isocrates and Phocion, by the spirit that prompted the most honored men of Athens to submit to the Macedonian yoke, was un- doubtedly lost before the time of Cicero. Sinon, the author of the letter to Lentulus {Ad J^amiliares, i, 9), would not have failed to draw from it, in behalf of his political inconsistencies, arguments more plaus- ible than those he borrowed, by aid of forced inter- pretations, from certain maxims of Plato. That fickle and versatile spirit, Cicero, believed that in changing his friendship and policy, he never proved false to his principles. But weak in character, he deceived himself as to the true motives of his political ma- noeuvres. He invoked gratitude and resentment, neces- sity and convenience: " It is not proper to do violence to our parents or to our country." In his opinion, an honorable repose (cum dignitate otium) should 126 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. be the goal of all statesmen. (He did not attain it, for he was slain by Antony's satellites.) Demos- thenes never hoped to pass his old age in that honor- able repose. Like Cicero, he succumbed to the perse- cution of the heroes of the Philippics; but he did not, like him, essay the apology of selfish retractions. We cannot examine now the long speech of the in- constant friend of Pompey and Csesar. Let us take only some traits to which Demosthenes would have assented: "We must know how to follow the spirit of our times. Behold the men who have excelled in the art of government: are they praised for having eternally followed one line of conduct ? Old sailors sometimes yield to the tempest, which carries them still farther away from port. When by shifting sail and by tacking we can reach the haven of our hopes, it is foolish to persist in our first dangerous course. So, what we statesmen ought to propose for ourselves, is not unity of language but unity of purpose." For Demosthenes this unity of purpose was the independ- ence of the Greeks. Unity of language failed him several times, notably upon one memorable occasion. According to an ancient Athenian custom, the sur- plus revenues of Athens were distributed among the citizens who were present at religious ceremonies, to encourage their attendance, a reward of two oboles being given to each. This diobole, a sort of first offering to devotion, stimulated the religious zeal of the Athenians, as the tithes of prebends formerly re- warded canons for exactitude in office. This special fund was called the Theoricon {0su>pia). After the Theban war the Athenians, believing themselves se- cure, used the money saved, not only in bestowing rights of attendance upon the Theories, but in cele- DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 127 brating games and admitting poor people to the pub- lic festivals. Fearful that some day they might truly repent of this change, they decreed capital punishment against any orator who should propose to modify these dispositions so favorable to their pleasures. Theatrical representations being part of the ceremony of the great Bacchanalian Dionysia, for example, the thedricon enabled the indigent to unite with their devotions to Bacchus the pleasure of listening to Sophocles and Aristophanes ; it warranted to the poor their entrance into the theater. The people of Athens thus made their entertainments gratuitous and sacred. Notwithstanding the law of death, Demosthenes, in- capable of prevaricating silence, often found fault, sometimes with great caution, sometimes with marked energy, with this wasteful employment of the finan- cial reserves of the republic, and he demanded that they be used to relieve the pressing necessities of the war. One day the orator justified these abuses which he had attacked. How shall we explain this unex- pected contradiction? — by the controlling spirit of all Demosthenes' public acts, the welfare of the State. This question of the theoricon became a source of contention between the wealthy classes, whose con- tributions enriched the coffers of the state, and the poor, who enjoyed the taxes without paying them. Isocrates echoed the complaints of both parties, but especially those of the rich, whose condition "was even worse than that of the poor." Truly, poverty had become a profitable profession in Athens, an enviable sinecure. Aristophanes, in his Flutus, praised poverty so highly from a moral point of view, that it seemed the perfection of Antisthenes' maxim: Pov- erty is a blessing. The Charmides of Xenophon's 128 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE EST GREECE. Banquet* celebrates its profits and pleasures. His fortune once made him fear thieves and sycophants. Daily new taxes to be paid, and no liberty to leave the territory. But now that he is ruined, what a happy change! "How comfortably I sleep; the re- public has confidence in me; I am no longer threat- ened, it is I who threaten others. A free man, I can go or stay. I appear: the rich arise from their seats, or make room for me in the streets. To-day I resemble a tyrant; I was then a slave. Then I paid tribute to the state; now the state, my tributary, supports me. I lose nothing, for I have nothing, and always live in the hope of bettering my fortune. In 341, alarmed more than ever by the dangers of internal discord in the face of an enemy daily increas- ing, Demosthenes, unable to conciliate two factions, pronounced himself in favor of the stronger. He thought that the rich would be more easily reconciled to support the theorioon than the poor to lose its pleas- ures, and, in default of a perfectly equitable settle- ment, he chose a solution beneficial to the state. "An- other evil afilicts the republic, engendering among us unjust complaints and unbecoming debates, and fur- nishing pretexts for those who do not wish to fulfill their duty as citizens. (The rich say, instead of arm- ing the triremes at our expense, you can arm them with the gold you get out of us to amuse the prole- taires.) I fear to touch this question, but nevertheless will attempt it, hoping that for the common good I may speak to the rich in behalf of the poor, and to the poor in behalf of the rich; but let us cease our in- vectives, provoked by theatrical distributions, and lay aside all fears that they cannot continue without calami- * Chapter 4. (Cf. Isocrates.) DEMOSTHENES TPIE STATESMAN. 129 tons results. We can imagine nothing more essential to the success of our affairs and the firm establishment of our whole social edifice." In the continuance of the theoricon Demosthenes saw a solution of the social question, — a necessary solution, for Philip was at the gates. Demosthenes was not of those stiff, unbending men who say, "Let the state perish rather than my prin- ciples." He could make concessions to the necessities of the moment; he was an opportuniste. The ancients esteemed the ready choice of expedients {euxaipia) as a kind of virtue; it is at least the necessary quality of a statesman. The Euboean Callias was, according to -^schines, more remarkable in all his twists and turns than the Euripus, whose shores he inhabited. This capricious versatility is a great fault, but it is well to know how to adapt our course to the obstacles in our path. This characterized Demosthenes. Instead of the inflexible rigor of a theorist, of the irreconcilable doctrinaire, he possessed a suppleness rarely accorded to vigorous genius, and particularly remarkable in him. He struggled against Athens and Philip with a tenacity of conviction and patriotic ardor that nothing could weary or discourage. But the impetuosity of his ob- stinate assaults against tlie public enemies was not born of blind temerity. His judgment rather than his feelings urged the war; and he was the first to counsel peace when, in accordance with honor, the interests of the city demanded it. Philip was awarded the place of Phocis in the Am- phictyonic council, and even called honorable president of the Pythian games. The Athenians were humili- ated by a condescension disgraceful to all Greece, and personally disturbed by the probable results of the 130 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN" GREECE. hmniliation of tlie Ampliictyons at the feet of the vic- tor of the Sacred War; therefore they abstained from sending deputies to the Pythian solemnity. Philip pressed them to sanction the decree of the Amphic- tyons (346). The assembly was undecided. Demos- thenes did not hesitate. He did not wish to endeaA'^or vainly to dispute a trifling question of prerogative (rjji; iv /leX^cH(; axidq) with the Macedonian at the cost of a crusade of the Greeks against his country. " Athenians, do not give any necessity or pretext for con- certed attack upon you to the people who compose the con- gress, and who once called themselves Amphictyons. [The composition of the Amphictyonic council had been changed by the dissension of the Grecian cities, and the institution itself perverted by the precedence of a barbarian.] * * * What, in my opinion, is to be feared, and what have we to avoid? that the war, reserved for future years, will not aiFord a common pretext, a general complaint in all Greece against us. For if Argos, Messina, Megalopolis, and other states of the Peloponnesus, rallied with the politics of these cities, threaten us in their hate, aroused by negotiations begun with Lacedaemon, because we seem desirous of supplanting them; if Thebes, which, as you know, already hates us, loves us less because we recall her exiles, and give her maTny proofs of our malevolence; Thessaly, because we care for the safety of the Phocidian outlaws; Philip, because Athens refuses him a place in the general council of Greece; — I tremble lest all these powers, animated by particular resentments, and au- thorized by Amphictyonic decrees, should concentrate upon us in a federal war, and each people * * * rush to arms against a new Phocis. * * * To avoid the war, and yet to do nothing unworthy of Athens, to show all our prudence and the equity of our response, — these are, I think, our duties." The policy of Demosthenes had always been to unite Greece against Philip. "Would it not have been DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. .131 folly to have armed, by ill-timed and feeble protesta- tions, Greece and Philip against Athens, who violated the sworn peace? Philip could not wait long for a legitimate cause of disagreement. Two years after- ward, as protector and arbiter of the rights of the cities near the temple of Delphi, he begun again to plan invasions of Lacedsemon. Demosthenes this time said no more of peace. Philip, in violating it, had once more justified the convictions of the orator.* In human hands the purest doctrines can become corrupt. That of opportunists had its dangers; it could furnish ready excuse for injustice and desertion. Grave and distinguished judges of every age, in their decisions, have considered the interests of Athens, * * * and the ciroumstances.j- "Is not justice false to her first duty when she pulls the bandage from her eyes and seeks to learn the aspect of the heavens and the quarters of the wind ? Cicero, who prosecuted the extortionate Yerres, and defended the oppressive Fon- teius the following year, the bitter enemy of Yatinius, soon after his friend, invoked opportune maxims to justify his changes." In the name of the public * Religious legislators themselves did not disdain opportunism. All the gods of paganism, except perhaps hospitable Jupiter, were touched more by ail ampiiora of wine offered to themselves than by a cup of water given to the thirsty. Usually the richness of the gifts determined the measure of their favors : they ignored the goodness of grace. This exactness was burdensome to the poor, or Attica counted a great many of them on her meager soil, whence the reli- gious maxim : " A few grains of incense honor the divinity more than a hecatomb." This was to give a lecture to Olympus. {Esprit des Lois, xxiv, 23, 24.) t Pro Flaeco, 39. Cicero's changeableness did not save him from this humble assertion, " Scio me asinum germanum fuisso " [Ad Atticum, iv, 5), nor later from proscription. What would he have lost by taking a straight road without beating about? 132 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKlIECE. good Demades and ^schines, statesmen of Athens, abused him with their usual frankness. Melanopus, the rival of Callistratus in the government, began more than one harangue in these words: "Citizens, Callis- tratus is my enemy, but may he to-day be governed by the interests of the state ! " His intermittent enmity was softened by the silver of Callistratus. Nicodemus from Messina was more frank when he said : "I have changed my party, but not my sentiments. It is best always to submit to the stronger." ^schines thought to injure Demosthenes by affixing to him the epithet "fickle" (-aXi;j.jSoXov). Theopompus took up the word, to the great astonishment of Plutarch. In fact, this calumny is surprising when aimed against a man who had lived and died, his soul inflamed by an unique passion, — hatred of the Macedonians, — and with a firm resolution, — the obligation of honor, — to fight them. Some transient alterations, far from weakening his constancy, confirmed it. It is praiseworthy for the statesman to appear inconsistent with himself when such appearances establish his disinterested fidelity to his coxmtry's good. But this disinterestedness must defy even the insults of suspicion. Such was not always the opportunism of the Ro- man patricians. Porsena, allied to the Tarquins, marched upon Rome. Never did such a "terror" seize upon the senate. The people could receive the kings into the city and prefer peace to nominal independence, with which the rule of the usurers, their masters, deluded them. It was necessary to deceive them for the sake of public liberty. "While the crisis endured the senate lavished favors upon them, and the means of sustaining them were of prime- importance. Wheat was brought even from Cannae. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 133 The monopoly of salt, sold at exorbitant rates, was taken from a few private individuals and reserved for the state. Poor people were exempt from all imposts. ' ' The poor paid tribute enough in raising their chil- dren." This benevolence of the senate bore its fruits. The plebeian justified Aristotle's observation: "The people fight well when they are fed." The horrors of siege and famine did not disturb for one moment the pleasant relations existing between the high and the low of the city; and Porsena, powerless against this union, was forced to retire with his royal clients. Bossuet* has praised "the wise senators" for their just condescension. He neglected to add that, the peril passed, they avenged themselves for their fright and forced humility before the exigences of aristo- cratic interests. The nobles had all to lose in the reestablishment of the Tarquins; the plebeians could expect nothing but a change of yoke, and the second yoke would not be the heavier. Upon the death of Tarquin the senate again showed its true nature. "The joy of the patricians knew no bounds, and the people, until then cared for and tickled with constant attentions, lived from that moment exposed to the oppression of the' great, "f The senate had consented to be just in an "extreme necessity," as in other cir- cumstances it surpassed the liberality of the most lib- eral, — a slyness not peculiar to Koman policy, if we can judge from an allusion of Camille Desmoulins: The Jacobin, C. Gracchus, proposed the division of two or three conquered cities; the ci-devant (aristocrat) Drusus proposed to divide a dozen of them. Gracchus * Dlscours sur I'histoire universelle. [Empires, iii, 6.) f '' Nam.cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum." (Lucretius, v) ; Livy, ii, 9, 21 : " Passato '1 pericolo, gabbato '1 santo." 134 POLITICAL ELOQTJElSrCE IN GEEECE. fixed the price of bread at sixteen cents, Drusus the maximum at eight. This proceeding was so success- ful that the people grew cold toward their genuine defender, who, once made unpopular, "was killed by the aristocrat Scipio Nasica, by a blow with a chair," at the first insurrection.* Such opportunism is nothing but weakness and falsehood. III. Demosthenes would have been badly inspired to incite the Athenians to an untimely war as long as his eff'orts to convince them of its inevitable neces- sity were so easily paralyzed. The orator-minister at Athens had not at his disposal the resources of the chiefs of the Kbman republic, nor those of the min- isters of modern states. Cicero, the consul, was in- vested with the most extended power the law could confer next to the dictatorship. The head of the senate, arbiter, and governor of popular assemblies, he commanded the public forces and raised legions at his will. In a republic he was king of the city. Athens had nothing similar. There the real power fell to the orator, the leader and ruler of the multi- tude; but this power, dependent upon the personal in- fluence of the citizen, and neither bestowed nor sus- tained by law, must be defended every day by the statesman whose work it is, and through whom alone ( it exists. His political enemies have the same rights 'land facilities to overthrow as he to maintain it. l&o I legal term limits or prolongs it. Pericles governed Athens forty years; another politician might rule it a year, a day. For sixteen years (354-338) Demos- * Livy, ix, 70 : Le vieux Cordelier, No. 3. C. Desmoulins attrib- utes by a mistake the deatli of Tiberius Gracchus to his brother Caius, the colleague of Drusus, and who, 'with others, perished also by a violent death. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAHT. 135 thenes struggled for the welfare of Athens with no other aid than his own patriotism and genius. Dur- ing this long ministry, when the opposition was repre- sented by almost the entire city, what allies had he against the powerful seductions which Philip and his associates used with the Athenians for his destruction? How could he more effectually oppose them th^n by his personal efforts? Eloquence is also in our own days a force in government, but do the logical orations of the tribune alone obtain a favorable vote of the cabinet? Athens had no favors to offer, no titles of honor to bestow. The adversaries of Demosthenes tempted the people with the delights of peace; De- mosthenes placed war before their eyes. They flat- tered the vices of the people; Demosthenes laid them bare and cured them with rough treatment. His op- ponents are the pensioners of Philip, the indifferent, the bad citizens, and even some honorable people. Philip counted, perhaps, among his adversaries more than one Timarchus; but he numbered also Phocion among his auxiliaries, voluntary or not. This pacifi- catory general was the only gratuitous ally of the Mace- ^ donian, but not the least precious. In fact, was it helping the Athenians to success in battle to declare! it impossible ? The axe of Demosthenes' orations alsoj cut the nerve of resistance in the undecided. The at- titude of Phocion encouraged distrust and disturbed sincere patriotism. Were the hostilities which Pho- cion condemned truly legitimate and wise ? If he deceived himself, there was no disgrace nor risk . in deceiving one's self with him, but only self-aggran- dizement. The efforts of Demosthenes to awaken the national patriotism were frustrated by one of the most prominent citizens, impelled not by conviction, but by 136 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GBEECE. command. If the principal general of the republic, elected forty-five times, embarrassed the policy of De- mosthenes and increased for a time the difficulty of affairs, what can be said of incapable or treacherous generals ? of Chares, of Charidemus ? Demosthenes was the instigator of the war. All responsibility was thrown upon him. To him were charged difficulties, excesses, reverses, from within and without. A thou- sand obstacles arose before him and made his path uneven. One of the most frequent causes of disorder in the city was the assessment of the taxes, a cause especially' pernicious, since the financial organization was the basis of the military administration. The liturgies, or public services, were demanded according to the wealth of the citizens; but how estimate exactly the resources ? . and how many ways for the selfish to escape their obligations! The law of exchange, and above all the employment of the public treasure, provoked grave troubles.* Upon questions concern- ing taxes, the rich and poor disagreed. The neces- sity imposed upon rich Athenians to substitute them- selves for the treasury, to supply civil or military demands, irritated them. On the other hand, the poor claimed maintenance by forced contributions from the rich, thus diminishing so much of the state tax, a part of which alleviated their poverty or fur- nished their pleasures: indigent or opulent continu- ally wrangled over the public revenues. Demosthenes, in the midst of a conflict difficult to subdue, had much to do: how many abuses to reform in the old * Demosthenes had already tried to remedy it in the oration On tjie Navy Boards by the avridoatg. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 137 laws or in their application! The rich could formerly- associate themselves in parties of sixteen for payment of taxes; each one thus paying only a small sum, provided only that the sixteenth had enough money to equip one ship. But little as this tax-payer and associate outfitter (iruvzeX-^q) was burdened, he sought to evade the tax by taking refuge in the temple of Diana. The trierarchs that were less agile to flee to the feet of the shrines were thrown into prison. But, by waiting, the galley was not armed. In the meantime, less wealthy citizens, crushed by these same obligations, having lost thi-ough them their limited resources, were sometimes even unable to satisfy the law. Ships already on the sea were abandoned, others remained in port awaiting equipment. Demosthenes , prevailed on them to adopt a system of proportional taxation, whereby each . rich man was compelled to furnish, without associates, at least three vessels and a longboat. Those citizens whose property amounted ' to less than ten talents (about $11,000), preserved the right of associating until their accumulated for- tunes reached this sum. Owing to this reform the Athenian navy ceased to deteriorate, and the equip- ments were at last completed in time. Demosthenes had gained the cause of his country, in desj)ite of all resistance of privileged orders. ' ' The sum which they offered me for not proposing my law, or at least for (Relaying it, I dare not tell." After bribery the vessel- owners tried menaces. Demosthenes was prosecuted as an infringer of the laws, but his accuser did not obtain a fifth part of the votes. Notwithstanding selfish interests, the courageous minister of Athens succeeded in relieving the poor and in recalling the rich to their duty, and " since then all things occurred 6* 138 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IW GREECE. peacefully,"* "but it was late (in 340), only two years before Chseronea. Demosthenes had succeeded in reforming the trier- archy ; he could not destroy, nor even weaken, the abuses of the theoricon. He would have wished that the allow- ances from the treasury were not an encouragement to indolence, but a remuneration for public service. "If you. should to-day wish to throw off these habits, • and to use the resources oflfered by your internal riches to reconquer your external possessions, you would be delivered from these alms, which resemble aliments, given to the sick by physicians: they do not restore them to health, but only prevent them from dying. Even so, the pleasures which you cher- ish to-day are not sufficient for all your needs, nor by insignificance do they lead you to disdain them and to return to useful labors; they are nourishment to your indolence. Do you wish, some ask, to trans- form them into pay ? f I wish immediately a rule applying to all, that every citizen receiving his share of the public revenues, may be ready to relieve the different needs of the State. Does peace authorize repose ? In your houses you rejoice in a better con- dition, sheltered from the unworthy actions which indigence imposes. Does an alarm come unexpectedly, as to-day ? The donation makes you a soldier and justly compels you to protect your country. Has one of you passed the age of service ? let him receiv^ * Pro Corona, passim. The civil pleadings of Demosthenes, relat- ing to maritime duties or to affairs of maritime commerce, give inter- esting details about the abuse of the trierarchy. See especially the Pleadings for Apollodorus and On the Naval Crown. t The Roman Senate had to give pay to the army before Veii, which bound it to an annual service: "Annua sera habes, annuam operam ede." (Livy v, 3.1 DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN, 139 what he has already received, undeservedly and un- duly, in the name of the common law, for the inspec- tion and administration of the affairs of the common- wealth. In a word, neither adding nor subtracting anything, I suppress all confusion, and establish order in the State by submitting to a common rule all tax-payers, soldiers, judges and citizens, employed according to their age and circumstances. I do not say: 'It is necessary to distribute to the idle the wages of the worker; to keep yourselves unoccupied in the midst of pleasures and uncertainty with no other aim than to hear the news: The mercenaries of such a one have conquered.'' For such is now your life. I do not censure those who, in your stead, perform a part of your duties ; but I demand that you yourselves should do for yourselves that for which you hire others, and not leave the post of honor won by your ancestors at the price of so many glorious perils." * The establishment of an unparalleled remuneration, not under color of help, but of legitimate indemnity, rendered possible the organization of a standing army. Philip had such an army; Athens opposed him with troops levied in haste, and usually at the last minute. The occasion having passed, the fortifications were abandoned. Upon a new alarm, new preparations and new tumults occurred ; nothing was determined, noth- ing established. "With such a system Athens could do nothing opportunely. She miist have an organized army in readiness, and thoroughly disciplined. "To day you ask, What are the intentions of Philip ? Upon what point is he now marching? Perhaps, then, Athe- nians, you will trouble yourselves to ask, "Where is the Athenian army ? "Where will it show itself?" But is * Third Olynihiac. 140 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IS GEEECE. that an Athenian army which is composed only of mer- cenaries ? ' Demosthenes wishes that Athenians be en- rolled in it, if only to watch over the mercenaries. He remembers that, by this mixture of the natiojial element with foreign forces, Athens once conquered Lacedsemon. " But ever since our armies have been formed of foreigners alone, their victories have been over our allies and confeder- ates; while our enemies have arisen to an extravagance of power. And these armies, with scarcely the slightest atten- tion to the service of the state, sail off to fight for Artabazus, or some other person; and their general follows them. Nor should we wonder at it, for he cannot command who cannot pay his soldiers. What, then, do I recommend? That you should take away all pretenses, both from generals and from soldiers, by a regular payment of the army, and by incorpo- rating domestic forces with the auxiliaries, to be, as it were, inspectors of the conduct of the commanders. For at pres- ent our manner of acting is indeed ridiculous. If a man should ask, 'Are you at peace, Athenians?' the answer would immediately be, 'By no means; we are at war with Philip. Have we not chosen th-e usual generals and officers, both of horse and foot?' And of what use are all these, ex- cept the single person whom you send to the field? The. rest attend your priests in their processions. So that, as if you formed so many men of clay, you make your officers for show, and not for service. My countrymen! should not all these generals have been chosen from your own body ; all these sev- eral ofBcers from your own body, that our force might be really Athenian? And yet, for an expedition in favor of Lemnos, the general must be a citizen, while troops engaged in de- fense of our own territories are commanded by Menelaus. I say not this to detract from his merit; but to whomsoever this command had been intrusted, surely he should have de- rived it from your voices."* * First Philippic. Let us note tlie considerations of the orator in regard to mercenaries : Athens is at their discretion. DEMOSTHENES — THE STATESMAN. 141 The complaints of the orator were but too well justi- fied. Chares had abandoned the social war, to aid Artabazus in a revolt against the Persian king. Iphic- rates, having become the son-in-law of the Thracian Cotys, had aided him in his hostile expeditions against Athens. This same Iphicrates came to receive hostages of Amphipolis; the city was about to surrender. A mercenary succeeded him, restored the hostages, passed into the service of the Thracian king, and Amphipolis was lost. "What shall I say of the habits acquired by the leaders of the mercenaries in the heart of Asiatic opulence and license? Chares had robbed the treasury, he bribed the orators, and the people acquitted him. Iphicrates was accused of treason, and saved his life by showing his sword and the poignards of his partisans who were scattered through the assembly. When military ser- vice became a trade, the soldier lost his ardor against the stranger, and the leaders of an army not really na- tional soon ceased to be citizens. The suppression, or at least the transformation of the theoricon, would have weakened the evils connected with the use of mercenarv troops. Neither the zeal of Demosthenes for the pulA lie welfare, nor his eloquence, could arouse the people,/ forgetful, as they were, of the virtues which are the\ means and safeguard of liberty. All forms of government conceal the germs of evils that may ruin them. The wisest have their peculiar infirmities and dangers. The aim of the legislator should be to weaken these as much as possible, and first, to seek a constitution containing the fewest sources of abuse. Aristotle, without pronouncing himself ab- solutely in favor of a democratic government, has marked its nature and advantages with a precision that 142 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE m GREECE. equals an eulogy. "The democratic foi'm, " he says, "is the most lasting of all, since in it the majority rules, and the equality enjoyed makes it the most cher- ished of all constitutions. * * * Imagine a state of thirteen hundred citizens, a thousand of whom are wealthy ; now deprive of all political power the remain- ing three hundred, as free, however, as the others, and their equals in all respects except that of wealth. Could that be called a democratic government ? * * * There is no democracy, save where the free and poor make the majority and the ruling power." Aristotle advo- cated equity and clemency to the poor. ' ' But, " said he, " this double end is not usually obtained. It does not always happen that the heads of the government are the most pleasant men.* However, it is the interest of the state to treat the lower classes gently. "At Carthage the government always knew how to gain the affection of the people by sending them, one after an- other, into the colonies to enrich themselves. The higher classes, if they are intelligent, will endeavor to aid the poor and to furnish them labor. * * * Almost all legislators who have wished to found an aristocracy, have committed two errors almost identical. First, in bestowing too much upon the rich; and second, in tak- ing too much away from the poor. In the course of time a false good necessarily gives rise to an undoubted evil. The ambition of the upper classes has ruined more governments than that of the lower classes. " Philoso- phers and legislators consider the organization of capi- tal as the greatest diificulty, — in their eyes "a pecu- liar source of revolution. " Plato in his liepublic solved the problem by suppressing property; f what is called * Politics, vi, 10, 3 ; vii, 1 ; viii, 6. t " La propri^t^, c'est le toI," a paradox ingeniously refuted by Laya in his courageous comedy, L'ami des his (3 January, 1793). DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 143 striking at the root of the evil. Chalcedonian Phaleas tried to equalize property by advising the rich to give and never receive doweries; the poor, to receive and never to give. The author of Po^^'^ics put little value upon these expedients designed to maintain among fortunes a kind of chimerical level, a necessarily unstable equilibrium. ' ' The necessity is to level pas- sions rather than property, and that equality is the re- sult only of education regulated by good laws. " Pha- leas expected to suppress thieves and highwaymen by a decree; he was deceived. It is abundance, and not indigence, that commits great crimes. " No one usurps tyranny to be sheltered from the inclemency of the sea- sons. " Covetousness must be mastered. Demagogues (and here is the stumbling-block of a popular govern- ment) flatter the people through personal ambition, to the detriment of the public welfare. When the higher classes become indignant, because all the public ex- penses are imposed upon them, they revolt against the injustice, and sometimes liberty perishes.* Therefore a wise policy will guard against extremes. Only a dis- honest citizen can advocate equality of property, the worst of scourges. In the words of the author of De OffiGiis,\ it is sufficient to equalize the inequalities by imposing taxes especially upon the rich, and by reliev- ing the multitude. X These wise principles, borrowed by Montesquieu from the man of Stagira, were those of Demosthenes. Perhaps he has even, in this point of view, extended the obligations of the city to the utmost limits in the eyes of modern times. "We ought to pay willingly * Politics, viii, 4; ii, 4; vi, 10; vii, 4. t "..ilquatio bonorum, qua peste quae potest esse major?" ii, 21. X Esprit des Lois, v, 5. 144 POLITICAL ELOQtTElSrCE IN GREECE. to our parents the debt justly imposed by nature and by law; but what each one owes his father the repub- lic owes to each of its citizens, common fathers of the state. Thus, far from diminishing that which the state gives them, it should be required, this resource failing, to find others, that they might not be obliged to expose their poverty to all eyes. " Thus not only individual labor, but also the state, should assist in diminishing poverty. ' ' If the rich proceed upon these principles they will act agreeably, not to justice only, but to good policy ; for to rob some men of their neces- sary subsistence is to raise a number of enemies to the commonwealth. To men of lower fortunes I give this advice, that they should remove those grievances of which the wealthier members complain so loudly and so justly (for I now proceed in the manner I proposed, and shall not scruple to offer such truths as may be favorable to the rich). * * * The rich should have their lives and fortunes well secured, so that when any danger threatens their country their opulence may be applied to its defense. Other citizens should regard the public treasure as it really is, — -the property of all, — and be content with just their portion; but should esteem all private fortunes as the inviolable right of their possessors. Thus a small state rises to great- ness; a great one preserves its power."* Demos- thenes often implored respect for democratic equality. "There is no more fatal error than the aggrandize- ment of one citizen beyond the multitude." This multitude («f 7:oXXo{), the lower classes, are the objects of the greatest solicitude on the part of the Athenian politician. He recalls their duties to them, but he supports the right of indulgence by the tich for the * Fourth Philippie, § 40. DEMOSTHENES — THE STATESMAN. 145 benefit of the State. In this manner Demosthenes hoped to revive the internal, and thus the external, power of Athens. He has described and summed up his whole policy: " Such was the general tenor of my administration in the aiFairs of this city and in the national concerns of Greece. Here I was never known to prefer the favor of the great to the rights of the people; and in the affairs of Greece, the bribes, the flattering assurances of friendship which Philip lav- ished, never were so dear to me as the interests of the nation."* IV. From the beginning Demosthenes' discernment penetrated the most obscure plans of the enemy. "I see the encroachments of Philip cause you more alarm in the future than to-day. Yes, the progress of evil forces itself upon my sight (344). May my conjec- tures be false ! but I tremble lest we have already touched the fatal goal." Athens, on the contrary, so ready to suspect her eminent citizens, became confident and credulous as soon as her courtiers set forth the royal good faith of the Macedonian. She scoffed at the revelations of her wary orator, and looked with complacency upon the future. Moreover, should all oligarchies be considered by a democratic government as her natural and implacable f enemies, how much more reason had Athens to guard against a king ! " Various are the contrivances for the defense and security of cities, as battlements, and walls, and trenches, and other kinds of fortifications, all which are the effects of labor, and attended with continual expense. [What would Demos- * On tJw Grown, § 109. t In some states the oligarchs took the oath : " I shall be the con- stant enemy of the people; I will do them all the harm I can." Aristotle, Politic, vili, 7. 7 146 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GEEECE. thenes have said of our war budgets?] But there is oiie common bulwark with which men of prudence are naturally provided, the guard and security of all people, particularly of free states, against the assault of tyrants. What is this? Distrust ! Of this be mindful, to this adhere. Preserve this carefully, and no calamity can affect you. ' What is it you seek?' said I. 'Liberty?' And do ye not perceive that nothing can be more adverse to this than the very titles of Philip? Every monarch, every tyrant, is an enemy to lib- erty and the opposer of laws." * This distrust is especially demanded of Athens, for it is she that Philip hates and doubts above all. " First, then, Athenians, be firmly persuaded of this: that Philip is committing hostilities against us, and has really violated the peace; that he has the most implacable enmity to this whole city, to the ground on which this city stands, to the very gods of this city (may their vengeance fall upon him!); but against our constitution is his force principally directed. The destruction of this is, of all other things, the most immediate object of his secret schemes and machina- tions, and there is, in some sort, a necessity that it should be so. Consider. He aims at universal power, and you he regards as the only persons to dispute his pretensions. He hath long injured you, and of this he himself is fully con- scious; for the surest barriers of his other dominions are those places which he hath taken from us, so that, if he should give up Amphipolis and Potidsea, he would not think himself secure in Macedon. He is, then, sensible, both that he entertains designs against you and that you perceive them; and as he thinks highly of your wisdom, he judges that you hold him in the abhorrence he deserves. To these things (and these of such importance) add: that he is perfectly con- vinced that, although he were master of all other places, yet it is impossible for him to be secure while your popular gov- * Second Philippic, § 33. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 147 eminent subsists; but that if any accident should happen to bim (and evei-y man is subject to many), all those who now submit to force would seize the opportunity and fly to you for protection ; and therefore it is with regret he sees, in that freedom you enjoy, a spy upon the incidents of his for- tune. Nor is this, his reasoning, weak or trivial. First, then, he is on this account to be regarded as the implacable enemy of our free and popular constitution. In the next place, we should be fully persuaded that all those things which now employ him, all' that he is now projecting, he is projecting against this city." * The Athenians were incapable of submitting volun- tarily to the yoke, or of deserting the cause of Hel- lenic liberty. " As ambition is his great passion, universal empire the sole object of his views; not peace, not tranquillity, not any just purpose. He knows this well, that neither our consti- tution nor our principles would admit him to prevail upon you (by anything he could promise, by anything he could do) to sacrifice one state of Greece to your private interest; but that, as you have the due regard to justice, as you have an abhorrence of the least stain upon j'our honor, and as you have that quick discernment which nothing can escape, the moment his attempt was made yoii would oppose bim with the same vigor as if you yourselves had been immediately attacked." f "Thebans, Thessalians, Argives, and Messenians, are treated as his friends. He knov7S that at his first sign they would swell his army. You he abuses. And this reflects the greatest lustre upon you, my countrymen, for by these proceedings you are de- clared the only invariable asserters of the rights of Greece, — the only persons whom no private attach- * Fmirth Philippic, § 11. t Second Philippic, § 7. 148 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GKEECE. ment, no views of interest, can seduce from their af- fection to the Greeks." These considerations do honor to the magnanimity of Athens and the sagacity of her statesman. Every step the Macedonian advanced strengthened Demosthenes' zeal- in shaking the torpor of the Athe- nians. "It seems to me, Athenians, that some divinity who, from a regard to Athens, looks down upon our conduct with indignation, hath inspired Philip with this restless ambition. For were he to sit down in the quiet enjoyment of his conquests and acquisitions, without proceeding to any new attempts, there are men among you wlio, I think, would be unmoved at those transactions which have branded our state with the odious marlcs of infamy, cowardice, and all that is base. But as he still pursues his conquests, as he is still extending his ambitious views, possibly he may at last call you forth, unless you have renounced the name of Athenians! "* Philip's avidity seemed to be the spur with which the gods urged Athens; but the true spur was Demosthenes; incessantly he goaded her, benumbed by a lethargy from which she awoke but to die. A statesman so vigilant and strong in the grandeur of his soul and genius, was Philip's most formidable enemy. Philip felt it and did him justice. After his second Philippic (344), the king of Macedonia, im- pressed with the exactness of his views, said: ''I would have given my voice to Demosthenes to declare war for me, and I would have appointed him gen- eral. * * * I -would willingly exchange Amphipolis for the genius of Demosthenes." Lucian faithfully First Philippic, § 43. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 149 interprets the prince's sentiments when he ascribes to him these words: " In spite of themselves Demosthenes arouses his fellow- countrymen, lulled to sleep as by mandrake, from their weary stupor. Taking little pains to be agreeable to them, his candor is the iron that strikes and burns their indo- lence. * * * jf ^j,g^j. single Demosthenes were only away from Athens, I would subjugate the city more easily than I did Thebes and Thessaly. * * * He alone watches for his country, discovers all occasions, follows our proceedings and confronts our armies. Nothing escapes him, — neither my stratagems, enterprises, nor designs. * * * In a word, this man is an obstacle, a rampart, that hinders me from taking away everything in the course of a walk. * * * jf they made such a man as he absolute master of ammunition, vessels, circumstances, and money, I fear I should soon be forced to dispute Macedonia with him; he who, armed with decrees alone, surrounds me on all sides, surprises me, dis- covers resources, assembles troops, launches upon the sea formidable fleets, puts armies into the field, and everywhere equals me." * Philip at Chifironea fought against Demosthenes in fighting against Athens, and the defeat of the Re- public was that of its statesman. Upon the field of battle, in the intoxication of victory, Philip thought first of Demosthenes: '■'•Demosthenes, son of Demos- thenes of the Pmanian tribe, has said * * * " He recited, keeping time, the beginning of a decree of the patriot, and danced around the corpses that covered the plain; then recovering from his first transport, "he shuddered with fear at the thought that the wonderful eloquence of Demosthenes had compelled him to risk for several hours his empire and his life."t * Lucian, Life of Demosthenes. t Plutarcli, Life of Demosthenes, eh. 20. 150 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. / The political penetration of Demosthenes sometimes appeared at fault; Iiis ideas of Pliilip and of the weak- ness of the empire did not always seem worthy of an intelligent statesman. In fact, Demosthenes does not spare his invective upon this "barbarian, worthy of all names one could wish to give him." He most willingly branded his envious jealousy and debauchery; he pictured him as surrounded, in his court at Pella, by a lot of fools, thieves, and debauched people, " abandoning themselves in their orgies to dances w^hich I would blush to describe to you"; and still, in this respect, Demosthenes knew that the Athe- nians were little scrupulous with their eyes and ears. This satire upon Plillip's morals was shabby, 'tis said: ^schines did riglit to reproach him for it. Why open the eyes to gross intemperance and close them to genius ? Some say, Demosthenes was guilty of a graver mistake: he ignored the secret of Philip's power, a culpable error in an orator about to deter- mine the destiny of Athens in a merciless combat; but it appeared at the beginning of the struggle and continued until the eve of Chseronea. The last Philip- I pic^ like the first, expressed unwarrantable disdain and imfounded hope. " It is worthy your attention to consider how the affairs of Philip are at this time circumstanced. For they are by no means to well disposed, so very flourishing, as an inattentive observer would pronounce. Nor would he have engaged in this war at all, had he thought he should have been obliged to maintain it. He hoped that the moment he ap- peared, all things would fall before him. But these hopes are vain. And this disappointment, in the first place, troubles and dispirits him." * Perhaps his prosperity is only a snare * TMr& OlynlMac, § 21. DEMOSTHETSTES THE STATESMAN. 151 laid by divinity : " For great and unexpected success is apt to hurry weak minds into extravagances. Hence it often proves much more difficult to maintain acquisitions than to acquire them." The temple of Philip's power apparently so threat- ening, is more imposing than real, and rests upon rotten foundations. " For when forces join in harmony and affection, and one common interest unites the confederating powers, then they share the toils with alacrity, — they endure the distresses, they persevere. But when extravagant ambition and lawless power (as in his case) have aggrandized a single person, the first pretense, the slightest accident, overthrows him, and all his greatness is dashed at once to the ground. At present his successes cast a shade over him; for prosperity hath great power to veil such baseness from observation. But let his arms meet with the least disgrace, and all his actions will be exposed; for, as in our bodies, while a man is in health he feels no effect of any inward weakness, but when disease attacks him, everything becomes sensitive in the vessels, in the joints, or in whatever part his frame may be disordered. So in states and monarchies: while they carry on a war abroad, their defects escape the general eye; but when once it approaches their own territory, then they are all detected. Now such appears to be the fortune of this m.an, who is too feeble for the load he wishes to carry. * * * And I also, Athenians, would have believed Philip born to command fear and admiration if I had seen him rise by legitimate means. * * * But it is not possible, Athenians, — it is not possible that iniquity, perjury and fraud can support durable powers. By such adventurous means they may sustain themselves once for a moment; they may even promise the most flourishing future; but time exposes them, and they fall of themselves. In a house, a vessel, or any other structure, the base should be the most solid part, and likewise it is good to give prin- 152 POLITICAL ELOQUENCE IN GREECE. ciples to action, a foundation of justice and truth, — now this is what to-day the enterprises of Philip lack."' The statesman may here be said to be the dupe of the moralist; the patriot mistakes his wishes for reali- ties; he deceives himself, and deluding one's self is more than a crime for a statesman, ^schines alleged that the promises of Philip misled him. Demosthenes rejected this excuse: "It is not admissible, neither in politics nor equity, for in fact you induce, you force no one to mix in public affairs; only when a man who is persuaded of his ability presents himself do you wel- come him with the gratitude of a good and confiding people, and without jealous objection. He becomes your choice, and you put your affairs into his hands. If he is successful, he will be honored and will exalt him- self above the multitude; but if he fails, shall he be cleared of it with excuses and evasions ? This would not be just. "Would the allies who have perished, and their wives and children, and so many other unfortu- nate victims, be indemnified for their disasters by the thought that it is the work of my folly, not to say that of ^schines? Very far from it."* Now, can we rightfully use these words against their author, and throw upon him the responsibility of this blunder ? To us it seems easy to justify Demosthenes. Philip's weakness, as described by him, was not a fancy. Those domestic and national dissensions to which he points really existed ; the very death of the conqueror through court intrigues proves it; and if Demosthenes, more confiding it seems than Phocion in the equity of provi- dence and the fortune of Athens, preserved some hope till the end, the catastrophe of the battle of Chse- ronea,^ whose loss was due solely to the rashness of * Embassy, S 99. DEMOSTHENES THE STATESMAN. 153 Lysicles, then the sudden fall of Alexander's empire, proved that the orator's hopes were not wholly delu- sive. " If each city had had but one citizen like me at the post that I occupied, — what say I? — if but a single man in Thessaly,