FIRST EFFORTS OF DEMOSTHENES.

17

B.C. 351.] Plato, and perused his dialogues with the greatest diligence. But his chief intellectual culture, as his speeches constantly attest, was derived from the history of Thucydides. He well knew the truth of the maxim, which a great soldier of our age has prescribed even for the military profession:-"By reading you will be distinguished; without it, abilities are of little use." He is said to have copied out the entire work of Thucydides eight times with his own hand, and to have re-written it from memory. The attentive reader of his political harangues perpetually hears the echoes of the historian's wisdom in the more harmonious but not less nervous periods of the orator.

The best Athenian critics recognised in his earliest efforts the political principles and the very tone of thought which Thucydides has taken such pains to delineate as those of Pericles. But at first his manner fell far short of his matter; and when some success in his action against Aphobus encouraged him to come forward in the Ecclesia, his repeated failures were marked by general derision. But there were those who were willing to foster the germs of promise which they had the discernment to detect. Eunomus, an aged citizen, who had heard Pericles sixty years before, comforted Demosthenes, as he wandered disconsolate about Piræus, by telling him how his speech reminded him of the great statesman, and assuring him that he only wanted confidence and preparation. "You are too much disheartened," said he, "by the tumult of a popular assembly, and you do not take the pains even to acquire the bodily strength needed for the rostrum." He found another counsellor in the actor Satyrus, who desired him to recite a passage of Sophocles, which the actor then repeated, with a difference of accent that astonished Demosthenes. While he thus learned the source of his defects from advisers, he relied for their cure on self-discipline alone; and never did any man pursue a more resolute course of self-culture. To correct a defect of articulation, which approached to a lisp, he practised speaking with pebbles in his mouth. He found a substitute for the hoarse murmurs of the people in the noise of the waves upon the beach of Phalerum during a storm. The power of his lungs was expanded by running, and by declaiming while walking up-hill. For months together he shut himself up in a subterranean chamber to practise recitation and composition, and took precautions against interruption from any want of resolution on his own part by shaving his head in so absurd a guise that he could not stir abroad.

VOL. II.

C

The fruit of all this training was soon visible in a style of oratory so perfect, that the severest critics could only find fault with it for being too artificial in manner, and too elaborately prepared in the matter. But the greatest orators in every age, down to the venerable master of the art, who in our own time has been thought worthy to rank with Demosthenes and Cicero, are all agreed that, whatever power may have been occasionally exerted by sudden bursts of unpremeditated eloquence, the most laborious preparation is needed for sure and habitual success. Thus, while no orator has ever surpassed Demosthenes in that vigour which some associate only with extemporaneous speaking, it was the judgment of some of his contemporaries, that the rich matter of his speeches could only be fully enjoyed on reading. This judgment is the more remarkable, as we know that he himself laid the greatest stress on the accessories of oral delivery, especially on "action," which he declared to be the first and second and third essential for an orator. Nor was his labour bestowed, as that of Cicero too often was, chiefly in rounding periods and elaborating ornaments. He has left us, indeed, the most perfect examples of prose rhythm ever embodied in the most effective of human languages; but what above all distinguishes him from the most accomplished of mere rhetoricians, is the direct practical purpose of every word he utters. So long as there was any hope, he never ceased to encourage the Athenians by the consideration that the advantages which had been lost solely by their negligence might yet be recovered by renewed energy and careful preparation, and to show them how such preparation should be made in all its details, the number of ships and men required, the amount of money needed to support them, and the sources from which it might be provided.

Such was the burthen of the First Philippic, which was delivered while Philip was making progress in Thrace, threatening the possessions of Athens on the Chersonese, and annoying her nearer home by maritime expeditions. His command of the Pagasaan Bay enabled him to send out fleets to ravage the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, and even to make a descent at Marathon and plunder the coast of Attica. In November, B.C.

352, the news was brought to Athens, that Philip had emerged from his obscure operations in the interior of Thrace, and had laid siege to Heræon-Teichos on the Propontis. In sudden alarm, the Athenians voted an armament, to be manned by the citizens, and imposed on themselves a property-tax of sixty talents. Then

B.C. 351.]

THE PEACE PARTY AT ATHENS.

19

came a report of Philip's illness, which was true, and which the wishes of the popular indolence magnified into his death; and all the preparations were suspended. It was during this pause that Demosthenes came forward to insist on the folly alike of despondency and carelessness, and the equal folly of trusting to desultory efforts and ill-paid mercenaries. Philip's military power and reputation had now reached such a height, that Demosthenes confessed the hopelessness of meeting him in the field, but he urges the policy of setting on foot, before the danger became more pressing, a moderate force which might keep him in constant alarm by descents on his coasts, and by carrying help to every point at which disaffection or resistance might break out, as they were sure to do under a tyrannical government. He shows how such a force might be provided, if the people would revert to the old plan of personal service and well-ordered contribution, instead of trusting to that chance, which seemed in fact to do better for them than they did for themselves. All this practical advice is pointed by keen reproofs;-" What does it matter whether Philip is dead or sick, since, should anything befall him, you would soon make yourselves another Philip, if you apply yourselves to business thus ?" Yet there was encouragement to be derived from their very remissness, as it left room for them to do better.

The First Philippic was delivered in the spring of B.C. 351, but with so little effect that even the armament already voted was not despatched to the Chersonese till the following autumn, and then on a wretchedly inadequate scale. The reason for this was not merely the general supineness of the Athenians, and the decay of the ancient spirit of self-sacrifice, but there was at Athens a peace party which systematically thwarted the views of Demosthenes. Its chief leaders were the orator Eubulus and the general PHOCION, the last of that race of statesmen who led the people both in the field and in the assembly. His unsullied character-the more conspicuous from the venality of other leaders of his party-has too often blinded historians to the evils of his policy; and, like Nicias in both points, his fate has gained for him a sympathy which tends to cloud the judgment. No praise, indeed, can be too high for the personal character of "Phocion the Good." Born about B.C. 402, just twenty years before Demosthenes, he had reached his 85th year when he was put to death on a charge of treason, arising out of the troubles that followed the death of Alexander (B.c. 317). His humble birth was ennobled by the

simplicity of his life; and his hardy constitution was preserved unimpaired by luxury. Above all, the contrast of his incorruptible probity with the insatiable avarice of other generals and the venality of the orators-among whom even Demosthenes did not escape undeserved suspicion-had such an effect on the sentiment of the Athenians that they gave him a confidence more unreserved than they had ever yielded to Pericles himself. From his first entrance on public life, when he was already of middle age, he held the annual office of chief Strategus (General)* almost without interruption. He was elected no less than forty-five times, without once soliciting the people's choice. His chief military friend and pattern was Chabrias, under whom he distinguished himself at the battle of Naxos (B.c. 376); † but he is not named as holding an important command till B.C. 354 (or B.C. 349), when he led an expedition into Euboea. His philosophic indifference to the present fame and emoluments of active service led him to find his chief field at Athens, in administrative details, and in the politics of the ecclesia; and his almost constant presence in the city placed a constant check upon the policy of Demosthenes. Phocion's training in the school of Plato and Xenocrates made him intellectually a fit antagonist for the ablest of the orators, and he was the more able to cope with them because he despised all the artifices of popular rhetoric, and extinguished their elaborate periods by a pointed brevity almost laconic. To a friend who found him deep in thought when he had to speak, he said, "I am meditating whether I cannot shorten what I have to say to the Athenians;" and, when Demosthenes saw Phocion rise to reply to him, he used to say-"Here comes the cleaver of my speeches." This plain soldier-like style of speaking carried with it a sort of military force; and it was the testimony of an orator, who was himself a friend of Demosthenes, that Phocion was the more effective speaker. Nor was his influence diminished by that contemptuous sternness and rigour of life which were accepted as signs of his independence. It is said that he was never seen weeping or laughing, or bathing in the public baths. Once, when a speech of his was followed by applause, he turned to a friend and asked, "Have I unawares said something bad?" He made a boast of his opposition to the popular feeling; and he gained that credit for sincerity which is generally yielded to such a temper, and which the spectacle of a general averse to war naturally excited.

We have already explained the nature of this function, which was a sort of premiership. + See vol. I. p. 556.

B.C. 351.]

career.

RESULTS OF PHOCION'S POLICY.

21

It has been often pleaded that Phocion consulted the true interests of Athens and of Greece by opposing the policy of resistance to Macedonia, when effective resistance was hopeless. But here, as Mr. Grote has shown most conclusively, it is necessary to draw a distinction between the earlier and later years of Phocion's "His biographers mislead our judgment by pointing our attention chiefly to the last twenty years of his long life, after the battle of Charonea. At that time, when the victorious military force of. Macedonia had been fully organized, and that of Greece comparatively prostrated, it might be argued plausibly (I do not say decisively, even then) that submission to Macedonia had become a fatal necessity; and that attempts to resist could only end by converting bad into worse. But the peace-policy of Phocion-which might be called prudence, after the accession of Alexander was ruinously imprudent, as well as dishonourable, during the reign of Philip. The odds were all against Philip in his early years; they shifted, and became more and more in his favour, only because his game was played well, and that of his opponents badly. The superiority of force was at first so much on the side of Athens, that, if she had been willing to employ it, she might have made sure of keeping Philip at least within the limits of Macedonia. All depended upon her will; upon the question whether her citizens were prepared in their own minds to incur the expense and fatigue of a vigorous foreign policy-whether they would handle their pikes, open their purses, and forego the comforts of home, for the maintenance of Grecian and Athenian liberty against a growing, but not as yet irresistible destroyer. To such a sacrifice the Athenians could not bring themselves to submit; and, in consequence of that reluctance, they were driven in the end to a much graver and more irreparable sacrifice-the loss of liberty, dignity, and security. Now it was precisely at such a moment, and when such a question was pending, that the influence of the peace-loving Phocion was most ruinous. His anxiety that the citizens should be buried at home in their own sepulchres-his despair, mingled with contempt, of his countrymen, and their refined habits-his hatred of the orators who might profit by an increased war-expenditure-all contributed to make him discourage public effort, and await passively the preponderance of the Macedonian arms; thus playing the game of Philip, and siding, though himself incorruptible, with the orators in Philip's pay.' Such were the antagonistic forces by which the fate of Greece

* Grote, History of Greece, vol. xi. pp. 388, 9.