for a man who regarded the commonwealth, and for honest counsel, was then."

Further on, he alludes again to the same thought:

"Besides, it is but a poor favor you do your countrymen by calumniating me. For what is the use of telling us now what we should have done? Why, being in the city and present, did you not make your proposals then, if indeed they were practicable at a crisis when we had to accept, not what we liked, but what the circumstances allowed?"

Then, before the oration closes, he exclaims:

"What advantage has your eloquence been to your country? Now do you speak to us about the past? As if a physician should visit his patients, and not order or prescribe anything to cure the disease, but on the death of any one, when the last ceremonies were performing, should follow him to the grave, and expound how, if the poor fellow had done this and that, he never would have died! Idiot! do you speak now?"

Demosthenes thus "swings this thought around like a great sledge-hammer upon the head of his antagonist." In the meantime the most obtuse hearer in that assembly felt that Eschines was a consummate grumbler, croaker, and slanderer.

Again, it was vitally important that Demosthenes should impress upon his auditors the fact that no different course could have been adopted than the one he had recommended. Already having once hinted at this thought, he subsequently thus uses the oratorical interrogation:

"But I return to the question, What should the commonwealth, Eschines, have done, when she saw Philip establishing an empire and dominion over Greece? what was your statesman to advise or move?"

Or

Then quickly follow these statements and ques

tions:

"The only course, then, that remained, Athenians, was a just resistance to all his attacks upon you. Such course you took from the beginning, properly and becomingly, and by motions and counsels I assisted during the period of my political life. I acknowledge it. But what should I have done? I put this question to you, dismissing all else."

After introducing certain historical references, he again repeats the thought:

"Philip was subjugating the Hellespont, and besieging Byzantium, and destroying some of the Greek cities, restoring exiles to others was he by all these proceedings committing injustice, breaking the truce, violating the peace, or not? Was it meet that any of the Greeks should rise up to prevent these proceedings, or not? If not-if Greece was to present the spectacle (as it is called) of a Mysian prey, while Athenians had life and being, then I have exceeded my duty in speaking on the subject; the commonwealth has exceeded her duty, which followed my counsels. I admit that every measure has been a misdeed, a blunder of mine. But if some one ought to have arisen to prevent these things, who but the Athenian people should it have been? Such, then, was the policy which I espoused. I saw him reducing all men to subjection, and I opposed him: I continued warning and exhorting you not to make these sacrifices to Philip. Could I have done otherwise?"

Later in the oration this thought is reiterated thus:

"If any one now can point out'a better course, or indeed if any other was practicable but the one which I adopted, I

confess that I was wrong. For if there be any measure now discovered, which (executed then) would have been to our advantage, I say it ought not to have escaped me. But if there is none, if there was none, if none can be suggested even at this day, what was a statesman to do? Was he not to choose the best measures within his reach and view? That did I, Æschines, when the crier asked, 'Who wishes to speak?' not, 'Who wishes to complain about the past, or to guarantee the future?' While you on those occasions sat mute in the assembly, I came forward and spake. However, as you omitted then, tell us now. Say what scheme that I ought to have devised, what favorable opportunity was lost to the state by my neglect? what alliance was there, what better plan, to which I should have directed the people? But no! The past is with all the world given up; no one even proposes to deliberate about it: the future it is, or the present, which demands the action of a counsellor."

Just before closing, Demosthenes again enforces the thought, thus:

66

You, disregarding all this, accuse me whose ministry has been among my countrymen, knowing all the while that a part (if not the whole) of your calumny falls upon the people, and yourself in particular. For if I assumed the sole and absolute direction of our counsels, it was open to you and other speakers to accuse me. But if you were constantly present in all the assemblies, if the state invited public discussion of what was expedient, and if these measures were then believed by all to be the best, and especially by you (for certainly from no good-will did you leave me in possession of hopes and admiration and honors, all of which attended on my policy, but doubtless because you were compelled by the truth and had nothing better to advise); is it not iniquitous and monstrous to complain now of measures, than which you could suggest none better at the time?

No doubt, at this point the orator felt that the people were convinced that nothing could have been devised wiser, at least more patriotic, than the entire administration of Demosthenes.

It was likewise important for his cause that Demosthenes should impress upon his auditors the fact that, while they ought always to strive for the best possible, still they should be mindful that all affairs are at the disposal of the gods, who of late years had manifestly decreed adversity to the glory of Athens.

Soon after beginning his oration, he therefore says:

"At the time, as it appeared, there were dangers impending, and dangers at hand. Mark the line of my policy at that crisis; don't rail at the event. The end of all things is what the Deity pleases: his line of policy it is that shows the judgment of the statesman. Do not then impute it as a crime to me that Philip chanced to conquer in battle: that issue depended not on me, but on God. Prove that I adopted not all measures that according to human calculation were feasible—that I did not honestly and diligently and with exertions beyond my strength carry them out— or that my enterprises were not honorable and worthy of the state and necessary. Show me this, and accuse me as soon as you like. But if the hurricane that visited us hath been too powerful, not for us only, but for all Greece besides, what is the fair course? As if a merchant, after taking every precaution, and furnishing his vessel with everything that he thought would insure her safety, because afterward he met with a storm and his tackle was strained or broken to pieces, should be charged with the shipwreck. 'Well, but I was not the pilot,' he might say—just as I was not the general. Fortune was not under my control; all was under hers.."

A few minutes later he reiterates:

"As it is, she (the republic) appears to have failed in her enterprise, a thing to which all mankind are liable, if the Deity so wills it: but then . . . had we resigned without a struggle that which our ancestors encountered every danger to win, who would not have spit upon you?"

Again he quietly introduces the thought thus:

"For my part, I regard any one who reproaches his fellow-man with ill-fortune as devoid of sense. He that is best satisfied with his condition, he that deems his fortune excellent, cannot be sure that it will remain so until the evening: how then can it be right to bring it forward, or upbraid another man with it?”

"How much juster and fairer is it to consider that to the common fortune apparently of all men, to a tide of events overwhelming and lamentable, these disasters are to be attributed."

Once

more, further on in the speech, he says:

"But never, never can you have done wrong, O Athenians, in undertaking the battle for the freedom and safety of all! I swear it by your forefathers those that met the peril at Marathon, those that took the field at Platæa, those in the sea-fight at Salamis, and those at Artemisium, and many other brave men who repose in the public monuments, all of whom alike, as being worthy of the same honor, the country buried, Æschines, not only the successful or victorious! Justly! for the duty of brave men has been done by all; their fortune has been such as the Deity assigned to each."

Later, he couples this same thought with an assault upon his antagonist:

"Read him this epitaph, which the state chose to inscribe on their monument, that you may see even by this,