User:RobertToombs/sandbox

= History = On February 5, 1803, while in their junior year the members of the first graduating class of Franklin College gathered together to form a society for the promotion of extemporizing, or extemporaneous speaking. On the 19th, the Society was constituted, and it was given the name Demosthenian after the Greek orator, statesman, and champion of democracy, Demosthenes.

Augustin Clayton, Williams Rutherford, and James Jackson are recognized as the founding fathers of Demosthenian. Clayton became the first student to receive his diploma from Franklin College and went on to become a judge of wide respect, Clayton County being named in his honor. Rutherford and Jackson went on to become professors at Franklin College.

For twenty years, Demosthenians met in a classroom, before they constructed their own meeting hall in 1824 at a cost of $4,000. This construction of the hall gave the Society a place to keep its growing library, which surpassed that of the University’s main library.

As in the Biblical story, wherein Satan was expelled forever from the sanctity of Heaven, thereby bringing about the existence of good and evil, so in 1820 some members broke with the Society. Thus was the ignoble birth of the “Society across the way.” Elaborate treaties, such as the Hagan Letter of 1936, were required to maintain campus tranquility, and animosity raised by a breach of treaty caused ill feelings which were carried long after the college years. The Society owns a cemetery lot for the burial of any member of the Society who might die while attending the college or while defending of the Hall against a siege from the “Society across the way.”

Demosthenian emphasizes extemporaneous speaking and knowledge of parliamentary rules, but one Demosthenian is honored for another reason. University student William Y. Atkinson (later governor of Georgia), was called upon to defend the Society’s honor in a dispute with the other Society, not with his voice, but with his fist. He won.

A notable exception to the general lack of inter-society friendships in the pre-war years was that of roommates Crawford W. Long, Demosthenian, who later was the first doctor to use anesthesia in surgery, and Alexander Stephens, a member of the other society, who became Vice President of the Confederacy.

In 1863, with most of the students away at war, Demosthenian refused an offer to merge the two societies, and shortly after, the University closed. During the war, the University housed refugees from the coast and Federal prisoners en route to Andersonville. Near the end of the war, occupying troops used Demosthenian Hall for regimental headquarters, while the meeting hall of the rival society was used as a stable and as a place of revelry for Federal troops.

When the University reopened in 1866, Demosthenians returned to their beloved Hall, but the Society’s members showed that they had not mellowed in defeat. Albert H. Cox, chosen as a junior to give an oration in true Demosthenian form at the 1867 commencement, delivered a stirring speech, denouncing the occupation forces and the policies of the reconstruction government. General John Pope, governor of the third military district, rapidly moved to close down the University, and only prompt intercession by President Andrew Johnson prevented the closure of the University. Many of the Society’s 3000 volumes had been lost during the war and the subsequent occupation of Athens, and in the late 1870’s, the Society gave most of the remaining books to the history department.

From the late 1930’s to 1950’s membership grew to more than 200 students. It is in this period that the modern Demosthenian library has its roots. During the 1950’s and 1960’s the University doubled in size. But, Demosthenian did not escape unscathed from the growing diversity in student activities and the challenge to traditional values and institutions which came during the 1960’s. Membership in Demosthenian dropped, but a dedicated group kept the Society alive. After several years of playing recordings of Marxist rhetoric out of their upper chamber windows, the other society faded from the campus scene in 1972, ending a century of intersocietal competition. The rival Society re-emerged during the early 1990’s after almost two decades in obscurity.

The Demosthenian Society is once again experiencing a renaissance of its former prominence. The membership is larger than it has been in nearly three decades, and the enthusiastic interest of every member has brought new life into the ancient hall of this honored Society. With a revival of the aims and purposes of the Society, Demosthenian will reach new heights in its third century of debate.

= About the Hall = “Demosthenian Hall has become the physical expression of a living tradition that binds generations of students”

Demosthenian Hall is the fourth oldest building at the University of Georgia and was placed on the National Register for Historic Places in 1971. Constructed in 1824 by Dr. James Tinsley of Columbia County, Demosthenian Hall has become the physical expression of a living tradition which binds generations of students. The Society’s minutes show that by September 5, 1829, the building’s $4,000 construction cost had been completely paid off. The construction was financed by the Society’s members, alumni, and friends.

Located on the University of Georgia’s historic north quadrangle, its facade in the formal Federal style forms a pleasing contrast to the later columned Greek revival structures which surround it. The front is graced with a palladian window over a light doorway. The exterior walls are two feet thick and are of stucco over brick construction.

The upper chamber is the meeting room of the Society. The speaker’s desk has been dated to the 1820’s and may have been built for the Hall. The stump beneath the lectern is stood upon by members seeking office in the Society and was cut from the trunk of the Toombs’ oak.

While a student at the University, Robert Toombs managed to break most of the rules. Finally, in exasperation, University officials expelled him in 1828 several months prior to graduation. While commencement exercises were underway in the Chapel, he began to hold forth in true Demosthenian fashion under an oak tree located in front of the Chapel. He spoke with such fire and enthusiasm that he succeeded in emptying the Chapel. Legend says the tree was struck by lightning the day Robert Toombs passed away.

The simplicity of the carved mantels, window moldings, doors and deep paneled wainscoting emphasizes the drama of the ornate plasterwork ceiling medallion which is based on a template designed by Asher Benjamin. It is a medallion of holly leaves surrounded by swags of smaller leaves which are framed by a delicate filigree. This ceiling is one of the most architecturally significant structures at the University of Georgia and is one of the few remaining examples of this form of decorative artwork.

In 1997, Demosthenian Hall received a $200,000 facelift. Financed primarily by alumni donations and conducted by the architectural firm Serber and Barber, the construction work restored the ceiling medallion and the rest of the Upper Chamber to its original 1824 layout and color scheme. The original hard wood floors were uncovered and restored in the Lower Chamber.

= Demosthenes = The Society’s namesake, Demosthenes, stands as a monument to inspire all members. When Demosthenes was swindled out of his inheritance, he went to plead his case before the Athens council, but was ridiculed because of his harsh and unmusical voice, weak lungs, and awkward movements. Plutarch tells the story of his rise to prominence. Determined to overcome his speech impediments, he practiced reciting as he climbed steep hills, and he defied the roar of the waves upon the seashore to drown out the sound of his voice. He shut himself up in a cave, shaved half his head to remove any temptation to return to the outside world, and polished his speech to incandescence by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. Through these efforts, Demosthenes became one of Athens’ greatest statesmen and one of history’s greatest orators.

Throughout his life he espoused democratic principles. He roused Athens against Philip II by his great Philippics, and later against Philip’s son Alexander the Great. In so doing he incurred the enmity of Aeschines, who argued that Philip’s intentions were peaceable; Demosthenes succeeded in having Aeschines ostracized (330), but was himself later forced into exile (324). Recalled after Alexander’s death (323), he fled Alexander’s successor and committed suicide.

= Plutarch's Account of Demosthenes = Written 75 A.C.E. Translated by John Dryden

Whoever it was, Sosius, that wrote the poem in honour of Alcibiades, upon his winning the chariot-race at the Olympian Games, whether it were Euripides, as is most commonly thought, or some other person, he tells us that to a man’s being happy it is in the first place requisite he should be born in “some famous city.” But for him that would attain to true happiness, which for the most part is placed in the qualities and disposition of the mind, it is, in my opinion, of no other disadvantage to be of a mean, obscure country, than to be born of a small or plain-looking woman. For it were ridiculous to think that Iulis, a little part of Ceos, which itself is no great island, and Aegina, which an Athenian once said ought to be removed, like a small eyesore, from the port of Piraeus should breed good actors and poets, and yet should never be able to produce a just, temperate, wise, and high-minded man. Other arts, whose end it is to acquire riches or honour, are likely enough to wither and decay in poor and undistinguished towns; but virtue, like a strong and durable plant, may take root and thrive in any place where it can lay hold of an ingenuous nature, and a mind that is industrious. I, for my part, shall desire that for any deficiency of mine in right judgment or action, I myself may be, as in fairness, held accountable, and shall not attribute it to the obscurity of my birthplace.

But if any man undertake to write a history that has to be collected from materials gathered by observation and the reading of works not easy to be got in all places, nor written always in his own language, but many of them foreign and dispersed in other hands, for him, undoubtedly, it is in the first place and above all things most necessary to reside in some city of good note, addicted to liberal arts, and populous; where he may have plenty of all sorts of books, and upon inquiry may hear and inform himself of such particulars as, having escaped the pens of writers, are more faithfully preserved in the memories of men, lest his work be deficient in many things, even those which it can least dispense with.

But for me, I live in a little town, where I am willing to continue, lest it should grow less; and having had no leisure, while I was in Rome and other parts of Italy, to exercise myself in the Roman language, on account of public business and of those who came to be instructed by me in philosophy, it was very late, and in the decline of my age, before I applied myself to the reading of Latin authors. Upon which that which happened to me may seem strange, though it be true; for it was not so much by the knowledge of words that I came to the understanding of things, as by my experience of things I was enabled to follow the meaning of words. But to appreciate the graceful and ready pronunciation of the Roman tongue, to understand the various figures and connection of words, and such other ornaments, in which the beauty of speaking consists, is, I doubt not, an admirable and delightful accomplishment; but it requires a degree of practice and study which is not easy, and will better suit those who have more leisure, and time enough yet before them for the occupation.

And so in this fifth book of my Parallel Lives, in giving an account of Demosthenes and Cicero, my comparison of their natural dispositions and their characters will be formed upon their actions and their lives as statesmen, and I shall not pretend to criticize their orations one against the other, to show which of the two was the more charming or the more powerful speaker. For there, as Ion says-

“We are but like a fish upon dry land;” a proverb which Caecilius perhaps forgot, when he employed his always adventurous talents in so ambitious an attempt as a comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero; and, possibly, if it were a thing obvious and easy for every man to know himself, the precept had not passed for an oracle.

The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in their natural characters, as their passion for distinction and their love of liberty in civil life, and their want of courage in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two other orators, who, from small and obscure beginnings, became so great and mighty; who both contested with kings and tyrants; both lost their daughters, were driven out of their country, and returned with honour; who, flying from thence again, were both seized upon by their enemies, and at last ended their lives with the liberty of their countrymen. So that if we were to suppose there had been a trial of skill between nature and fortune, as there is sometimes between artists, it would be hard to judge whether that succeeded best in making them alike in their dispositions and manners, or this in the coincidences of their lives. We will speak of the eldest first.

Demosthenes, the father of Demosthenes, was a citizen of good rank and quality, as Theopompus informs us, surnamed the Sword-maker, because he had a large workhouse, and kept servants skilful in that art at work. But of that which Aeschines the orator said of his mother, that she was descended of one Gylon, who fled his country upon an accusation of treason, and of a barbarian woman, I can affirm nothing, whether he spoke true, or slandered and maligned her. This is certain, that Demosthenes, being as yet but seven years old was left by his father in affluent circumstances, the whole value of his estate being little short of fifteen talents, and that he was wronged by his guardians, part of his fortune being embezzled by them, and the rest neglected; insomuch that even his teachers were defrauded of their salaries. This was the reason that he did not obtain the liberal education that he should have had; besides that, on account of weakness and delicate health, his mother would not let him exert himself, and his teachers forbore to urge him. He was meagre and sickly from the first, and hence had his nickname of Batalus given him, it is said, by the boys, in derision of his appearance; Batalus being, as some tell us, a certain enervated flute-player, in ridicule of whom Antiphanes wrote a play. Others speak of Batalus as a writer of wanton verses and drinking songs. And it would seem that some part of the body, not decent to be named, was at that time called batalus by the Athenians. But the name of Argas, which also they say was a nickname of Demosthenes, was given him for his behaviour, as being savage and spiteful, argas being one of the poetical words for a snake; or for his disagreeable way of speaking, Argas being the name of a poet who composed very harshly and disagreeably. So much, as Plato says, for such matters.

The first occasion of his eager inclination to oratory, they say, was this. Callistratus, the orator, being to plead in open court for Oropus, the expectation of the issue of that cause was very great, as well for the ability of the orator, who was then at the height of his reputation, as also for the fame of the action itself. Therefore, Demosthenes, having heard the tutors and school-masters agreeing among themselves to be present at this trial, with much importunity persuades his tutor to take him along with him to the hearing; who, having some acquaintance with the doorkeepers, procured a place where the boy might sit unseen, and hear what was said. Callistratus having got the day, and being much admired, the boy began to look upon his glory with a kind of emulation, observing how he was courted on all hands, and attended on his way by the multitude; but his wonder was more than all excited by the power of his eloquence, which seemed able to subdue and win over anything. From this time, therefore, bidding farewell to other sorts of learning and study, he now began to exercise himself, and to take pains in declaiming, as one that meant to be himself also an orator. He made use of Isaeus as his guide to the art of speaking, though Isocrates at that time was giving lessons; whether, as some say, because he was an orphan, and was not able to pay Isocrates his appointed fee of ten minae or because he preferred Isaeus’s speaking, as being more businesslike and effective in actual use. Hermippus says that he met with certain memoirs without any author’s name, in which it was written that Demosthenes was a scholar to Plato, and learnt much of his eloquence from him; and he also mentions Ctesibius, as reporting from Callias of Syracuse and some others, that Demosthenes secretly obtained a knowledge of the systems of Isocrates and Alcidamas, and mastered them thoroughly.

As soon, therefore, as he was grown up to man’s estate, he began to go to law with his guardians, and to write orations against them; who, in the meantime, had recourse to various subterfuges and pleas for new trials, and Demosthenes, though he was thus, as Thucydides says, taught his business in dangers, and by his own exertions was successful in his suit, was yet unable for all this to recover so much as a small fraction of his patrimony. He only attained some degree of confidence in speaking, and some competent experience in it. And having got a taste of the honour and power which are acquired by pleadings, he now ventured to come forth, and to undertake public business. And, as it is said of Laomedon, the Orchomenian, that, by advice of his physician, he used to run long distances to keep off some disease of his spleen, and by that means having, through labour and exercise, framed the habit of his body, he betook himself to the great garland games, and became one of the best runners at the long race; so it happened to Demosthenes, who, first venturing upon oratory for the recovery of his own private property, by this acquired ability in speaking, and at length, in public business, as it were in the great games, came to have the pre-eminence of all competitors in the assembly. But when he first addressed himself to the people, he met with great discouragements, and was derided for his strange and uncouth style, which was cumbered with long sentences and tortured with formal arguments to a most harsh and disagreeable excess. Besides, he had, it seems, a weakness in his voice, a perplexed and indistinct utterance and a shortness of breath, which, by breaking and disjointing his sentences, much obscured the sense and meaning of what he spoke. So that in the end being quite disheartened, he forsook the assembly; and as he was walking carelessly and sauntering about the Piraeus, Eunomus, the Thriasian, then a very old man, seeing him, upbraided him, saying that his diction was very much like that of Pericles, and that he was wanting to himself through cowardice and meanness of spirit, neither bearing up with courage against popular outcry, nor fitting his body for action, but suffering it to languish through mere sloth and negligence.

Another time, when the assembly had refused to hear him, and he was going home with his head muffled up, taking it very heavily, they relate that Satyrus, the actor, followed him, and being his familiar acquaintance, entered into conversation with him. To whom, when Demosthenes bemoaned himself, that having been the most industrious of all the pleaders, and having almost spent the whole strength and vigour of his body in that employment, he could not yet find any acceptance with the people, that drunken sots, mariners, and illiterate fellows were heard, and had the husting’s for their own, while he himself was despised, “You say true, Demosthenes,” replied Satyrus, “but I will quickly remedy the cause of all this, if you will repeat to me some passage out of Euripides or Sophocles.” Which when Demosthenes had pronounced, Satyrus presently taking it up after him, gave the same passage, in his rendering of it, such a new form, by accompanying it with the proper mien and gesture, that to Demosthenes it seemed quite another thing. By this, being convinced how much grace and ornament language acquires from action, he began to esteem it a small matter, and as good as nothing for a man to exercise himself in declaiming, if he neglected enunciation and delivery. Hereupon he built himself a place to study in under ground (which was still remaining in our time), and hither he would come constantly every day to form his action and to exercise his voice; and here he would continue, oftentimes without intermission, two or three months together, shaving one half of his head, that so for shame he might not go abroad, though he desired it ever so much.

Nor was this all, but he also made his conversation with people abroad, his common speech, and his business, subservient to his studies, taking from hence occasions and arguments as matter to work upon. For as soon as he was parted from his company, down he would go at once into his study, and run over everything in order that had passed, and the reasons that might be alleged for and against it. Any speeches, also, that he was present at, he would go over again with himself, and reduce into periods; and whatever others spoke to him, or he to them, he would correct, transform, and vary several ways. Hence it was that he was looked upon as a person of no great natural genius, but one who owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labour and industry. Of the truth of which it was thought to be no small sign that he was very rarely heard to speak upon the occasion, but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people, as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had previously considered the subject, and came prepared for it. So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against him; and Pytheas once, scoffing at him, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp. To which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer, “It is true, indeed, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine are not conscious of the same things.” To others, however, he would not much deny it, but would admit frankly enough, that he neither entirely wrote his speeches beforehand, nor yet spoke wholly extempore. And he would affirm that it was the more truly popular act to use premeditation, such preparation being a kind of respect to the people; whereas, to slight and take no care how what is said is likely to be received by the audience, shows something of an oligarchical temper, and is the course of one that intends force rather than persuasion. Of his want of courage and assurance to speak offhand, they make it also another argument that, when he was at a loss and discomposed, Demades would often rise up on the sudden to support him, but he was never observed to do the same for Demades.

Whence then, may some say, was it, that Aeschines speaks of him as a person so much to be wondered at for his boldness in speaking? Or, how could it be, when Python, the Byzantine, with so much confidence and such a torrent of words inveighed against the Athenians, that Demosthenes alone stood up to oppose him? Or when Lamarchus, the Myrinaean, had written a panegyric upon King Philip and Alexander, in which he uttered many things in reproach of the Thebans and Olynthians, and at the Olympic Games recited it publicly, how was it that he, rising up, and recounting historically and demonstratively what benefits and advantages all Greece had received from the Thebans and Chalcidians, and, on the contrary, what mischiefs the flatterers of the Macedonians had brought upon it, so turned the minds of all that were present that the sophist, in alarm at the outcry against him, secretly made his way out of the assembly? But Demosthenes, it should seem, regarded other points in the character of Pericles to be unsuited to him; but his reserve and his sustained manner, and his forbearing to speak on the sudden, or upon every occasion, as being the things to which principally he owed his greatness, these he followed, and endeavoured to imitate, neither wholly neglecting the glory which present occasion offered, nor yet willing too often to expose his faculty to the mercy of chance. For, in fact, the orations which were spoken by him had much more of boldness and confidence in them than those that he wrote, if we may believe Eratosthenes, Demetrius the Phalerian, and the Comedians. Eratosthenes says that often in his speaking he would be transported into a kind of ecstasy, and Demetrius, that he uttered the famous metrical adjuration to the people-

“By the earth, the springs, the rivers, and the streams,” as a man inspired and beside himself. One of the comedians calls him a rhopoperperethras, and another scoffs at him for his use of antithesis:-

“And what he took, took back; a phrase to please, The very fancy of Demosthenes.” Unless, indeed, this also is meant by Antiphanes for a jest upon the speech on Halonesus, which Demosthenes advised the Athenians not to take at Philip’s hands, but to take back.

All, however, used to consider Demades, in the mere use of his natural gifts, an orator impossible to surpass, and that in what he spoke on the sudden, he excelled all the study and preparation of Demosthenes. And Ariston, the Chian, has recorded a judgment which Theophrastus passed upon the orators; for being asked what kind of orator he accounted Demosthenes, he answered, “Worthy of the city of Athens;” and then what he thought of Demades, he answered, “Above it.” And the same philosopher reports that Polyeuctus, the Sphettian, one of the Athenian politicians about that time, was wont to say that Demosthenes was the greatest orator, but Phocion the ablest; as he expressed the most sense in the fewest words. And, indeed, it is related that Demosthenes himself, as often as Phocion stood up to plead against him, would say to his acquaintance, “Here comes the knife to my speech.” Yet it does not appear whether he had this feeling for his powers of speaking, or for his life and character, and meant to say that one word or nod from a man who was really trusted would go further than a thousand lengthy periods from others.

Demetrius, the Phalerian, tells us that he was informed by Demosthenes himself, now grown old, that the ways he made use of to remedy his natural bodily infirmities and defects were such as these; his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation he overcame and rendered more distinct by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; his voice he disciplined by declaiming and reciting speeches or verses when he was out of breath, while running or going up steep places; and that in his house he had a large looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his exercises. It is told that some one once came to request his assistance as a pleader, and related how he had been assaulted and beaten. “Certainly,” said Demosthenes, “nothing of the kind can have happened to you.” Upon which the other, raising his voice, exclaimed loudly, “What, Demosthenes, nothing has been done to me?” “Ah,” replied Demosthenes, “now I hear the voice of one that has been injured and beaten.” Of so great consequence towards the gaining of belief did he esteem the tone and action of the speaker. The action which he used himself was wonderfully pleasing to the common people, but by well-educated people, as, for example, by Demetrius, the Phalerian, it was looked upon as mean, humiliating, and unmanly. And Hermippus says of Aesion, that, being asked his opinion concerning the ancient orators, and those of his own time, he answered that it was admirable to see with what composure and in what high style they addressed themselves to the people; but that the orations of Demosthenes, when they are read, certainly appear to be superior in point of construction, and more effective. His written speeches, beyond all question, are characterized by austere tone and by their severity. In his extempore retorts and rejoinders, he allowed himself the use of jest and mockery. When Demades said, “Demosthenes teach me! So might the sow teach Minerva!” he replied, “Was it this Minerva, that was lately found playing the harlot in Collytus?” When a thief, who had the nickname of the Brazen, was attempting to upbraid him for sitting up late, and writing by candle-light, “I know very well,” said he, “that you had rather have all lights out; and wonder not, O ye men of Athens, at the many robberies which are committed, since we have thieves of brass and walls of clay.” But on these points, though we have much more to mention, we will add nothing at present. We will proceed to take an estimate of his character from his actions and his life as a statesmen.

His first entering into public business was much about the time of the Phocian war, as himself affirms, and may be collected from his Philippic orations. For of these, some were made after that action was over, and the earliest of them refer to its concluding events. It is certain that he engaged in the accusation of Midias when he was but two-and-thirty years old, having as yet no interest or reputation as a politician. And this it was, I consider, that induced him to withdraw the action, and accept a sum of money as a compromise. For of himself-

“He was no easy or good-natured man,” but of a determined disposition, and resolute to see himself righted; however, finding it a hard matter and above his strength to deal with Midias, a man so well secured on all sides with money, eloquence, and friends, he yielded to the entreaties of those who interceded for him. But had he seen any hopes or possibility of prevailing, I cannot believe that three thousand drachmas could have taken off the edge of his revenge. The object which he chose for himself in the commonwealth was noble and just, the defence of the Grecians against Philip; and in this he behaved himself so worthily that he soon grew famous, and excited attention everywhere for his eloquence and courage in speaking. He was admired through all Greece, the King of Persia courted him, and by Philip himself he was more esteemed than all the other orators. His very enemies were forced to confess that they had to do with a man of mark; for such a character even Aeschines and Hyperides give him, where they accuse and speak against him.

So that I cannot imagine what ground Theopompus had to say that Demosthenes was of a fickle, unsettled disposition, and could not long continue firm either to the same men or the same affairs; whereas the contrary is most apparent, for the same party and post in politics which he held from the beginning, to these he kept constant to the end; and was so far from leaving them while he lived that he chose rather to forsake his life than his purpose. He was never heard to apologize for shifting sides like Demades, who would say he often spoke against himself, but never against the city; nor as Melanopus, who being generally against Callistratus, but being often bribed off with money, was wont to tell the people, “The man indeed is my enemy, but we must submit for the good of our country;” nor again as Nicodemus, the Messenian, who having first appeared on Cassander’s side, and afterwards taken part with Demetrius, said the two things were not in themselves contrary, it being always most advisable to obey the conqueror. We have nothing of this kind to say against Demosthenes, as one who would turn aside or prevaricate, either in word or deed. There could not have been less variation in his public acts if they had all been played, so to say, from first to last, from the same score. Panaetius, the philosopher, said that most of his orations are so written as if they were to prove this one conclusion, that what is honest and virtuous is for itself only to be chosen; as that of the Crown, that against Aristocrates, that for the Immunities, and the Philippics; in all which he persuades his fellow-citizens to pursue not that which seems most pleasant, easy, or profitable; but declares, over and over again, that they ought in the first place to prefer that which is just and honourable before their own safety and preservation. So that if he had kept his hands clean, if his courage for the wars had been answerable to the generosity of his principles, and the dignity of his orations, he might deservedly have his name placed, not in the number of such orators as Moerocles, Polyeuctus, and Hyperides, but in the highest rank with Cimon, Thucydides, and Pericles.

Certainly amongst those who were contemporary with him, Phocion, though he appeared on the less commendable side in the commonwealth, and was counted as one of the Macedonian party, nevertheless, by his courage and his honesty, procured himself a name not inferior to these of Ephialtes, Aristides, and Cimon. But Demosthenes, being neither fit to be relied on for courage in arms, as Demetrius says, nor on all sides inaccessible to bribery (for how invincible soever he was against the gifts of Philip and the Macedonians, yet elsewhere he lay open to assault, and was overpowered by the gold which came down from Susa and Ecbatana), was therefore esteemed better able to recommend than to imitate the virtues of past times. And yet (excepting only Phocion), even in his life and manners, he far surpassed the other orators of his time. None of them addressed the people so boldly; he attacked the faults, and opposed himself to the unreasonable desires of the multitude, as may be seen in his orations. Theopompus writes, that the Athenians having by name selected Demosthenes, and called upon him to accuse a certain person, he refused to do it; upon which the assembly being all in an uproar, he rose up and said, “Your counsellor, whether you will or no, O ye men of Athens, you shall always have me; but a sycophant or false accuser, though you would have me, I shall never be.” And his conduct in the case of Antiphon was perfectly aristocratical; whom, after he had been acquitted in the assembly, he took and brought before the court of Areopagus, and, setting at naught the displeasure of the people, convicted him there of having promised Philip to burn the arsenal; whereupon the man was condemned by that court, and suffered for it. He accused, also, Theoris, the priestess, amongst other misdemeanours, of having instructed and taught the slaves to deceive and cheat their masters, for which the sentence of death was passed upon her, and she was executed.

The oration which Apollodorus made use of, and by it carried the cause against Timotheus, the general, in an action of debt, it is said was written for him by Demosthenes; as also those against Phormion and Stephanus, in which latter case he was thought to have acted dishonourably, for the speech which Phormion used against Apollodorus was also of his making; he, as it were, having simply furnished two adversaries out of the same shop with weapons to wound one another. Of his orations addressed to the public assemblies, that against Androtion and those against Timocrates and Aristocrates, were written for others, before he had come forward himself as a politician. They were composed, it seems, when he was but seven or eight and twenty years old. That against Aristogiton, and that for the Immunities, he spoke himself, at the request, as he says, of Ctesippus, the son of Chabrias, but, as some say, out of courtship to the young man’s mother. Though, in fact, he did not marry her, for his wife was a woman of Samos, as Demetrius, the Magnesian, writes, in his book on Persons of the same Name. It is not certain whether his oration against Aeschines, for Misconduct as Ambassador, was ever spoken; although Idomeneus says that Aeschines wanted only thirty voices to condemn him. But this seems not to be correct, at least so far as may be conjectured from both their orations concerning the Crown; for in these, neither of them speaks clearly or directly of it, as a cause that ever came to trial. But let others decide this controversy.

It was evident, even in time of peace, what course Demosthenes would steer in the commonwealth; for whatever was done by the Macedonian, he criticized and found fault with, and upon all occasions was stirring up the people of Athens, and inflaming them against him. Therefore, in the court of Philip, no man was so much talked of, or of so great account as he; and when he came thither, one of the ten ambassadors who were sent into Macedonia, though all had audience given them, yet his speech was answered with most care and exactness. But in other respects, Philip entertained him not so honourably as the rest, neither did he show him the same kindness and civility with which he applied himself to the party of Aeschines and Philocrates. So that, when the others commended Philip for his able speaking, his beautiful person, nay, and also for his good companionship in drinking, Demosthenes could not refrain from cavilling at these praises; the first, he said, was a quality which might well enough become a rhetorician, the second a woman, and the last was only the property of a sponge; no one of them was the proper commendation of a prince.

But when things came at last to war, Philip on the one side being not able to live in peace, and the Athenians, on the other side, being stirred up by Demosthenes, the first action he put them upon was the reducing of Euboea, which, by the treachery of the tyrants, was brought under subjection to Philip. And on his proposition, the decree was voted, and they crossed over thither and chased the Macedonians out of the island. The next was the relief of the Byzantines and Perinthians, whom the Macedonians at that time were attacking. He persuaded the people to lay aside their enmity against these cities, to forget the offences committed by them in the Confederate War, and to send them such succours as eventually saved and secured them. Not long after, he undertook an embassy through the states of Greece, which he solicited and so far incensed against Philip that, a few only excepted, he brought them all into a general league. So that, besides the forces composed of the citizens themselves, there was an army consisting of fifteen thousand foot and two thousand horse, and the money to pay these strangers was levied and brought in with great cheerfulness. On which occasion it was, says Theophrastus, on the allies requesting that their contributions for the war might be ascertained and stated, Crobylus, the orator, made use of the saying, “War can’t be fed at so much a day.” Now was all Greece up in arms, and in great expectation what would be the event. The Euboeans, the Achaeans, the Corinthians, the Megarians, the Leucadians, and Corcyraeans, their people and their cities, were all joined together in a league. But the hardest task was yet behind, left for Demosthenes, to draw the Thebans into this confederacy with the rest. Their country bordered next upon Attica, they had great forces for the war, and at that time they were accounted the best soldiers of all Greece, but it was no easy matter to make them break with Philip, who, by many good offices, had so lately obliged them in the Phocian war; especially considering how the subjects of dispute and variance between the two cities were continually renewed and exasperated by petty quarrels, arising out of the proximity of their frontiers.

But after Philip, being now grown high and puffed up with his good success at Amphissa, on a sudden surprised Elatea and possessed himself of Phocis, and the Athenians were in a great consternation, none durst venture to rise up to speak, no one knew what to say, all were at a loss, and the whole assembly in silence and perplexity, in this extremity of affairs Demosthenes was the only man who appeared, his counsel to them being alliance with the Thebans. And having in other ways encouraged the people, and, as his manner was, raised their spirits up with hopes, he, with some others, was sent ambassador to Thebes. To oppose him, as Marsyas says, Philip also sent thither his envoys, Amyntas and Clearchus, two Macedonians, besides Daochus, a Thessalian, and Thrasydaeus. Now the Thebans, in their consultations, were well enough aware what suited best with their own interest, but every one had before his eyes the terrors of war, and their losses in the Phocian troubles were still recent: but such was the force and power of the orator, fanning up, as Theopompus says, their courage, and firing their emulation, that, casting away every thought of prudence, fear, or obligation, in a sort of divine possession, they chose the path of honour, to which his words invited them. And this success, thus accomplished by an orator, was thought to be so glorious and of such consequence, that Philip immediately sent heralds to treat and petition for a peace: all Greece was aroused, and up in arms to help. And the commanders-in-chief, not only of Attica, but of Boeotia, applied themselves to Demosthenes, and observed his directions. He managed all the assemblies of the Thebans, no less than those of the Athenians; he was beloved both by the one and by the other, and exercised the same supreme authority with both; and that not by unfair means, or without just cause, as Theopompus professes, but indeed it was no more than was due to his merit.

But there was, it would seem, some divinely ordered fortune, commissioned, in the revolution of things, to put a period at this time to the liberty of Greece, which opposed and thwarted all their actions, and by many signs foretold what should happen. Such were the sad predictions uttered by the Pythian priestess, and this old oracle cited out of the Sibyl’s verses:-

“The battle on Thermodon that shall be Safe at a distance I desire to see, Far, like an eagle, watching in the air, Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.”

This Thermodon, they say, is a little rivulet here in our country in Chaeronea, running into the Cephisus. But we know of none that is so called at the present time, and can only conjecture that the streamlet which is now called Haemon, and runs by the Temple of Hercules, where the Grecians were encamped, might perhaps in those days be called Thermodon, and after the fight, being filled with blood and dead bodies, upon this occasion, as we guess, might change its old name for that which it now bears. Yet Duris says that this Thermodon was no river, but that some of the soldiers, as they were pitching their tents and digging trenches about them, found a small stone statue, which, by the inscription, appeared to be the figure of Thermodon, carrying a wounded Amazon in his arms; and that there was another oracle current about it, as follows:-

“The battle on Thermodon that shall be, Fail not, black raven, to attend and see; The flesh of men shall there abound for thee.”

In fine, it is not easy to determine what is the truth. But of Demosthenes it is said that he had such great confidence in the Grecian forces, and was so excited by the sight of the courage and resolution of so many brave men ready to engage the enemy, that he would by no means endure they should give any heed to oracles, or hearken to prophecies, but gave out that he suspected even the prophetess herself, as if she had been tampered with to speak in favour of Philip. The Thebans he put in mind of Epaminondas, the Athenians of Pericles, who always took their own measures and governed their actions by reason, looking upon things of this kind as mere pretexts for cowardice. Thus far, therefore, Demosthenes acquitted himself like a brave man. But in the fight he did nothing honourable, nor was his performance answerable to his speeches. For he fled, deserting his place disgracefully, and throwing away his arms, not ashamed, as Pytheas observed, to belie the inscription written on his shield, in letters of gold, “With good fortune.”

In the meantime Philip, in the first moment of victory, was so transported with joy, that he grew extravagant, and going out after he had drunk largely to visit the dead bodies, he chanted the first words of the decree that had been passed on the motion of Demosthenes-

“The motion of Demosthenes, Demosthenes’s son,” dividing it metrically into feet, and marking the beats.

But when he came to himself, and had well considered the danger he was lately under, he could not forbear from shuddering at the wonderful ability and power of an orator who had made him hazard his life and empire on the issue of a few brief hours. The fame of it also reached even to the court of Persia, and the king sent letters to his lieutenants commanding them to supply Demosthenes with money, and to pay every attention to him, as the only man of all the Grecians who was able to give Philip occupation and find employment for his forces near home, in the troubles of Greece. This, afterwards came to the knowledge of Alexander, by certain letters of Demosthenes which he found at Sardis, and by other papers of the Persian officers, stating the large sums which had been given him.

At this time, however, upon the ill-success which now happened to the Grecians, those of the contrary faction in the commonwealth fell foul upon Demosthenes and took the opportunity to frame several informations and indictments against him. But the people not only acquitted him of these accusations, but continued towards him their former respect, and still invited him, as a man that meant well, to take a part in public affairs. Insomuch that when the bones of those who had been slain at Chaeronea were brought home to be solemnly interred, Demosthenes was the man they chose to make the funeral oration. They did not show, under the misfortunes which befell them, a base or ignoble mind, as Theopompus writes in his exaggerated style, but on the contrary, by the honour and respect paid to their counsellor, they made it appear that they were noway dissatisfied with the counsels he had given them. The speech, therefore, was spoken by Demosthenes. But the subsequent decrees he would not allow to be passed in his own name, but made use of those of his friends, one after another, looking upon his own as unfortunate and inauspicious; till at length he took courage again after the death of Philip, who did not long outlive his victory at Chaeronea. And this, it seems, was that which was foretold in the last verse of the oracle-

“Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.” Demosthenes had secret intelligence of the death of Philip, and laying hold of this opportunity to prepossess the people with courage and better hopes for the future, he came into the assembly with a cheerful countenance, pretending to have had a dream that presaged some great good fortune for Athens; and, not long after, arrived the messengers who brought the news of Philip’s death. No sooner had the people received it, but immediately they offered sacrifice to the gods, and decreed that Pausanias should be presented with a crown. Demosthenes appeared publicly in a rich dress, with a chaplet on his head, though it were but the seventh day since the death of his daughter, as is said by Aeschines, who upbraids him upon this account, and rails at him as one void of natural affection towards his children. Whereas, indeed, he rather betrays himself to be of a poor, low spirit, and effeminate mind, if he really means to make wailings and lamentation the only signs of a gentle and affectionate nature, and to condemn those who bear such accidents with more temper and less passion. For my own part, I cannot say that the behaviour of the Athenians on this occasion was wise or honourable, to crown themselves with garlands and to sacrifice to the gods for the death of a prince who, in the midst of his success and victories, when they were a conquered people, had used them with so much clemency and humanity. For besides provoking fortune, it was a base thing, and unworthy in itself, to make him a citizen of Athens, and pay him honours while he lived, and yet as soon as he fell by another’s hand, to set no bounds to their jollity, to insult over him dead, and to sing triumphant songs of victory, as if by their own valour they had vanquished him. I must at the same time commend the behaviour of Demosthenes, who, leaving tears and lamentations and domestic sorrows to the women, made it his business to attend to the interests of the commonwealth. And I think it the duty of him who would be accounted to have a soul truly valiant, and fit for government, that, standing always firm to the common good, and letting private griefs and troubles find their compensation in public blessings, he should maintain the dignity of his character and station, much more than actors who represent the persons of kings and tyrants, who, we see, when they either laugh or weep on the stage, follow, not their own private inclinations, but the course consistent with the subject and with their position. And if, moreover, when our neighbour is in misfortune, it is not our duty to forbear offering any consolation, but rather to say whatever may tend to cheer him, and to invite his attention to any agreeable objects, just as we tell people who are troubled with sore eyes to withdraw their sight from bright and offensive colours to green, and those of a softer mixture, from whence can a man seek, in his own case, better arguments of consolation for afflictions in his family, than from the prosperity of his country, by making public and domestic chances count, so to say, together, and the better fortune of the state obscure and conceal the less happy circumstances of the individual. I have been induced to say so much, because I have known many readers melted by Aeschines’s language into a soft and unmanly tenderness.

But now to turn to my narrative. The cities of Greece were inspirited once more by the efforts of Demosthenes to form a league together. The Thebans, whom he had provided with arms, set upon their garrison, and slew many of them; the Athenians made preparations to join their forces with them; Demosthenes ruled supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote letters to the Persian officers who commanded under the king in Asia, inciting them to make war upon the Macedonian, calling him child and simpleton. But as soon as Alexander had settled matters in his own country, and came in person with his army into Boeotia, down fell the courage of the Athenians, and Demosthenes was hushed; the Thebans, deserted by them, fought by themselves, and lost their city. After which, the people of Athens, all in distress and great perplexity, resolved to send ambassadors to Alexander, and amongst others, made choice of Demosthenes for one; but his heart failing him for fear of the king’s anger, he returned back from Cithaeron, and left the embassy. In the meantime, Alexander sent to Athens, requiring ten of their orators to be delivered up to him, as Idomeneus and Duris have reported, but as the most and best historians say, he demanded these eight only,- Demosthenes, Polyeuctus, Ephialtes, Lycurgus, Moerocles, Demon, Callisthenes, and Charidemus. It was upon this occasion that Demosthenes related to them the fable in which the sheep are said to deliver up their dogs to the wolves; himself and those who with him contended for the people’s safety being, in his comparison, the dogs that defended the flock, and Alexander “the Macedonian arch-wolf.” He further told them, “As we see corn-masters sell their whole stock by a few grains of wheat which they carry about with them in a dish, as a sample of the rest, so you by delivering up us, who are but a few, do at the same time unawares surrender up yourselves all together with us so we find it related in the history of Aristobulus, the Cassandrian. The Athenians were deliberating, and at a loss what to do, when Demades, having agreed with the persons whom Alexander had demanded, for five talents, undertook to go ambassador, and to intercede with the king for them; and, whether it was that he relied on his friendship and kindness, or that he hoped to find him satiated, as a lion glutted with slaughter, he certainly went, and prevailed with him both to pardon the men, and to be reconciled to the city.

So he and his friends, when Alexander went away, were great men, and Demosthenes was quite put aside. Yet when Agis, the Spartan, made his insurrection, he also for a short time attempted a movement in his favour; but he soon shrunk back again, as the Athenians would not take any part in it, and, Agis being slain, the Lacedaemonians were vanquished. During this time it was that the indictment against Ctesiphon, concerning the crown, was brought to trial. The action was commenced a little before the battle in Chaeronea, when Chaerondas was archon, but it was not proceeded with till about ten years after, Aristophon being then archon. Never was any public cause more celebrated than this, alike for the fame of the orators, and for the generous courage of the judges, who, though at that time the accusers of Demosthenes were in the height of power, and supported by all the favour of the Macedonians, yet would not give judgment against him, but acquitted him so honourably, that Aeschines did not obtain the fifth part of their suffrages on his side, so that, immediately after, he left the city, and spent the rest of his life in teaching rhetoric about the island of Rhodes, and upon the continent in Ionia.

It was not long after that Harpalus fled from Alexander, and came to Athens out of Asia; knowing himself guilty of many misdeeds into which his love of luxury had led him, and fearing the king, who was now grown terrible even to his best friends. Yet this man had no sooner addressed himself to the people, and delivered up his goods, his ships, and himself to their disposal, but the other orators of the town had their eyes quickly fixed upon his money, and came in to his assistance, persuading the Athenians to receive and protect their suppliant. Demosthenes at first gave advice to chase him out of the country, and to beware lest they involved their city in a war upon an unnecessary and unjust occasion. But some few days after, as they were taking an account of the treasure, Harpalus, perceiving how much he was pleased with a cup of Persian manufacture, and how curiously he surveyed the sculpture and fashion of it, desired him to poise it in his hand, and consider the weight of the gold. Demosthenes, being amazed to feel how heavy it was, asked him what weight it came to. “To you,” said Harpalus, smiling, “it shall come with twenty talents.” And presently after, when night drew on, he sent him the cup with so many talents. Harpalus, it seems, was a person of singular skill to discern a man’s covetousness by the air of his countenance, and the look and movements of his eyes. For Demosthenes could not resist the temptation, but admitting the present, like an armed garrison, into the citadel of his house, he surrendered himself up to the interest of Harpalus. The next day, he came into the assembly with his neck swathed about with wool and rollers, and when they called on him to rise up and speak, he made signs as if he had lost his voice. But the wits, turning the matter to ridicule, said that certainly the orator had been seized that night with no other than a silver quinsy. And soon after, the people, becoming aware of the bribery, grew angry, and would not suffer him to speak, or make any apology for himself, but ran him down with noise; and one man stood up, and cried out, “What, ye men of Athens, will you not hear the cup-bearer?” So at length they banished Harpalus out of the city; and fearing lest they should be called to account for the treasure which the orators had purloined, they made a strict inquiry, going from house to house; only Callicles, the son of Arrhenidas, who was newly married, they would not suffer to be searched, out of respects, as Theopompus writes, to the bride, who was within.

Demosthenes resisted the inquisition, and proposed a decree to refer the business to the court of Areopagus, and to punish those whom that court should find guilty. But being himself one of the first whom the court condemned, when he came to the bar, he was fined fifty talents, and committed to prison; where, out of shame of the crime for which he was condemned, and through the weakness of his body, growing incapable of supporting the confinement, he made his escape, by the carelessness of some and by the contrivance of others of the citizens. We are told, at least, that he had not fled far from the city when, finding that he was pursued by some of those who had been his adversaries, he endeavoured to hide himself. But when they called him by his name, and coming up nearer to him, desired he would accept from them some money which they had brought from home as a provision for his journey, and to that purpose only had followed him, when they entreated him to take courage, and to bear up against his misfortune, he burst out into much greater lamentation, saying, “But how is it possible to support myself under so heavy an affliction, since I leave a city in which I have such enemies, as in any other it is not easy to find friends.” He did not show much fortitude in his banishment, spending his time for the most part in Aegina and Troezen, and, with tears in his eyes, looking towards the country of Attica. And there remain upon record some sayings of his, little resembling those sentiments of generosity and bravery which he used to express when he had the management of the commonwealth. For, as he was departing out of the city, it is reported, he lifted up his hands towards the Acropolis, and said, “O Lady Minerva, how is it that thou takest delight in three such fierce untractable beasts, the owl, the snake, and the people?” The young men that came to visit and converse with him, he deterred from meddling with state affairs, telling them, that if at first two ways had been proposed to him, the one leading to the speaker’s stand and the assembly, the other going direct to destruction, and he could have foreseen the many evils which attend those who deal in public business, such as fears, envies, calumnies, and contentions, he would certainly have taken that which led straight on to his death.

But now happened the death of Alexander, while Demosthenes was in this banishment which we have been speaking of. And the Grecians were once again up in arms, encouraged by the brave attempts of Leosthenes, who was then drawing a circumvallation about Antipater, whom he held close besieged in Lamia. Pytheas, therefore, the orator, and Callimedon, called the Crab, fled from Athens, and taking sides with Antipater, went about with his friends and ambassadors to keep the Grecians from revolting and taking part with the Athenians. But, on the other side, Demosthenes, associating himself with the ambassadors that came from Athens, used his utmost endeavours and gave them his best assistance in persuading the cities to fall unanimously upon the Macedonians, and to drive them out of Greece. Phylarchus says that in Arcadia there happened a rencounter between Pytheas and Demosthenes, which came at last to downright railing, while the one pleaded for the Macedonians, and the other for the Grecians. Pytheas said, that as we always suppose there is some disease in the family to which they bring asses’ milk, so wherever there comes an embassy from Athens that city must needs be indisposed. And Demosthenes answered him, retorting the comparison: “Asses’ milk is brought to restore health and the Athenians come for the safety and recovery of the sick.” With this conduct the people of Athens were so well pleased that they decreed the recall of Demosthenes from banishment. The decree was brought in by Demon the Paeanian, cousin to Demosthenes. So they sent him a ship to Aegina, and he landed at the port of Piraeus, where he was met and joyfully received by all the citizens, not so much as an archon or a priest staying behind. And Demetrius, the Magnesian, says that he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and blessed this day of his happy return, as far more honourable than that of Alcibiades; since he was recalled by his countrymen, not through any force or constraint put upon them, but by their own good-will and free inclinations. There remained only his pecuniary fine, which, according to law, could not be remitted by the people. But they found out a way to elude the law. It was a custom with them to allow a certain quantity of silver to those who were to furnish and adorn the altar for the sacrifice of Jupiter Soter. This office, for that turn, they bestowed on Demosthenes, and for the performance of it ordered him fifty talents, the very sum in which he was condemned.

Yet it was no long time that he enjoyed his country after his return, the attempts of the Greeks being soon all utterly defeated. For the battle of Cranon happened in Metagitnion, in Boedromion the garrison entered into Munychia, and in the Pyanepsion following died Demosthenes after this manner.

Upon the report that Antipater and Craterus were coming to Athens, Demosthenes with his party took their opportunity to escape privily out of the city; but sentence of death was, upon the motion of Demades, passed upon them by the people. They dispersed themselves, flying some to one place, some to another; and Antipater sent about his soldiers into all quarters to apprehend them. Archias was their captain, and was thence called the exile-hunter. He was a Thurian born, and is reported to have been an actor of tragedies, and they say that Polus, of Aegina, the best actor of his time, was his scholar; but Hermippus reckons Archias among the disciples of Lacritus, the orator, and Demetrius says he spent some time with Anaximenes. This Archias finding Hyperides the orator, Aritonicus of Marathon, and Himeraeus, the brother of Demetrius the Phalerian, in Aegina, took them by force out of the temple of Aecus, whither they were fled for safety, and sent them to Antipater, then at Cleonae where they were all put to death; and Hyperides, they say, had his tongue cut out.

Demosthenes, he heard, had taken sanctuary at the temple of Neptune in Calauria and, crossing over thither in some light vessels, as soon as he had landed himself, and the Thracian spearmen that came with him, he endeavoured to persuade Demosthenes to accompany him to Antipater, as if he should meet with no hard usage from him. But Demosthenes, in his sleep the night before, had a strange dream. It seemed to him that he was acting a tragedy, and contended with Archias for the victory; and though he acquitted himself well, and gave good satisfaction to the spectators, yet for want of better furniture and provision for the stage, he lost the day. And so, while Archias was discoursing to him with many expressions of kindness, he sate still in the same posture, and looking up steadfastly upon him, “O Archias,” said he, “I am as little affected by your promises now as I used formerly to be by your acting.” Archias at this beginning to grow angry and to threaten him, “Now,” said Demosthenes, “you speak like the genuine Macedonian oracle; before you were but acting a part. Therefore forbear only a little, while I write a word or two home to my family.” Having thus spoken, he withdrew into the temple and taking a scroll as if he meant to write, he put the reed into his mouth, and biting it as he was wont to do when he was thoughtful or writing, he held it there some time. Then he bowed down his head and covered it. The soldiers that stood at the door, supposing all this to proceed from want of courage and fear of death, in derision called him effeminate, and faint-hearted, and coward. And Archias drawing near, desired him to rise up, and repeating the same kind of thing he had spoken before, he once more promised to make his peace with Antipater. But Demosthenes, perceiving that now the poison had pierced, and seized his vitals, uncovered his head, and fixing his eyes upon Archias, “Now,” said he, “as soon as you please, you may commence the part of Creon in the tragedy, and cast out this body of mine unburied. But, O gracious Neptune, I, for my part while I am yet alive will rise up and depart out of this sacred place; though Antipater and the Macedonians have not left so much as thy temple unpolluted.” After he had thus spoken and desired to be held up, because already he began to tremble and stagger, as he was going forward, and passing by the altar, he fell down, and with a groan gave up the ghost.

Ariston says that he took the poison out of a reed, as we have shown before. But Pappus, a certain historian whose history was recovered by Hermippus, says, that as he fell near the altar, there was found in his scroll this beginning only of a letter, and nothing more, “Demosthenes to Antipater.” And that when his sudden death was much wondered at, the Thracians who guarded the doors reported that he took the poison into his hand out of a rag, and put it in his mouth, and that they imagined it had been gold which he swallowed, but the maid that served him, being examined by the followers of Archias, affirmed that he had worn it in a bracelet for a long time, as an amulet. And Eratosthenes also says that he kept the poison in a hollow ring, and that that ring was the bracelet which he wore about his arm. There are various other statements made by the many authors who have related the story, but there is no need to enter into their discrepancies; yet I must not omit what is said by Demochares the relation of Demosthenes, who is of opinion it was not by the help of poison that he met with so sudden and so easy a death, but that by the singular favour and providence of the gods he was thus rescued from the cruelty of the Macedonians. He died on the sixteenth of Pyanepsion, the most sad and solemn day of the Thesmophoria, which the women observe by fasting in the temple of the goddess.

Soon after his death, the people of Athens bestowed on him such honours as he had deserved. They erected his statue of brass; they decreed that the eldest of his family should be maintained in the Prytaneum; and on the base of his statue was engraven the famous inscription-

“Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were, The Macedonian had not conquered her.” For it is simply ridiculous to say, as some have related, that Demosthenes made these verses himself in Calauria, as he was about to take the poison.

A little before he went to Athens, the following incident was said to have happened. A soldier, being summoned to appear before his superior officer, and answer to an accusation brought against him, put that little gold which he had into the hands of Demosthenes’s statue. The fingers of this statue were folded one within another, and near it grew a small plane-tree, from which many leaves, either accidently blown thither by the wind, or placed so on purpose by the man himself, falling together and lying round about the gold, concealed it for a long time. In the end, the soldier returned and found his treasure entire, and the fame of this incident was spread abroad. And many ingenious persons of the city competed with each other, on this occasion, to vindicate the integrity of Demosthenes in several epigrams which they made on the subject.

As for Demades, he did not long enjoy the new honours he now came in for, divine vengeance for the death of Demosthenes pursuing him into Macedonia, where he was justly put to death by those whom he had basely flattered. They were weary of him before, but at this time the guilt he lay under was manifest and undeniable. For some of his letters were intercepted, in which he had encouraged Perdiccas to fall upon Macedonia, and to save the Grecians, who, he said, hung only by an old rotten thread meaning Antipater. Of this he was accused by Dinarchus, the Corinthian, and Cassander was so enraged, that he first slew his son in his bosom, and then gave orders to execute him; who might now at last, by his own extreme misfortunes, learn the lesson that traitors who made sale of their country sell themselves first; a truth which Demosthenes had often foretold him, and he would never believe. Thus, Sosius, you have the life of Demosthenes from such accounts as we have either read or heard concerning him.

THE END

= About Membership = Over the past 200 plus years, the society has enjoyed a diverse group of students who have been proud to call themselves members. In recent years students from a wide array of majors spanning North and South Campus have come to the society to take part in the debate and intellectual discourse that the society has come to be known for.

Members of the society are often heavily involved on campus having a hand in over 60 campus organizations. These groups include but are not limited to every political affiliated organization on campus, The Red and Black, Uga Red Cross, uga quiz bowl, World ambassadors, The UGA journal of intellectual property law, German student organization, vibha academic bowl outreach, lambda alliance, The Redcoat Marching Band, SEA, numerous service and honor societies, SGA, UGA Miracle, Pre-Pharmacy Society, Prelaw learning community, MEDLIFE, SGA, RHA, YoungLife, Spencer Frye Fellowship Program, Economics Society, CITS, Stillpoint Literary Magazine, WSSO, Roosevelt Institute, Secular Student Alliance, phi alpha theta history honors society, Mock Trial, Young Democrats of UGA, Young Democrats of Georgia, Young Republicans of Georgia, WUOG, CURO, and even the 136.

= About Alumni = Today there are over 1,000 living Demosthenian alumni around the world. It is no secret that being a Demosthenian prepares you for great things after you graduate, just ask two of our alumni who are currently serving in the United States Congress: Jack Kingston (R-Georgia) and John Barrow (D-Georgia).

A Demosthenian was also the first African-American Supreme Court Justice for the state of Georgia, and another was the founder of Gold Kist. Others have served as the Governor of Georgia (1,2,3), on the United States Supreme Court, coined the term “spam.” One even made the string bikini what it is today. Another was the first person to use anesthesia.

Today, our alumni are always welcome at meetings and society tailgates during football season. So, if you are in Athens please stop by and say hello. We look forward to seeing you.

= Famous Alumni = Alumni Biographies (Courtesy of Ryan Van Meter)
 * William Y. Atkinson GA Governor
 * Pope Barrow U.S. Senator
 * Robert Benham Chief Justice, GA Supreme Court
 * William Tapley Bennett, Jr. Diplomat
 * D. W. Brooks Founder of Goldkist
 * John A. Campbell U.S. Supreme Court Justice
 * Hugh M. Dorsey GA Governor
 * Benjamin Hill Statesman
 * Crawford Long Physician
 * Count Emilio Pucci Fashion Designer
 * Ralph Reed Political activist
 * Herman E. Talmadge U.S. Senator and GA Governor
 * Henry Timrod Poet Laureate of the Confederacy
 * Robert Toombs Statesman
 * John Barrow U.S. Congressman
 * Roy V. Harris Political Strategist
 * Beth Shapiro Evolutionary Biologist
 * Robert C. Owen Professor of Law
 * Pope Barrow
 * George “Buddy” Darden
 * George Elliott Hagan
 * Benjamin Hill
 * Jack Kingston
 * Emory Speer
 * Robert Toombs
 * Herman Talmadge

= All Night Meeting = Every year, on the Saturday that falls closest to February 19, the Demosthenian Literary Society hosts its annual All Night Meeting. The meeting takes place between the hours of 7 pm and 7 am the following morning, and opens with guest speakers and continues with debate between both current members and alumni of the Society. Those members who stay until the end of the meeting are awarded a Speaker’s Point.

The next All Night Meeting falls on February 20, 2016. All alumni are welcome to come and join with the current society to celebrate the anniversary of the University of Georgia’s oldest student organization.

= Speakers Keys = The details regarding speakers keys have been finalized. If you are an alumnus/alumna or current member, having earned at least 32 points, then you are eligible to order a key. Keys are $35 and must be prepaid. Please send checks made out to the Demosthenian Literary Society to the following address:

The Demosthenian Literary Society Attn: Speakers Keys University of Georgia Demosthenian Hall Athens, GA 30602

Be sure to also write speakers keys on the “for” line of your check, otherwise we will assume you are sending a donation. If you wish to purchase more than one key, please make a note of that in parentheses on the “for” line also.

= Becoming a Member = Becoming Part of the Tradition

Any registered student at the University of Georgia desiring to become a member may do so after: Click here to download the membership test. Please print it out and bring it with you to the meeting that you desire to petition at. You will need Adobe Acrobat to view it.
 * Attending three meetings, two of which must be consecutive
 * Passing the written membership test about the society’s history and constitution
 * Giving a maiden address on any topic
 * Receiving an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the full-voting members

Dues and Fees

Members pay $20.00 a semester in dues. In addition, there is a ten dollar deposit for a key to the Hall, which can be requested after the ninth meeting as a member.

= Renting the Hall = Dear Renter,

Thank you for renting Demosthenian Hall! Please read the following guidelines carefully before going on to print, fill-out, and sign the contract. Once you have signed and mailed in the contract along with the rental fee and deposit (if applicable), you are obligated to fulfill the terms of the rental including those found in these guidelines.

Renting Demosthenian Hall:

A Brief Guide

Why We Rent the Building

The Demosthenian Literary Society is the oldest student organization on the UGA Campus, founded in 1803 as a haven for debate and has continued its tradition for over 200 continuous years. The society is named for the Ancient Greek orator Demosthenes who was known for his rhetoric and dedication to overcome his speech impediments. The society strives to follow this example and practices through extemporization and extemporaneous debate. Key to this mission, is our beautiful hall in which we hold our meetings and gather to practice and study. The hall was built in 1824 and was paid for by members, alumni, and friends of the society. Contrary to popular belief, the Society does not rent Demosthenian Hall to make money. In fact, we generally tend to lose money on most rentals. The primary reason that we allow others to use our Hall is to demonstrate our great appreciation for the support we receive from the University and the greater community.

The Hall Rental Contract

The Society is the only student organization on campus that manages a building on campus. With this great privilege comes great responsibility. If anything were to happen to the Hall, the Demosthenian Literary Society would be held responsible. To ensure the safety and well-being of our building, which is a historic landmark, we ask that you sign a rental agreement. Once you have accessed the Hall Rental Contract, read it carefully. Keep the first page of the contract for your own records. Then, fill-out, sign, and return the second two pages to the address listed on the bottom of the agreement. If applicable, please be sure to enclose your rental fee and security deposit.

Payment Plan for Rental Fees (CHECKS ONLY)

The Demosthenian Literary Society has three payment categories that determine the cost of using the building for an event.

Payment category (Plan) A covers the general public. Individuals in this category should be sure to send in a $100 rental fee and a $200 security deposit.

Payment category (Plan) B is the option that student organizations should select. We do not charge student organizations a rental fee, although we still require that they send us a $200 security deposit. In order to verify an organizations status as a student organization, the group’s faculty advisor must sign the rental contract in the appropriate place. Where your advisor should sign will be obvious once you examine the rental contract.

Payment category (Plan) C is the option that UGA departments should select. We do not charge UGA departments a rental fee or security deposit with the understanding that the department is liable for damages above and beyond normal use. In order to verify at the rental party is a UGA department, a faculty or staff must sign the rental contract in the appropriate place. Where the faculty or staff member should sign will be obvious once you examine the rental contract.

Security Deposit (CHECKS ONLY)

All Rental Parties must provide a $200 dollar security deposit (if applicable). If we determine that the hall has not been abused during the course of your rental, we will tear up the check. If the hall is damaged, left in an unacceptable condition, or terms of the rental contract are violated, we reserve the right to keep the damage deposit in its entirety.

Donations

Unlike other student clubs on campus, the Demosthenian Literary Society does not receive funds directly from the University. Instead, we rely on the generous donations of individuals like you to continue our mission of advancing public speaking and debate.

We would be honored if you would consider making a contribution to the Society. Your generous donation will allow us to continue to provide hall rentals to the community and will help us achieve new levels of excellence. Selecting the box to donate your security deposit to the society is an easy way to help support a vital University of Georgia tradition.

We gratefully accept all gifts, regardless of the amount given. Checks can be made out the Demosthenian Literary Society.

Prohibitions and General Rules:

As our hall has come to represent over 200 years of history, we feel obligated to preserve it for future Demosthenians. Therefore, we ask that you observe the following requests. If any of these rules are violated, the Society reserves the right to retain the security deposit in its entirety and assess additional damage fines as needed.

'''1. Please do not use an open flame in the hall. This includes the burning of candles. If your event requires the use of candles, DO NOT rent the Hall.'''

2. Smoking is prohibited.

3. As Demosthenian is party to the regulations of the University of Georgia, we do not allow alcoholic beverages in the hall. Please do not drink alcohol at your event!

4. Please refrain from bringing food or beverages upstairs.

5. Please do your best to leave the Hall in a neat and orderly condition.

6. Do not break state or federal law. Please also abide by all the regulations of the University of Georgia.

Gaining Access To the Hall

The Hall Administrator, Nicholas Twiner, is responsible for ensuring that you are able to gain access to the hall on the date of your rental. Please e-mail him at dlshalladmin@gmail.com.

Emergency Contact Information

In the event of a major problem contact the Hall Administrator, Nicholas Twiner, at dlshalladmin@gmail.com.

Check out Procedure

In order to ensure that we can continue to allow individuals to use our historic hall at low cost, the Demosthenian Society asks that all renters follow the check-out procedure outlined below. If any of the following procedures are not followed, the Demosthenian Literary Society reserves the right to retain the security deposit in its entirety and assess additional damage fines as needed.

Before you leave:

1. Pick-up all trash and place it in the garbage can.

2. If the garbage can is full, please remove the bag and take the trash out to the dumpster located behind the hall. If you would be kind enough to put in a new trash bag, we would be very appreciative. If the recycling bin is full, please remove the back and place it besides the bins.

3. Place the keys to the hall on the fireplace mantle in the main sitting area of the first floor.

4. Turn off all the lights both upstairs AND downstairs.

5. Close the door as you leave. It will lock automatically.

Your rental helps the Demosthenian Literary Society keep the Hall in good condition. Your assistance will reduce the burden placed on our all volunteer and student run operations, and it will also allow us to preserve our beautiful 200 year-old building for future generations.

If you have any further requests, comments, concerns, or questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I am happy to do whatever I can to make your hall rental a successful and enjoyable experience.

Nicholas Twiner

Hall Administrator of the DLS, 2015-2016

If you are interested in renting the Hall, please proceed and fill out the Hall Rental Form. We will contact you within one week letting you know whether the Hall is available or not.

= FAQ = Where and when do you meet? We meet at Demosthenian Hall on North Campus. It’s a yellow building between the Chapel and Holmes-Hunter Academic Building. We meet every Thursday at 7 p.m. during fall and spring semester.

What do you do? Demosthenian is the oldest student organization at the University of Georgia (founded in 1803). Since the society is extemporaneous, both members and guests can propose a resolution. Demosthenians debate resolutions that include (but are not limited to) domestic, international, social, moral, philosophical and even humorous topics.  Who attends? The society is a microcosm of the university by reflecting undergraduate, graduate, and law school students. This enriches the perspective, experience, and contribution of our debates. Everyone isn’t an expert, so don’t feel nervous. Get up and speak about what you know! We are a society of students that works to learn and improve our skills.

Can I be a guest? Absolutely! All of our Thursday meetings are open to any guests. We have visitors that are/are not UGA-affiliated. Please bring a friend or two. The experience is greater when you have someone to talk to and sit with you. Regardless, Demosthenians will make you feel at home.

What can I do when I visit? You have many options! You can simply observe the meeting, propose a resolution, speak on a resolution, ask questions during someone’s speech and vote for or against the resolution at the end of debate.

Can I be a member? We’d be glad to have you join, as long as you fulfill our requirements. They are: 1) Attend 3 meetings-at least 2 meetings must be consecutive. 2) Speak at least once at one of the three meetings. 3) Turn in your membership test a week before you petition to join. 4) Petition to join by giving a maiden address on any topic of your choosing. Then the society will debate and vote on your petition.

Do you have events besides Thursday night meetings? Yes we do! Demosthenian celebrates its anniversary in February each year by hosting the All Night Meeting. In addition, we have workshops that are used to improve speaking and oratory, a Halloween meeting, an annual Hat Debate, and the Inter-Society Meeting and Inter-Society Debate with Phi Kappa Literary Society as well as other social and historical events and trips.

Some terms you’ll hear at meetings: Robert’s Rules: Parliamentary Procedure that we follow Calling the House: The Sergeant-At-Arms tells all members and guests go to the upper chamber Resolution: a debate topic that is proposed to the society by anyone

What exactly is Demosthenian?

The Demosthenian Literary Society is UGA’s oldest student organization. Founded in 1803, it is the aim of the society to train UGA students in the arts of debate and public speaking, and to have a good time while doing it.

When does Demosthenian meet?

The DLS meets every Thursday at 7:00PM at Demosthenian Hall (that’s the big beige building with the green shutters, on North Camps, two doors down from the Arch). Meetings last as long as the members have something to debate, typically until 10:30 or 11:00PM.

'''Wow. That’s a long time. Do guests have to stay the whole time?'''

Of course not. Guests have busy schedules. So do Demosthenians. Come for a little. Come for a lot. If you enjoy yourself, stick around. If not, head on out. Just be sure not to interrupt a speaker when leaving.

What sorts of topics do you debate?

Politics, philosophy, current events–you name it. It’s extemporaneous parlaimentary debate, which means that 1) our topics are usually not announced in advance, and 2) we use Roberts’ Rules of Order to govern who gets to speak and when. Usually three or more topics are debated in a single night. Visit this link for a list of topics debated recently.

'''I’m nervous about all this speaking stuff. Do guests have to speak?'''

Nope. Guests are guests. Come watch the debates. Join in if you feel like it. It’s easy for a guest to get the floor (that’s fancy Demosthenian-speak for “get a chance to speak”).

'''I’m not nervous. I want to join right in. How do I “get the floor”?'''

When a speaker has finished speaking, people who want a chance to speak after them all stand up and say “Mister/Madame President!” The President then calls on you, usually by saying “Mr./Miss/Mrs. Guest”. At which point, all you have to say is, “May I have the floor?” The President says, “The floor is yours,” and you have five minutes to speak.

'''Five minutes? Should I speak the whole time?'''

Speak for as long as you have something to say. Though one line speeches are frowned upon. Oneliners can be rattled off in questions.

'''Questions? People can question me?'''

Yes. And you can be questioned. To question a speaker, just rise and say, “Mister/Madame President”. When the President calls on you, say, “Question for the speaker”. If the speaker yields, ask away. If not, sit down and try again later. Members try to take it easy on guests in the beginning. No one’s going to ambush you with questions. (Though once you’re a member, the gloves come off.)

Why would anyone want to be a member, anyway?

Well, it’s this simple: if you want to get ahead in this world, you have to learn to speak in public. (With the possible exception of mimery, of course.) Demosthenian is a place where you can learn to do that in a supportive environment. Former members of Demosthenian have risen to positions of prominence, like the Governor’s Office and the U.S. Senate. Recent alumni are attending top law schools like Virginia, Harvard, and NYU.

'''So what? I don’t want to be a lawyer or a politician.'''

But you will want to speak convincingly and effectively. Our graduates also end up at places like Oxford and Yale, studying everything from evolution to medieval literature. But one and all, they point to their Demosthenian training as helping them get ahead. It’s not a society you join to have a line on your resume. It’s a place to get life skills and make lifelong friends.

Isn’t there another place to debate on campus?

Yes. For competitive policy debate (NDT style), there is the UGA Debate Union. For information on it, contact Ed Panetta.

What about that place right across from Demosthenian?

That would be our rival society, the Phi Kappans. Refounded in 1991, they serve a similar purpose on campus. We’d like to think that we’re the better of the two societies, as recent debates might indicate. But the truth is, the only way you’ll know for sure if you should be a Demosthenian or a Phi Kappan is to attend meetings of both.

Didn’t you guys used to shoot out their windows?

As much as we’d like to say we did, this is the stuff of legend. Phi Kappa Hall has no windows on the front because of the style of architecture that the founders chose. No matter what your orientation leader told you, the fault of having an ugly building style is the result of their own bad taste.

But surely there’s some difference between the two societies?

Demosthenian prides itself on being more informal and less pretentious than our rivals. But that might just be a P.R. line. Really, you’ll just have to look for yourselves.

The biggest difference is that Demosthenian has been in continuous existence for over 200 years, while Phi Kappa folded in the ’70’s. Also, we have maintained control of the hall, where as Phi Kappa lost it shortly after the Civil War. The refounders of Phi Kappa also used the modern definition of “Literary.” This difference has lead our rivals to include creative writings and the reading of literature at their meetings.

Why don’t you do creative writings?

Demosthenian (and the original Phi Kappa) were founded as places for extemporaneous debate. Though at several points (in the 1800’s) both societies put out a joint literary magazine, they were not founded as places for regular reading of creative writings.

Further, the literary society environment does not lend itself to creative writings; workshopping works best with all parties around a table, swapping tips and criticisms with corrected copies in front of them. And there are already several places to get that kind of support on campus, not the least of which being the classes taught by the Creative Writing department.

So why are you called a “literary” society?

Think in context to the time the society was founded. The 1800’s definition literally meant “of words,” referring to oration and speaking. So, a “literay” society by that standard equates to a speaking or debate society.

What was that earlier about access to Demosthenian Hall?

After nine meetings as a member of Demosthenian, members can request keys to Demosthenian Hall. The Hall houses our library, and the sitting area is often used by members who want a place to study, or just to hang out with other members. Though, the Hall is often used by other groups, like the SGA, the Historic Preservation Society, the Gridiron Society, and Alpha Phi Omega. And people use it when they’re getting married at the chapel, too.