Demosthenes

Once he attempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it.

On one occasion, he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in an inn, and as he was slipping away, he said to him, You will now be ever so much more in an inn.

Footnote.

This line is from Erepedes, Media, 411.

End of footnote.

Once, when some strangers wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, this is the great demagogue of the athenian people when someone had dropped a loaf and was ashamed to pick it up again he wishing to give him a lesson tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through the he used to say that he imitated the teachers of choruses for that they spoke too loud in order that the rest might catch up the proper tone another of his sayings was that most men were within the finger's breadth of being mad if then any one were to walk along stretching out his middle finger he will seem to be mad But if he puts his forefinger, he will not be thought so.

Another of his sayings was that the things of great value were often sold for nothing, and vice versa.

Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand rakhmas and a bushel of meal, only two obols.

In the days when Pindar and the nine lyric poets feared to attempt Homeric verse, there was no private tutor to stifle budding genius.

I need not cite the poets for evidence, for I do not find that either Plato or Demosthenes was given to this kind of exercise.

A dignified, and if I may say it, a chaste style is neither elaborate nor loaded with ornament.

It rises supreme by its own natural purity.

Nor yearn for the courts of proud princes who frown in their might, nor scheme with the riffraff a client in order to dine, nor can he with evil companions his wit drown in wine, nor sit as a hireling applauding an actor's grimace.

But whether the fortress of arms-bearing Tritonis smile upon him, or land which the Spartan colonials grace, or home of the Sirens with poetry let him beguile the years of young manhood, and at the Maenalian spring his fortunate soul drink his fill.

Then when later the lore of Socrates' school he has mastered, the reins let him fling, and brandish the weapons that mighty Demosthenes bore.

Then steeped in the culture and music of Greece, let his taste be ripened and mellowed by all the great writers of Rome.

Once he attempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it.

On one occasion, he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in an inn, and as he was slipping away, he said to him, You will now be ever so much more in an inn.

Footnote.

This line is from Erepedes, Media, 411.

End of footnote.

Once, when some strangers wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, this is the great demagogue of the athenian people when someone had dropped a loaf and was ashamed to pick it up again he wishing to give him a lesson tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through the he used to say that he imitated the teachers of choruses for that they spoke too loud in order that the rest might catch up the proper tone another of his sayings was that most men were within the finger's breadth of being mad if then any one were to walk along stretching out his middle finger he will seem to be mad but if he puts his forefinger he will not be thought so another of his sayings was that the things of great value were often sold for nothing and vice versa accordingly that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas and a bushel of meal only two obols when zaneidas had bought him he said to him come do what you are ordered to and when he said the streams of sacred river now run backwards to their source suppose rejoined diogenes you had been sick and you had bought a physician could you refuse to be guided by him and tell him the streams of sacred rivers now run backwards to their source once a man came to him and wished to study philosophy as his pupil and he gave him a footnote the zapata was a croquiness a kind of fish when salted and made him follow him and as he from shame threw it away and departed he soon afterwards met him and laughing said to him a zapata has dissolved your friendship for me but diocles tells this story in the following manner that when some one had said to him give me a commission diogenes he carried him off and gave him half a penny worth of cheese to carry and as he refused to carry it see said diogenes a half a penny worth of cheese has broken off our friendship on one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its hands and so he threw away the cup which belonged to his wallet saying that child has beaten me in simplicity he also threw away his spoon after seeing a boy when he had broken his vessel take up his lentils with a crust of bread and he used to argue thus everything belongs to the gods and wise men are the friends of the gods all things are in common among friends therefore everything belongs to the wise men once he saw a woman falling down before the gods in an unbecoming attitude he wishing to cure her of her superstitions as zolius of perga tells us came up to her and said are you not afraid o woman to be in such an indecent attitude when some god may be behind you for every place is full of him he consecrated a man to aesculapius who was to run up and beat all those who prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground and as he was in the habit of saying that the tragic course had come upon him for that he was houseless and cityless a piteous exile from his dear native land a wandering beggar scraping a pit and spoor from day to day and another of his sayings was that he opposed confidence to fortune nature to law and reason to suffering once while he was sitting in the sun in the cranium alexander was standing by and said to him ask any favour you choose of me and he replied cease to shade me from the sun on one occasion a man was reading some long passages and when he came to the end of the book and showed that there was nothing more written be of good cheer my friends exclaimed diogenes i see land a man once proved to him syllogistically that he had hounds so he put up his hand to his forehead and said i do not see them and in a similar manner he replied to one who had been asserting that there was no such thing as motion by getting up and walking away when a man was talking about the heavenly bodies and meteors pray how many days said he to him is it since you came down from the heaven a profligate nunch had written on his house let no evil thing enter in where said diogenes is the master of the house going after having anointed his feet with perfume he said that the ointment from his head mounted up to heaven and that from his feet up to his nose when the athenians entreated him to be initiated in the eleusinian mysteries and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats it will he replied be an absurd thing if hegesliaus and epaminondas are to live in the mud and some miserable britches who have been initiated are to be in the islands of the blessed.

Some mice crept up to his table, and he said, See, even Diogenes maintains his favourites.

Once when he was leaving the bath, and a man asked him whether many men were bathing, he said, No.

To pursue the story of the modern world in the pages of Hume, Macaulay, Thiers, and Sismonde, and our own Prescott, Motley, and Bancroft.

To enjoy afresh the eloquence of Demosthenes and the polished and splendid diction of Cicero.

To drink in the wisdom of philosophers and to walk with Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics through the groves of academia.

To be kindled by the saintly utterances of prophets and apostles, St. Paul's high reasoning of immortality, or the seraphic visions of St. John.

That he travelled extensively over Greece, visited Asia Minor, Egypt, and Italy, and resided much at Rome, may be inferred from his writings, as most that is known about him must be inferred.

At Rome he was in charge of certain public business, so that he had not time to learn thoroughly the Latin language, as he himself confesses in the introduction to his Demosthenes.

But Greek was the language of literary and polite society at Rome, and cultivated Greeks, especially philosophers, were welcomed there.

As a Greek philosopher and a popularizer of Platonism, Plutarch read and lectured at Rome much as he did in the small but select circle of his intimates and friends at home.

This pair, or book, of lives is unfortunately lost.

With Camillus, who saved Rome from the Gauls, he matched Themistocles, who saved Athens from the Persians.

Then followed, as nearly as the order can be determined, for the order of the lives in our collection is not the original one, the Cimon and Lucullus, the Lycurgus and Numa, the Demosthenes and Cicero, the Pelopidas and Marcellus, the Lysander and Sulla, the Philopæmen and Flamininus, the Pericles and Fabius Maximus, the Aristides and Cato Major, and thirteen other pairs.

Eighteen of the twenty-two pairs which have come down to us close with a formal comparison of the two careers and characters.

It is said, and with good reason, that the favour and affection which Socrates showed him contributed not a little to his reputation.

Certain it is that Nicias, Demosthenes, Lamachus, Formio, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes were prominent men and his contemporaries, and yet we cannot so much as name the mother of any of them.

Whereas in the case of Alcibiades, we even know that his nurse, who was a Spartan woman, was called Amycla, and his tutor Zopyrus.

The one fact is mentioned by Antisthenes, the other by Plato.

During the deliberations of the people on the extent and character of the armament, Nicias again tried to oppose their wishes and put a stop to the war.

But Alcibiades answered all his arguments and carried the day.

And then Demosthenes, the orator, formally moved that the generals have full and independent powers in the matter of the armament and of the whole war.

After the people had adopted this motion, and all things were made ready for the departure of the fleet, there were some unpropitious signs and portents, especially in connection with the festival, namely the Aedonia.

No need to worry about that, sir.

Wims may have us a little shook up, but he hasn't flipped us yet." i hope we can all say that when tomorrow ends the captain said fervently the company command post had been set up under a cluster of dispirited pines obviously suffering from tired sap but in spite of the ragged shade they provided against the mild mid-morning sun captain aronson was perspiring excessively and becoming increasingly unsettled He glanced uneasily over at the somewhat planetary bulk of General Phyfe, surrounded by his satellite colonels and other aides, and muttered to his lieutenant, If old Brassbottom came down here to observe the exercise, then why the devil doesn't he go over to the hill and observe instead of hanging around here like a sort of Demosthenes? I think you mean Damocles, Captain, the lieutenant corrected.

Demosthenes was the orator.

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It was in current use.

Greek was comparatively new in Western schools, and though from their beginnings the Jesuits were famous teachers, we can hardly suppose that in their new and small college at Vienna the boys were much troubled by the speech of Plato and Demosthenes.

Of their games it is hard to know much at this late day.

Sword-play and bouts of a soldierly sort were common enough.