The Public Orations of Demosthenes, vol 1 | Page 2

been of great assistance to me.
The text employed has been throughout that of the late Mr. S.H.
Butcher in the Bibliotheca Classica Oxoniensis. Any deviations from
this are noted in their place.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION i. 7
LIST OF SPEECHES TRANSLATED
Traditional Order In this Edition ORATION I. OLYNTHIAC I i. 87 II.

OLYNTHIAC II i. 99 III. OLYNTHIAC III i. 109 IV. PHILIPPIC I i.
68 V. ON THE PEACE i. 120 VI. PHILIPPIC II i. 133 VIII. ON THE
CHERSONESE ii. 3 IX. PHILIPPIC III ii. 26 XIV. ON THE NAVAL
BOARDS i. 31 XV. FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE RHODIANS i. 56
XVI. FOR THE MEGALOPOLITANS i. 45 XVIII. ON THE CROWN
ii. 47 XIX. ON THE EMBASSY i. 144
NOTES ii. 149

INTRODUCTION
Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes of Paeania in Attica, a rich and
highly respected factory-owner, was born in or about the year 384 B.C.
He was early left an orphan; his guardians mismanaged his property for
their own advantage; and although, soon after coming of age in 366, he
took proceedings against them and was victorious in the law-courts, he
appears to have recovered comparatively little from them. In preparing
for these proceedings he had the assistance of Isaeus, a teacher and
writer of speeches who was remarkable for his knowledge of law, his
complete mastery of all the aspects of any case with which he had to do,
and his skill in dealing with questions of ownership and inheritance.
Demosthenes' speeches against his guardians show plainly the
influence of Isaeus, and the teacher may have developed in his pupil the
thoroughness and the ingenuity in handling legal arguments which
afterwards became characteristic of his work.
Apart from this litigation with his guardians, we know little of
Demosthenes' youth and early manhood. Various stories have come
down to us (for the most part not on the best authority), of his having
been inspired to aim at an orator's career by the eloquence and fame of
Callistratus; of his having overcome serious physical defects by
assiduous practice; of his having failed, nevertheless, owing to
imperfections of delivery, in his early appearances before the people,
and having been enabled to remedy these by the instruction of the
celebrated actor Satyrus; and of his close study of the History of
Thucydides. Upon the latter point the evidence of his early style leaves
no room for doubt, and the same studies may have contributed to the
skill and impressiveness with which, in nearly every oration, he appeals
to the events of the past, and sums up the lessons of history. Whether
he came personally under the influence either of Plato, the philosopher,

or of Isocrates, the greatest rhetorical teacher of his time, and a political
pamphleteer of high principles but little practical insight, is much more
doubtful. The two men were almost as different in temperament and
aims as it was possible to be, but Demosthenes' familiarity with the
published speeches of Isocrates, and with the rhetorical principles
which Isocrates taught and followed, can scarcely be questioned.
In the early years of his manhood, Demosthenes undertook the
composition of speeches for others who were engaged in litigation.
This task required not only a very thorough knowledge of law, but the
power of assuming, as it were, the character of each separate client, and
writing in a tone appropriate to it; and, not less, the ability to interest
and to rouse the active sympathy of juries, with whom feeling was
perhaps as influential as legal justification. This part, however, of
Demosthenes' career only concerns us here in so far as it was an
admirable training for his later work in the larger sphere of politics, in
which the same qualities of adaptability and of power both to argue
cogently and to appeal to the emotions effectively were required in an
even higher degree.
At the time when Demosthenes' interest in public affairs was beginning
to take an active form, Athens was suffering from the recent loss of
some of her most powerful allies. In the year 358 B.C. she had counted
within the sphere of her influence not only the islands of Lemnos,
Imbros, and Scyros (which had been guaranteed to her by the Peace of
Antalcidas in 387), but also the chief cities of Euboea, the islands of
Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Samos, Mytilene in Lesbos, the towns of the
Chersonese, Byzantium (a city of the greatest commercial importance),
and a number of stations on the south coast of Thrace, as well as Pydna,
Potidaea, Methone, and the greater part of the country bordering upon
the Thermaic Gulf. But her failure to observe the terms of alliance, laid
down when the new league was founded in 378, had led to a revolt,
which ended in 355 or