The Public Orations of Demosthenes, vol 1 | Page 7

In many minds the spread of culture, and of the
ideal of self-culture, had produced a type of individualism indifferent to
public concerns, and contemptuous of political and military ambitions.
Moreover, the methods of warfare had undergone great improvement;
in most branches of the army the trained skill of the professional soldier
was really necessary; and it was not possible to leave the olive-yard or
the counting-house and become an efficient fighter without more ado.
But the expensiveness of the mercenary forces; the violent methods by
which they obtained supplies from friends and neutrals, as well as foes,
if, as often happened, their pay was in arrear; and the dependence of the
city upon the goodwill of generals and soldiers who could without
much difficulty find employment under other masters, were evils which
were bound to hamper any attempt to give effect to a well-planned and
far-sighted scheme of action.
It also resulted from the Athenian system of government that the
general, while obviously better informed of the facts of the military
situation than any one else could be, and at the same time always liable
to be brought to trial in case of failure, had little influence upon policy,
unless he could find an effective speaker to represent him. In the
Assembly and in the law-courts (where the juries were large enough to
be treated in the same manner as the Assembly itself) the orator who

could win the people's ear was all powerful, and expert knowledge
could only make itself felt through the medium of oratory.
A constitution which gave so much power to the orator had grave
disadvantages. The temptation to work upon the feelings rather than to
appeal to the reason of the audience was very strong, and no charge is
more commonly made by one orator against another than that of
deceiving or attempting to deceive the people. It is, indeed, very
difficult to judge how far an Athenian Assembly was really taken in by
sophistical or dishonest arguments: but it is quite certain that such
arguments were continually addressed to it; and the main body of the
citizens can scarcely have had that first-hand knowledge of facts, which
would enable them to criticize the orator's statements. Again, the
oration appealed to the people as a performance, no less than as a piece
of reasoning. Ancient political oratory resembled the oratory of the
pulpit at the present day, not only because it appealed perpetually to the
moral sense, and was in fact a kind of preaching; but also because the
main difficulty of the ancient orator and the modern preacher was the
same: for the Athenians liked being preached at, as the modern
congregation 'enjoys' a good sermon, and were, therefore, almost
equally immune against conversion. The conflicts of rival orators were
regarded mainly as an entertainment. The speaker who was most likely
to carry the voting (except when a great crisis had roused the Assembly
to seriousness) was the one who found specious and apparently moral
reasons for doing what would give the audience least trouble; and
consequently one who, like Demosthenes, desired to stir them up to
action and personal sacrifices, had always an uphill fight: and if he also
at times 'deceived the people' or employed sophistical arguments in
order to secure results which he believed to be for their good, we must
remember the difficulty (which, in spite of the wide circulation of
authentic information, is at least equally great at the present day) of
putting the true reasons for or against a policy, before those who,
whether from want of education or from lack of training in the
subordination of feeling to thought, are not likely to understand or to
listen to them. Nor, if we grant the genuineness of Demosthenes'
conviction as to the desirability of the end for which he contended, can
many statesmen be pointed out, who have not been at least as guilty as
he in their choice of means. That he did not solve the problem, how to

lead a democracy by wholly honest means, is the less to his discredit, in
that the problem still remains unsolved.
It should be added that with an audience like the Athenian, whose
aesthetic sensitiveness was doubtless far greater than that of any
modern assembly, delivery counted for much. Aeschines' fine voice
was a real danger to Demosthenes, and Demosthenes himself spoke of
delivery, or the skilled acting of his part, as the all-important condition
of an orator's success. But it is clear that this can have been no
advantage from the standpoint of the public interest.
In the law-courts the drawbacks to which the commanding influence of
oratory was liable were intensified. In the Assembly a certain amount
of reticence and self- restraint was imposed by custom: an opponent