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Updated: May 2, 2025
Rivals in valour, emulous in self-renunciation, contending for the place of danger, hardship, trial, they seem as if every man felt within his heart the emotion of Aeschines seeing the glory of Macedon "Our life scarce seemed that of mortals, nor the achievements of our time."
On the first point Aeschines was almost certainly right: Demosthenes' defence is sophistical, and all that could really be said was that the rule had often been broken before.
And I was convinced with regard to myself foolishly perhaps, but still convinced that no mover would make a better proposal, no agent would execute it better, no ambassador would be more eager or more honest in his mission, than I. For these reasons, I assigned every one of these offices to myself. To this condition, Aeschines, was Philip reduced by my statesmanship.
Even if what was to come was plain to all beforehand; even if all foreknew it; even if you, Aeschines, had been crying with a loud voice in warning and protestation you who uttered not so much as a sound; even then, I say, it was not right for the city to abandon her course, if she had any regard for her fame, or for our forefathers, or for the ages to come.
I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, of Demosthenes, and of Isocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteer than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels me to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion.
In 338 Athens and Thebes were defeated at Chaeroneia; the Cassandra prophecies of the great patriot came true. In 330 one more triumph was allowed him. He was attacked by the traitor Aeschines and answered him so effectively in his speech on the Crown that his adversary was banished.
Later in the year a new Sacred War which had arisen gave him a convenient opportunity for the invasion of Greece. At the meeting of the Amphictyonic Council in the autumn of 340, Aeschines was one of the representatives of Athens.
But in other respects, Philip entertained him not so honorably 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.
This we learn from a passage in which Demosthenes describes the youth of his hated adversary, AEschines. The mother of AEschines, he says, was a kind of 'wise woman, and dabbler in mysteries. A story was told, as usual, to explain this rite.
The Topica, written in 44 B.C., contains an account of the invention of arguments, and belongs partly to logic, partly to rhetoric. The last work of this class is the De Optimo Genere Oratorum, which stands as a preface to the crown speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines, which Cicero had translated.
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