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Updated: June 24, 2025
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.
Although there was a law in force at Athens at that period, which forbade foreigners to appear in a chorus, and imposed a fine of one thousand drachmas upon the choragus who allowed them to do so, Demades exhibited a chorus of one hundred foreigners, and publicly paid in the theatre a fine of a thousand drachmas for each of them.
So that Demades, in after time, was thought to have said very happily, that Draco's laws were written not with ink, but blood; and he himself, being once asked why he made death the punishment of most offenses, replied, "Small ones deserve that, and I have no higher for the greater crimes."
Asclepiades, the son of Hipparchus, brought the first tidings of Alexander's death to Athens, which Demades told them was not to be credited; for, were it true, the whole world would ere this have stunk with the dead body. But Phocion seeing the people eager for an instant revolution, did his best to quiet and repress them.
When the first report of it was brought to Athens, the orator Demades exclaimed, "It can not be true: if Alexander were dead, the whole habitable world would have smelt of his carcass." This coarse, but emphatic comparison, illustrates the immediate, powerful, and wide-reaching impression produced by the sudden extinction of the great conqueror.
Such, then, is the idea which I have formed of a simple and an easy Speaker, who is likewise a very masterly one, and a genuine Athenian; for whatever is smart and pertinent is unquestionably Attic, though some of the Attic Speakers were not remarkable for their wit. Lysias, indeed, and Hyperides were sufficiently so; and Demades, it is said, was more so than all the others.
Of these, Isocrates, so far from serving in war, never even ventured into a law-court; he was afraid, because his voice was weak, I understand. Well, then Demades, Aeschines, and Philocrates, directly the Macedonian war broke out, were frightened into betraying their country and themselves to Philip.
Because all that may be said on that score involves matter of glory for him, and misconduct on our part. This topic, then, I shall pass over. In the first Philippic there is a more pointed allusion to the practices of Philip's adherents, who are charged with sending him secret intelligence of what passed at home. Such men as Aristodemus, Neoptolemus, perhaps Demades and others are referred to.
As soon as Kassander saw Demades arrive in Macedonia he had him arrested, and first led his son close to him and then stabbed him, so that his robe was covered with his son's blood, and then, after bitterly upbraiding him with his ingratitude and treason, killed him also.
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?"
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