United States or Qatar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And when to this was added the deaths of Demosthenes at Calauria, and of Hyperides at Cleonae, as we have elsewhere related, the citizens began to think with regret of Philip and Alexander, and almost to wish the return of those times.
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.
Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other democratic leaders, were proscribed.
From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of scholiasts and critics, some estimate may be formed of the literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches, we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of Menander, and the odes of Alcæus and Sappho.
This is the sketch which I conceive to be that of a plain orator, but still of a great one, and one of a genius very kindred to the Attic; since whatever is witty or pleasant in a speech is peculiar to the Attics. Not, however, that all of them are facetious: Lysias is said to be tolerably so, and Hyperides; Demades is so above all others.
Your favourite Demosthenes, whose brazen statue I lately beheld among your own, and your family images, when I had the pleasure to visit you at Tusculanum, Demosthenes, I say, was nothing inferior to Lysias in simplicity; to Hyperides in smartness and poignancy, or to Aeschines in the smoothness and splendor of his language.
As a proof of this, how many orators have been already recounted, and how much time have we bestowed upon them, before we could force our way, after infinite fatigue and drudgery, as, among the Greek's, to Demosthenes and Hyperides, so now, among our own countrymen, to Antonius and Crassus!
Word Of The Day