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Updated: June 2, 2025
This they are said to have done, sometimes by words of imprecation, of which there was a set form among some people, which Aeschines calls diorizomenen aran, the determinate curse. All this contrasted strangely with the useful occupation of honest Vulcan, whom I had positively enjoined not to laugh, or stop working.
Aeschines the Socratic, now, author of dialogues as witty as they are long, brought them with him to Sicily in the hope that they would gain him the royal notice of Dionysius; having given a reading of the Miltiades, and found himself famous, he settled down in Sicily to sponge on Dionysius and forget Socratic composition.
The other division does not aim at a frequent use of pithy sentiment, but at rapidity and rush of expression; this now prevails throughout Asia, and is characterised not only by a stream of eloquence but by a graceful and ornate vocabulary: Aeschylus of Cnidos, and my own contemporary Aeschines the Milesian, are examples of it.
Demosthenes, like other orators, first became known as the composer of speeches for litigants; but his great fame was based on the orations he pronounced in great political emergencies. His rival was Aeschines, but he was vastly inferior to Demosthenes, although bold, vigorous, and brilliant.
Who was it that helped him to prepare such a case? Who is most to blame for the disasters that have taken place? Is it not Aeschines? And of these Aeschines is one; and, had I to speak the truth without any reserve, I should not hesitate to describe him as the incarnate curse of all alike men, regions or cities that have been ruined since then.
But Philip, instead of marching upon Athens, sent a message by Demades, whom he had taken prisoner at Chaeroneia; and the Assembly, in reply, instructed Demades, Aeschines, and Phocion to ask Philip to release his Athenian prisoners.
For notwithstanding what one reads is more clearly understood than what one hears, yet the utterance, countenance, garb, aye and the very gestures of the speaker, alike concur in fixing an impression upon the mind; that is, unless we disbelieve the truth of Aeschines' statement, who, after he had read to the Rhodians that celebrated speech of Demosthenes, upon their expressing their admiration of it, is said to have added, "Ah! what would you have said, could you have heard the wild beast himself ?" And Aeschines, if we may take Demosthenes' word for it, was no mean elocutionist; yet, he could not but confess that the speech would have sounded far finer from the lips of its author.
V. But as there was a great error as to the question, what kind of eloquence that was, I have thought that it became me to undertake a labour which should be useful to studious men, though superfluous as far as I myself was concerned. For I have translated the most illustrious orations of the two most eloquent of the Attic orators, spoken in opposition to one another: Aeschines and Demosthenes.
Some modern writers have contended that at the time of Solon the members of the council were not chosen by lot; their arguments are not to me very satisfactory. But if merely a delegation of the Eupatrids, as such writers suppose, the council would be still more vicious in its constitution. Pollux. Aeschines in Timarch.
Now recall a second. But Aeschines supported Python; he gave testimony in opposition to his country, and that testimony false. But surely one who met the emissary of the enemy alone and conferred with him, must himself have been already a born spy and an enemy of his country. There are still an infinite number of things which I might relate of him; but I pass them over.
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