Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/22

14 DEMOSTHENES. So that I cannot imagine what ground Theopompus had to say, that Demosthenes was of a fickle, unsettled disposition, and could not long continue firm either to the same men or the same afFau's ; whereas the contrary is most apparent, fi)r the same party and post in politics wliiclv he held from the beginning, to these he kept con- stant to the end ; and was so fiir from leaving them while he lived, that he chose rather to forsake his life than his purpose. He was never heard to apologize for shifting sides hke Demades, who would say, he often spoke against himself, but never against the city ; nor as Me- lanopus, who, being generally against Callistratus, but being often bribed off with money, was wont to tell the people, " The man indeed is my enemy, but we must sub- mit for the good of our country ; " nor again as Nicode- mus, the Messenian, who having first a2:)peared on Cas- sander's side, and afterwards taken part with Demetrius, said the two things were not in themselves contrary, it being always most advisable to obey the conqueror. We have nothing of this kind to say against Demosthenes, as one who would turn aside or prevaricate, either in word or deed. There could not have been less variation in his public acts if they had all been played, so to say, from first to last, from the same score. Pansetius, the philoso- pher, said, that most of his orations are so written, as if they were to prove this one conclusion, that what is honest and virtuous is for itself only to be chosen ; as that of the Crown, that against Aristocrates, that for the Immunities, and the Philippics ; in all which he persuades his fellow-citizens to pursue not that which seems most pleasant, easy, or profitable ; but declares over and over again, that they ought in the first place to prefer that which is just and honorable, before their own safety and preservation. So that if he had kept his hands clean, if his courage for the wars had been answerable to the