Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/86

50 STATESMEN AND SAGES most powerful foe. Drunk or sober, Philip thought constantly of him as the great force, to be reckoned with. When he with nine other deputies visited Philip's court, it was Demosthenes's speech to which Philip felt called to give special reply, treating him with argument, while bestowing his choicest hospitality upon the others. /Eschines and Philocrates accordingly came home full of praise for Philip. He was eloquent, they said, handsome, and could drink more liquor than any other man Demosthenes, showing for the nonce some wit, ridiculed these traits, the first as that of a sophist, the second as that of a woman, the third as that of a sponge. " The fame of Demosthenes reached the Persian court ; and the king wrote letters to his lieutenants commanding them to supply him with money and to attend to him more than to any other man in Greece ; lie- cause he best knew how to make a diversion in his favor by raising fresh troubles and finding employment for the Macedonian arms nearer home. This Alexander afterward discovered by letters of Demosthenes which he found at Sardis, and the papers of the Persian government expressing the sums which had been given him." ( Plutarch.) The moral character of Demosthenes was fiercely assailed during his life, the chief charges being vacillation, unchastity, cowardice, and the receipt of bribes. In weighing these accusations we must remember that they were inspired by per- sonal hatred, and that public life in Demosthenes's day was characterized by al- most inconceivable strife and bitterness. There was probably considerable ground for all the allegations, except, perhaps, that of infirmity in purpose. Plutarch be- lieves that the orator was " vindictive in his nature and implacable in his resent- ments." But the same author wonders how Theopompus could say that he was a man of no steadiness, since it appeared that " he abode by the party and the measures which he first adopted, and was so far from quitting them during his life that he forfeited his life rather than forsake them." "He was never a time- server either in his words or in his actions. The key of politics which he first touched he kept to without variation." But he certainly lacked physical courage. At Chaeronea, a battle which he himself had brought on, he fled ignominiously, throwing away his arms. His cowardice was recognized in the inscription upon the pedestal of the bronze statue which the Athenians erected to him. '"Divine in speech, in judgment, too, divine, Had valor's wreath, Demosthenes, been thine, Fair Greece had still her freedom's ensign borne, And held the scourge of Macedon in scorn." It is equally certain that he loved gold too well, and sometimes took it when it should have burnt his hands. For all this, Demosthenes's character was rather a noble one for that age. Among the distinguished Athenians of the day, only Phocion's outshone it. Nearly all that Demosthenes's foes cite to his discredit seems weak considering the known vices of the period, while much of it, as when they taunt him with al- ways drinking water instead of wine, implies on his part a creditable strength of