II. ORATORY.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democracy,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.
—MILTON.
Eloquence, or oratory, which Cicero calls "the friend of peace and the companion of tranquillity, requiring for her cradle a commonwealth already well-established and flourishing," was fostered and developed in Greece by the democratic character of her institutions. It was scarcely known there until the time of Themistocles, the first orator of note; and in the time of Pericles it suddenly rose, in Athens, to a great height of perfection. Pericles himself, whose great aim was to sway the assemblies of the people to his will, cultivated oratory with such application and success, that the poets of his day said of him that on some occasions the goddess of persuasion, with all her charms, seemed to dwell on his lips; and that, at other times, his discourse had all the vehemence of thunder to move the souls of his hearers. The golden age of Grecian eloquence is embraced in a period of one hundred and thirty years from the time of Pericles, and during this period Athens bore the palm alone.
Of the many Athenian orators the most distinguished were Lys'ias, Isoc'rates, Æschines, and Demosthenes. The first was born about 435 B.C., and was admired for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness, and delicacy of his style. Having become a resident of Thurii in early life, on his return to Athens he was not allowed to speak in the assemblies, or courts of justice, and therefore wrote orations for others to deliver. Many of these are characterized by great energy and power. Dionysius, the Roman historian and critic, praises Lysias for his grace; Cicero commends him for his subtlety; and Quintilian esteems him for his truthfulness. Isocrates was born at Athens in 436. Having received the instructions of some of the most celebrated Sophists of his time, he opened a school of rhetoric, and was equally esteemed for the excellence of his compositions—mostly political orations—and for his success in teaching. His style was more philosophic, smooth, and elegant than that of Lysias. "Cicero," says a modern critic, "whose style is exceedingly like that of Isocrates, appears to have especially used him as a model—as indeed did Demosthenes; and through these two orators he has moulded all the prose of modern Europe." Isocrates lived to the advanced age of ninety-eight, and then died, it is said, by voluntary starvation, in grief for the fatal battle of Chæronea.
"That dishonest victory.
At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed with report that old man eloquent."
ÆSCHINES AND DEMOSTHENES.
The orator Æschines was born in 398 B.C. He is regarded as the father of extemporaneous speaking among the Greeks, but is chiefly distinguished as the rival of Demosthenes, rather than for his few orations (but three in number) that have come down to us, although he was endowed by nature with extraordinary rhetorical powers, and his orations are characterized by ease, order, clearness, and precision. "The eloquence of Æschines," says an American scholar and statesman, [Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré, of Charleston, South Carolina, in an article on "Demosthenes" in the New York Review.] "is of a brilliant and showy character, running occasionally, though very rarely, into a Ciceronean declamation. In general his taste is unexceptionable; he is clear in statement, close and cogent in argument, lucid in arrangement, remarkably graphic and animated in style, and full of spirit and pleasantry, without the least appearance of emphasis or effort. He is particularly successful in description and the portraiture of character. That his powers were appreciated by his great rival is evident from the latter's frequent admonitions to the assembly to remember that their debates are no theatrical exhibitions of voice and oratory, but deliberations involving the safety of their country."
On leaving Athens, after his defeat in the celebrated contest with Demosthenes, Æschines went to Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric. It is stated that on one occasion he began his instruction by reading the two orations that had been the cause of his banishment. His hearers loudly applauded his own speech, but when he read that of Demosthenes they were wild with delight. "If you thus praise it from my reading it," exclaimed Æschines, "what would you have said if you had heard Demosthenes himself deliver it?"
By the common consent of ancient and modern times, Demosthenes stands pre-eminent for his eloquence, his patriotism, and his influence over the Athenian people. He was born about 383 B.C. On attaining his majority, his first speech was directed against a cousin to whom his inheritance had been intrusted, and who refused to surrender to him what was left of it. Demosthenes won his case, and his victory brought him into such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators. Of his public life we have already seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty years after his death the Athenians erected a bronze statue to his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this inscription:
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!
With regard to the character of the orations of Demosthenes, it must be confessed that somewhat conflicting views have been entertained by the moderns. LORD BROUGHAM, while admitting that Demosthenes "never wanders from the subject, that each remark tells upon the matter in hand, that all his illustrations are brought to bear upon the point, and that he is never found making a step in any direction which does not advance his main object, and lead toward the conclusion to which he is striving to bring his hearers," still denies that he is distinguished for those "chains of reasoning," and that "fine argumentation" which are the chief merit of our greatest modern orators. While he admits that Demosthenes abounds in the most "appropriate topics, and such happy hits—to use a homely but expressive phrase—as have a magical effect upon a popular assembly, and that he clothes them in the choicest language, arranges them in the most perfect order, and captivates the ear with a music that is fitted, at his will, to provoke or to soothe, and even to charm the sense," he regards all this as better suited to great popular assemblies than to a more refined, and a more select audience—such as one composed of learned senators and judges. But this is admitting that he adapted himself, with admirable tact and judgment, to the subject and the occasion. But while the character thus attributed to the orations of the great Athenian orator may be the true one, as regards the Philippics, the speech against Æschines, and the one on the Crown, it is not thought to be applicable to the many pleas which he made on occasions more strictly judicial.
"That which distinguishes the eloquence of Demosthenes above all others, ancient or modern," says the American writer already quoted, "is earnestness, conviction, and the power to persuade that belongs to a strong and deep persuasion felt by the speaker. It is what Milton defines true eloquence to be, 'none but the serious and hearty love of truth'—or, more properly, what the speaker believes to be truth. This advantage Demosthenes had over Æschines. He had faith in his country, faith in her people (if they could be roused up), faith in her institutions. He is mad at the bare thought that a man of Macedon, a barbarian, should be beating Athenians in the field, and giving laws to Greece. The Roman historian and critic, Dionysius, said of his oratory, that its highest attribute was the spirit of life that pervades it. Other remarkable features were its amazing flexibility and variety, its condensation and perfect logical unity, its elaborate and exquisite finish of details, to which must be added that polished harmony and rhythm which cannot be attained, to a like degree, in any modern language. Moreover, however elaborately composed these speeches were, they were still speeches, and had the appearance of being the spontaneous effusions of the moment. No extemporaneous harangues were ever more free and natural."
The historian HUME says of the style of Demosthenes: "It was rapid harmony adjusted to the sense; vehement reasoning without any appearance of art; disdain, anger, boldness, and freedom, involved in a continued strain of argument." Another writer says: "It was his undeviating firmness, his disdain of all compromise, that made him the first of statesmen and orators; in this lay the substance of his power, the primary foundation of his superiority; the rest was merely secondary. The mystery of his mighty influence, then, lay in his honesty; and it is this that gave warmth and tone to his feelings, an energy to his language, and an impression to his manner before which every imputation of insincerity must have immediately vanished."