Deinarchus, in his loose rhetoric, tries to put the case as if Demosthenes had proposed to recognize the sentence of the Areopagus as final and peremptory, and stood therefore condemned upon the authority invoked by himself. But this is refuted sufficiently by the mere fact that the trial was instituted afterwards; besides that, it is repugnant to the judicial practice of Athens.
[713] Plutarch, Demosth. 26. We learn from Deinarchus (adv. Demosth. s. 46) that the report of the Areopagites was not delivered until after an interval of six months. About their delay and the impatience of Demosthenes see Fragm. Hyperides, pp. 12-33, ed. Babington.
[714] Deinarchus adv. Demosth. s. 92. See the Fragm. of Hyperides in Mr. Babington, p. 18.
[715] Deinarchus adv. Aristogeiton, s. 6. Stratokles was one of the accusers.
[716] Deinarchus adv. Demosth. s. 108, 109.
[717] Plutarch, Demosth. 26.
[718] Deinarchus adv. Demosth. s. 104.
[719] See the two orations composed by Deinarchus, against Philokles and Aristogeiton.
In the second and third Epistles ascribed to Demosthenes (p. 1470, 1483, 1485), he is made to state, that he alone had been condemned by the Dykastery, because his trial had come on first—that Aristogeiton and all the others tried were acquitted, though the charge against all was the same, and the evidence against all was the same also—viz. nothing more than the simple report of the Areopagus. As I agree with those who hold these epistles to be probably spurious, I cannot believe, on such authority alone, that all the other persons tried were acquitted—a fact highly improbable in itself.
[720] Plutarch, Demosth. 25: compare also Plutarch, Vit. X. Oratt. p. 846; and Photius, Life of Demosth. Cod. 265, p. 494.