Under the same heading must come the use of coarse expressions and terms of personal abuse. In many of the speeches relating to public law-suits Demosthenes allows himself all the latitude which was sanctioned by the taste of his times. In the actual use of abusive epithets—θηρίον, κατάρατος and the like—he does not go beyond the common practice of Aeschines, and is even outstripped by Dinarchus; but in the accumulation of offensive references to the supposed private character of his political opponents he condescends to such excesses that we wonder how a decent audience can ever have tolerated him.[334] Evidently an Athenian audience loved vulgarity for its own sake, apart from humour.
In the private speeches there is at times a certain coarseness—inevitably, since police-court cases are often concerned with sordid details. Offensive actions sometimes have to be described;[335] but this is a very different matter from the irrelevant introduction of offensive matter.
In the speeches delivered before the ecclesia Demosthenes set himself a higher ideal. Into questions of public policy, private animosities should not be allowed to intrude, and throughout the Philippics and Olynthiacs Demosthenes observes this rule. Under no stress of excitement does he sink to personalities; his political opponents for the time being are not abused, not even mentioned by name. The courtesies of debate are fully and justly maintained.
§ 5. Style and Composition
Though Demosthenes wrote in pure Attic Greek, it is to Lysias and Isocrates rather than to him that Dionysius assigns praise for the most perfect purity of language. It is probable that Demosthenes was nearer to the living speech. Even in his deliberative speeches he can use such familiar expressions as ὦ τᾶν, ὁ δεῖνα and such expletives as νὴ Δία, the frequent use of which would have seemed to Isocrates to belong to the vocabulary of Comedy. The epideictic style would also have shunned such vigorous touches as λαγὼ βίον ἔζης—‘you lived a hare’s life,’ or, to give the proper equivalent,’ a dog’s life.’[336] or the famous κακῶν Ἰλιάς—‘Twenty-four books of misery.’[337] Colloquial vigour is apparent in some metaphorical uses of single words, e.g. ἕωλα καὶ ψυχρά—‘stale and cold’ (applied to crimes),[338] προσηλῶσθαι—‘to be pinned down,’[339] or the succession of crude metaphors in the account of how Aristogiton, in prison, picked a quarrel with a newcomer; ‘he being newly caught and fresh, was getting the better of Aristogiton, who had got into the net some time ago and been long in pickle; so finding himself getting the worst of it, he ate off the man’s nose.’[340] There is bold personification of abstractions in ‘Peace, which has destroyed the walls of your allies and is now building houses for your ambassadors,’[341] and such phrases as τεθνᾶσι τῷ δέει τοὺς τοιούτους ἀποστόλους—‘they are frightened to death of so and so,’ are more vigorous than literary.[342]
Demosthenes seems to discard metaphor in his most solemn moments. In a spirit of sarcasm he can use such expressions as those quoted above about the disorderly scene in prison, and in an outburst of indignation he can speak of rival politicians as ‘Fiends, who have mutilated the corpses of their fatherlands, and made a birthday present of their liberty first to Philip, and now again to Alexander; who measure happiness by their belly and their basest pleasures’;[343] but on grave occasions, whether in narrative or in counsel, he reverts to a simplicity equal to that of Lysias. The plainness of the language in which he describes the excitement caused by the news of Philip’s occupation of Elatea is proverbial;[344] and the closing sentences of the Third Philippic afford another good example:
‘If everybody is going to sit still, hoping to get what he wants, and seeking to do nothing for it himself, in the first place he will never find anybody to do it for him, and secondly, I am afraid that we shall be forced to do everything that we do not want. This is what I tell you, this is what I propose; and I believe that if this is done our affairs may even yet be set straight again. If anybody can offer anything better, let him name it and urge it; and whatever you decide, I pray to heaven it may be for the best.’
The simplicity of the language is only equalled by the sobriety of tone. The simplest words, if properly used, can produce a great effect, which is sometimes heightened by repetition, a device which Demosthenes finds useful on occasion—ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐκ ἔστιν ὅπως ἡμάρτετε—‘But surely, surely you were not wrong.’[345] We realize a slight raising of the voice as the word comes in for the second time. Dinarchus, an imitator of Demosthenes, copies him in the use of this ‘figure,’ but uses it too much and inappropriately. In this, as in other details, his style is an unsuccessful parody of the great orator.
Dionysius compares Demosthenes to several other writers in turn. He finds passages, for instance, which recall the style of Thucydides.[346] He quotes the first section from the Third Philippic, and by an ingenious analysis shows the points of resemblance. The chief characteristic noticed by the critic is that the writer does not introduce his thoughts in any natural or conventional sequence, but employs an affected order of words which arrests the attention by its avoidance of simplicity.