"'When thou would'st know thyself, what man thou art,
Look at the tombstones as thou passest by:
Within those monuments lie bones and dust
Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride
Rose high because of wealth, or noble blood,
Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb;
Yet none of these things strove for them 'gainst time;
One common death hath ta'en all mortal men.
See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.'"
As EUGENE LAWRENCE says: "Most modern comedies are founded on those of Menander. They revive their characters, repeat their jokes, transplant their humor; and the wit of Molière, Shakspeare, or Sheridan is often the same that once awoke shouts of laughter on the Attic stage."
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?"