[337-325 B.C.]
The disaster of Chæronea (337 B.C.) had held out a signal to the enemies of Demosthenes at Athens, to unite their efforts against him. He had been assailed in the period following that event until Philip’s death, by every kind of legal engine that could be brought to bear upon him; by prosecutions of the most various form and colour. All these experiments had failed; the people had honoured him with more signal proofs of its confidence than he had ever before received: he had never taken a more active part, or exercised a more powerful sway, in public affairs. Yet it seems that after the Macedonian arms had completely triumphed, both in Asia and in Greece, Æschines thought the opportunity favourable for another attempt of the same nature. This trial, the most celebrated of ancient pleadings, the most memorable event in the history of eloquence throughout all past ages, deserves mention here, chiefly for the light it throws on the character and temper of the Athenian tribunals, at a time when the people is supposed to have been verging towards utter degeneracy, so as to be hardly any longer an object of historical interest—a time, it must be remembered, when the rest of Greece was quailing beneath the yoke of the stranger, and his will, dictated to the so-called national congress at Corinth, was sovereign and irresistible.
The occasion of this prosecution arose out of two offices with which Demosthenes had been entrusted, in the year, it seems, after that of the battle of Chæronea. He had been appointed by his tribe to superintend the repairs which, according to a decree proposed by himself, the city walls were to undergo, the work being equally distributed among the ten tribes. At the same time he filled another post—the treasurership of the theoric fund, which involved a large share in the general control and direction of the finances. In both offices he had made a liberal contribution out of his own property to the service of the state. On this ground, but more especially as a mark of approbation for his public conduct on all occasions, a decree was passed, on the motion of his friend Ctesiphon, that he should be presented with a golden crown. For this decree Æschines had indicted Ctesiphon as having broken the law in three points: first, because it was illegal to crown a magistrate before he had rendered an account of his office; next, because it was forbidden to proclaim such an honour, when bestowed by the people, in any other place than the assembly-ground in the Pnyx, but particularly to proclaim it, as Ctesiphon had proposed; and, lastly, because the reason assigned in the decree, so far as related to the public conduct of Demosthenes, was false, inasmuch as he had not deserved any reward. The question at issue was, in substance, whether Demosthenes had been a good or a bad citizen. Hence the prosecutor, after a short discussion of the dry legal arguments, enters, as on his main subject, into a full review of the public and private life of Demosthenes; and Demosthenes, whose interest it was to divert attention from the points of law, which were not his strong ground, can scarcely find room for them in his defence of his own policy and proceedings, which, with bitter attacks on his adversary, occupies almost the whole of his speech.
His boast is that throughout his political career he had kept one object steadily in view: to strengthen Athens within and without, and to preserve her independence, particularly against the power and the arts of Philip. He owned that he had failed; but it was after he had done all that one man in his situation—a citizen of a commonwealth—could do. He had failed in a cause in which defeat was more glorious than victory in any other, in a struggle not less worthy of Athens than those in which her heroic citizens in past ages had earned their fame. In a word, the whole oration breathes the spirit of that high philosophy which, whether learned in the schools or from life, has consoled the noblest of our kind in prisons, and on scaffolds, and under every persecution of adverse fortune, but in the tone necessary to impress a mixed multitude with a like feeling, and to elevate it for a while into a sphere above its own. The effect it produced on that most susceptible audience can be but faintly conceived. The result was that Æschines not only lost his cause, but did not even obtain a fifth part of the votes, and consequently, according to law, incurred a small penalty. But he seems to have felt it insupportable to remain at the scene of his defeat, where he must have lived silent and obscure. He quitted Athens, and crossed over to Asia, with the view it is said of seeking protection from Alexander, through whose aid alone he could now hope to triumph over his adversaries.
When this prospect vanished, he retired to Rhodes, where he opened a school of oratory, which produced a long series of voluble sophists, and is considered as the origin of a new style of eloquence, technically called the Asiatic, which stood in a relation to the Attic not unlike that of the composite capital to the Ionic volute, and was destined to prevail in the East wherever the Greek language was spoken, down to the fall of the Roman Empire. He died at Samos, about nine years after Alexander, having survived both his great antagonist and his friend Phocion.
DEIFICATION OF ALEXANDER; THE GOLD OF HARPALUS
[325-324 B.C.]
In the course of the year preceding Alexander’s death, the stillness and obscurity of Athenian history were broken, partly by the new measures adopted by the conqueror on his return from India with respect to Greece, and partly by the adventures of Harpalus.
Alexander’s claim of divine honours could not be viewed in Greece with the same feelings which it had excited among the victorious Macedonians. To the people bowed down by irresistible necessity under a foreign yoke, it was not a point of great moment under what form or title the conqueror, in the plenitude of his power, chose to remind them of their subjection. They might consider the demand as a wanton insult; but it was in no other sense an injury. There might not be many base enough to recommend it, but there were perhaps still fewer so unwise as to think it a fit ground for resistance. It involved no surrender of religious faith, even in those who were firmly attached to the popular creed; and the ridicule for which it afforded so fair a mark was, with most, sufficient revenge for its insolence. The Spartan answer to the king’s envoys was perhaps the best: “If Alexander will be a god, let him.” At Athens there was something more of debate on the question; yet it hardly seems that opinions were seriously divided on it. It was opposed by a young orator, named Pytheas. It was observed by the more practical statesmen, that he was not yet of an age to give advice on matters of such importance. He replied that he was older than Alexander, whom they proposed to make a god. Lycurgus appears to have spoken, with the severity suited to his character, of “the new god, from whose temple none could depart without need of purification.” But it does not follow that he wished to see the demand rejected. At least Demades and Demosthenes were agreed on the main point, and their language, as far as it is reported, seems to have been very similar. Demades warned the people not to lose earth while they contested the possession of heaven; and Demosthenes advised them not to contend with Alexander about celestial honours. The assembly acquiesced in the king’s demand.[40]
But the order relating to the return of the exiles awakened very much stronger feelings, partly of fear, and partly of indignation. It appears that Alexander, before he set out on his expedition, when it was his object to conciliate the Greeks, had engaged by solemn compact with the national congress at Corinth—perhaps only confirming one before made by Philip—not to interfere with the existing institutions of any Greek state, but to preserve them inviolate. The tendency of Alexander’s new measure was to effect a revolution, wherever Macedonian influence was not yet completely predominant, throughout Greece. Nicanor, a Stagirite, had been sent down by Alexander to publish his decree during the games at Olympia. There were some thousands of the exiles and their friends collected there, who listened to the proclamation with joy. It was in the form of a letter addressed to them in a style of imperial brevity: “King Alexander to the exiles from the Greek cities. We were not the author of your exile, but we will restore you to your homes, all but those who are under a curse [for sacrilege or murder]. And we have written to Antipater on the subject, that he may compel those cities which are unwilling to receive you.”