But it pleased God, by the continuing of wintry weather, so to restore the health of the city that by February following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased. The time was not far off when the city was to be purged with fire, for within nine months more I saw it all lying in ashes.
I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year with a stanza of my own:
A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive!
[DEMOSTHENES]
The Philippics
Demosthenes, by universal consensus of opinion the greatest orator the world has known, was born at Athens 385 B.C. and died 322 B.C. His birth took place just nineteen years after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War. Losing his father when he was yet a child, his wealth was frittered away by three faithless guardians, whom he prosecuted when he came of age. This dispute, and some other struggles, led him into public life, and by indomitable perseverance he overcame the difficulty constituted by certain physical disqualifications. Identifying himself for life entirely with the interests of Athens, he became the foremost administrator in the state, as well as its most eloquent orator. His stainless character, his matchless powers of advocacy, his fervent patriotism, and his fine diplomacy, render him altogether one of the noblest figures of antiquity. His fame rests mainly on "The Philippics"; those magnificent orations delivered during a series of several years against the aggressions of Philip of Macedon; though the three "Olynthiacs," and the oration "De Coronâ," and several other speeches are monumental of the genius of Demosthenes, more especially the "De Coronâ." He continued to resist the Macedonian domination during the career of Alexander the Great, and was exiled, dying, it is supposed, by poison administered by himself, at Calauria. (Cf. also p. [273] of this volume.) This epitome has been prepared from the original Greek.
I.—"Men of Athens, Arouse Yourselves!"
The subject under discussion on this occasion, men of Athens, is not new, and there would be no need to speak further on it if other orators deliberated wisely. First, I advise you not to regard the present aspect of affairs, miserable though it truly is, as entirely hopeless. For the primary cause of the failure is your own mismanagement. If any consider it difficult to overcome Philip because of the power that he has attained, and because of our disastrous loss of many fortresses, they should remember how much he has gained by achieving alliances.