Generosity is a pleasant, agreeable, fascinating virtue; justice is more stern, but must be regarded as the higher virtue of the two.
Demosthenes.
This greatest of the Grecian orators was born about 385 or 384 years before Christ, when Athens had reached the zenith of her literary, and had passed that of her political glory. Juvenal has represented him slightingly as the son of a blacksmith, the fact being that the elder Demosthenes was engaged in various branches of trade, and among others was owner of a sword manufactory. His maternal grandmother was a Thracian woman, a circumstance noticeable because it enabled his enemies, in the spirit of exaggeration and ill-will, to taunt him as a barbarian and hereditary enemy of his country—for the Greeks in general regarded the admixture of barbarian, that is, other than Greek blood, with the same sort of contempt and dislike as do the whites of America the taint of African descent.
Being left an orphan when seven years old, Demosthenes fell into the hands of dishonest guardians, who embezzled a large portion of the property which his father had bequeathed to him. His constitution appears to have been delicate, and it may have been on this account, that he did not attend the gymnastic exercises, which formed a large portion of the education of the youths in Greece; exercises really important where neither birth nor wealth set aside the obligation to military service common to all citizens; and where, therefore, skill in the use of arms, strength, and the power to endure fatigue and hardship, were essential to the rich as well as to the poor. It may have been on this account that a nickname expressive of effeminacy was bestowed on him, which was afterwards interpreted into a proof of unmanly luxury and vicious habits; indeed, the reproach of wanting physical strength stuck by him through life, and apparently not undeservedly. Another nickname that he obtained was that of “Viper.” In short, the extant anecdotes tend pretty uniformly to show that his private character was harsh and unamiable.
His ambition to excel as an orator is said to have been kindled by hearing a masterly and much admired speech of Callistratus. For instruction, he resorted to Isæus, and, as some say, to Isocrates, both eminent teachers of the art of rhetoric. He had a stimulus to exertion in the resolution to prosecute his guardians for the abuse of their trust; and having gained the cause, B. C. 364, in the conduct of which he himself took an active part, recovered, it would seem, a large part of his property. The orations against Aphobus and Onetor profess to have been delivered in the course of the suit; but it has been doubted, on internal evidence, whether they were really composed by him so early in life.
Be this as it may, his success emboldened him to come forward as a speaker in the assemblies of the people: on what occasion, and at what time, does not appear. His reception was discouraging. He probably had underrated, till taught by experience, the degree of training and mechanical preparation requisite at all times to excellence, and most essential in addressing an audience so alive to the ridiculous and so fastidious as the Athenians. He labored also under physical defects, which almost amounted to disqualifications. His voice was weak, his breath short, his articulation defective; in addition to all this, his style was thought strained, harsh, and involved.
Though disheartened by his ill success, he felt, as Sheridan is reported to have expressed himself on a similar occasion, that it was in him, and it should come out; beside, he was encouraged by a few discerning spirits. One aged man, who had heard Pericles, cheered him with the assurance that he reminded him of that unequalled orator; and the actor Satyrus pointed out the faults of his delivery, and instructed him to amend them. He now set himself in earnest to realize his notions of excellence; and the singular and irksome method which he adopted, denoting certainly no common energy and strength of will, are too celebrated and too remarkable to be omitted, though the authority on which they rest is not free from doubt. He built a room under ground, where he might practise gesture and delivery without molestation, and there he spent two or three months together, shaving his head that the oddity of his appearance might render it impossible for him to go abroad, even if his resolution should fail. The defect in his articulation he cured by reciting with small pebbles in his mouth. His lungs he strengthened by practising running up hill, while reciting verses. Nor was he less diligent in cultivating mental, than bodily requisites, applying himself earnestly to study the theory of the art, as explained in books, and the examples of the greatest masters of eloquence. Thucydides is said to have been his favorite model, insomuch that he copied out his history eight times, and had it almost by heart.
Meanwhile, his pen was continually employed in rhetorical exercises; every question suggested to him by passing events served him for a topic of discussion, which called forth the application of his attainments to the real business of life. It was perhaps as much for the sake of such practice, as with a view to reputation, or the increase of his fortune, that he accepted employment as an advocate, which, until he began to take an active part in public affairs, was offered to him in abundance.