On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes. 391 sexaginta annos : Demosthenes sexaginta). Since Demosthenes is known to have died in the archonship of Philocles, if the twenty-seven and the sixty years were complete at the epochs mentioned by Gellius, he was born in the year of Evander, the predecessor of Demophilus, 01. 99. 3. This statement, as Mr Clinton remarks, is confirmed by Plutarch (Demosth. 15), who, after speaking of the oration against Androtion and some others, adds, that Demosthenes was thought to have composed them at the age of seven or eight and twenty Q)VOLV y Tpiwi/ oeoi^ra er^ TpiaKovTa yeyovcos^ : and by Liba- nius, who relates (Vit. Demosth. §. 3) that there were some who attributed the speeches delivered by Demosthenes in the suit with his guardians (the Xoyot eTriTpoTrtKoi) to Isaeus, because they did not believe that he could have produced such works at so early an age : ^td ttjv rikiKLav tov pijTopos dTrLCTTovvTe^ {oKTooKaiceKa yap erwv rjv 6t6 7rpo£ tovtovs fjywPL^eTo). If the question could be decided by evidence of this kind, the authority of Pseudo-Plutarch, as the weakest, would be forced to give way, and Dionysius would be outnumbered. If however he alone were considered equivalent to all the rest, Gellius and Libanius would appear to have come nearest to the truth. But as on this subject such testimony cannot of itself determine anything, its weight must wholly depend on its consistency with the information which Demosthenes himself has fortunately afforded, though not so distinct and unequivocal as could have been wished, as to his own age. The passages containing this information occur partly in the orations in the cause of the guardians, and partly in that' against Midias. In these Mr Clinton finds a confirmation of the chronology of Gellius and Libanius, while the critics whom he endeavoured to refute, as well as others whose arguments seem not to have fallen in his way when he was writing his appendix, appeal to the same passages to cor- roborate the statement of Pseudo-Plutarch. These there- fore must now be considered. Demosthenes (in Aphob. i. p. 81 4) states that his father left him an orphan, seven years old (eVr €twv ovto) : and he repeatedly mentions ten years as the term during which his guardians had the management of his estate. He also Vol. IL No. 5. 3D
