Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/42

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34 DEilOSTHENES. gether, and lying round about the gold, concealed it for a long time. In the end, the soldier returned, and found his treasure entire, and the fame of this incident was spread abroad. And many ingenious persons of the city competed with each other, on this occasion, to vindicate the integrity of Demosthenes, in several epigrams which they made on the subject. As for Demades, he did not long enjoy the new honors he now came in for, divine vengeance for the death of Demosthenes pursuing him into Macedonia, where he was justly put to death by those whom he had basely flat- tered. They were weary of him before, but at this time the guilt he lay under was manifest and imdeniable. For some of his letters were intercepted, in Avhich he had encouraged Perdiccas* to fall upon Macedonia, and to save the Grecians, who, he said, hung only by an old rotten thread, meaning Antipater. Of this he was ac- cused by Dinarchus, the Corinthian, and Cassander was so enraged, that he first slew his son in his bosom, and then gave orders to execute him ; who might now at last, by his own extreme misfortunes, learn the lesson, that trai- tors, who make sale of their country, sell themselves first ; a truth which Demosthenes had often foretold him, and he would never believe. Thus, Sosius, you have the life of Demosthenes, from such accounts as we have either read or heard concerning him.

  • This, apparently, is one of Plu- so he tells the story himself in the

tarcli's slips of memory. It was life of Phocion. not Perdiccas, but Antigonus ; and