Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/804

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

800 DEMOSTHENES DEMOTICA the city. Demosthenes and his friends fled. In the midst of the panic Demades proposed that they should be condemned to death, and the cowardly decree was passed. Demos- thenes thereupon took refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of Calaurea ; but the right of asylum could not protect him against the rage of Archias, the officer of Antipater, who pursued him to his retreat. Finding himself at the mercy of his enemies, he put an end to his life by poison which he had kept in a quill. There is a statue of Demosthenes in the Nuovo Braccio of the Vatican, representing the orator in the act of addressing an assembly. The nervous tem- perament, the spare figure, the concentrated fire and energy exhibited in the face and brow, embody his character with wonderful truth. Demosthenes inherited a delicate constitution, which prevented him from engaging in the gymnastic exercises and field sports of his contemporaries ; but he overcame this natural defect by the most rigid temperance in food and drink. He was naturally afflicted with a hesitation in speech and a shortness of breath ; but by incredible force of will he cured him- self of these impediments. It is said that he forced himself to speak with a pebble in his mouth ; and that, in order to accustom himself to the tumults of the popular assembly, he declaimed on the beach of Phalerum to the waves as they swept along the shore. In the formation of his style he took unwearied pains. Whether he copied Thucydides eight times, according to the tradition, may be doubted ; but there can be no doubt that from his early youth to the last oration he ever spoke, he never ceased to give the* profoundest study to both matter and form. He seldom or never addressed an assembly in an extemporaneous speech, and his detractors used to say that his speeches smelt of the lamp. He was never misunderstood by his hearers, and he adapted his style to his subject. In his legal arguments it is precise, clear, technical when necessary, with no attempt at impassioned eloquence. In his deliberative and political speeches he blends with the closest logic every form of ve- hement appeal to the feelings which the mo- ment of public peril or of patriotic excitement is fitted to arouse. In private life his manners appear to have been somewhat austere. His tone of sentiment was lofty and pure ; his do- mestic life was as stainless as his public life was incorruptible. In all the virtues of the republican citizen, he left an example which none of his countrymen ever surpassed. Of the works of Demosthenes there are many editions. One of the most convenient is that of Dobson, in the Oratores Attici. Others are those of Taylor, Eeiske, Dukas, Bekker, Baiter, and Saupe. The orations of Demos- thenes alone have been edited by Wolf, Auger, and Schafer. Dindorfs text (Leipsic, 1825) is excellent ; still better, that of Bekker in 3 vols. (Leipsic, 1855). The editions of single or selected orations are too numerous to be mentioned. For the use of the American stu- dent the oration on the crown, edited by Prof. Ohamplin, the popular orations by the same, and the Philippics by Prof. Smead, are the best. Dissen's Oratio de Corona, with a Latin commentary, is admirable. The trans- lations in Bohn's " Classical Library " are fur- nished with useful introductions and illustra- tive essays. DEMOTICA, a town of European Turkey, in Eoumelia, 26 in. S. of Adrianople ; pop. about 8,000. It is situated on the Maritza, at the foot of a conical hill, on the summit of which stands a citadel, wherein is a palace that was occasionally occupied by the Turkish sultans while Adrianople was the capital of their em- pire. It is the seat of a Greek archbishop, has several Greek churches, a mosque, schools, public baths, and manufactures of cotton and woollen. Charles XII. of Sweden found a re- treat in this town for some time after his de- feat at Poltava. The greater part of the town was burned in 1845. END OF VOLUME FIFTH.