Demosthenes was one of the most popular authors and the most influential orator in the ancient world, if the number of extant manuscripts is any indication, as I noted in a previous post. On the Crown is Demosthenes’ most popular oration, having thirty-two extant manuscripts, by contrast, Cicero’s prosecution speech In Verrem, which launched his remarkable political career, has six extant manuscripts. In his treatises on oratory, Cicero acknowledges Demosthenes as the greatest orator among the Greeks. Plutarch wrote biographies of both men, comparing one with another, Greek vs. Roman.
Demosthenes was a contemporary of Philip and Alexander of Macedon. He vigorously, though ultimately unsuccessfully, opposed their ambition for renown and dominion of the world. This struggle is manifest in his oration On the Crown, in which he defends his public life as a statesman of Athens, and in his speeches against Philip, whom he regarded as a despot and threat to Athenian democracy. In emulation of Demosthenes, Cicero wrote fourteen speeches, which he entitled “Philippics”, in vigorous opposition to Marc Anthony, who was “the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ruin” to the Roman Republic.
Demosthenes’ target audience is the average Greek citizen, and therefore his popular speeches provide an excellent window into the mentality of ancient Greeks. For example, he constantly appeals to their most noble aspirations, viz. their sense of justice and piety, their magnanimity and willingness to sacrifice life and property for freedom, honor and renown. On the other hand, he also displays prejudices common to the ancients, viz. discrimination based on family origin and race.
What was the duty of Athens when she perceived that Philip’s purpose was to establish a despotic empire over all Greece? What language, what counsels, were incumbent upon an adviser of the people at Athens, of all places in the world, being conscious that from the dawn of her history, our country had ever striven for primacy, and honor, and renown, and that to serve an honorable ambition and the common welfare of Greece she had expended her treasure and the lives of her sons far more generously than any other Hellenic state fighting only for itself?
Our antagonist Philip himself, contending for empire and supremacy, had endured the loss of his eye, the fracture of his collar-bone, the mutilation of his hand and his leg, and was ready to sacrifice to the fortune of war any and every part of his body, if only the life of the shattered remnant should be a life of honor and renown. Surely no man will dare to call it becoming that in a man reared at Pella, then a mean and insignificant city, such lofty ambition should be innate as to covet the dominion of all Greece, and admit that aspiration to his soul, while you, natives of Athens, observing day by day, in every speech you hear and in every spectacle you behold, memorials of the high prowess of your forefathers, should sink to such cowardice as by a spontaneous, voluntary act to surrender your liberty to a Philip.
Statesman vs. Fortune
Look at the policy I chose in the light of those perils; do not carp at results. The issue depends on the will of a higher Power; the mind of the statesman is manifested in his policy. You must not accuse me of crime, because Philip happened to win the battle; for the event was in God’s hands, not mine. Show me that I did not adopt, as far as human calculation could go, all the measures that were practicable, or that I did not carry them out with honesty and diligence, and with an industry that overtaxed my strength; or else show me that the enterprises I initiated were not honorable, worthy of Athens, and inevitable. Prove that, and then denounce me; but not till then.
You cannot, men of Athens, you cannot have done wrongly when you accepted the risks of war for the redemption and the liberties of mankind; I swear it by our forefathers who bore the brunt of warfare at Marathon, who stood in array of battle at Plataea, who fought in the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium, and by all the brave men who repose in our public sepulchres, buried there by a country that accounted them all to be alike worthy of the same honor —all, I say, not the successful and the victorious alone. So justice bids: for by all the duty of brave men was accomplished: their fortune was such as Heaven severally allotted to them.
References:
- Demosthenes. Orations, Volume II: Orations 18-19: De Corona, De Falsa Legatione. Translated by C. A. Vince, J. H. Vince. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.
- Demosthenes. On the Crown. Perseus Digital Library. Accessed October 12, 2018. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0072:speech=18.