Demosthenes

At this time, however, when their disaster fell upon the Greeks, the orators of the opposing party assailed Demosthenes and prepared reckonings and indictments against him; but the people not only absolved him from these, nay, they actually continued to honour him and invited him again, as a loyal man, to take part in public affairs.

Consequently, when the bones of those who had fallen at Chaeroneia were brought home for burial, they assigned to him the honour of pronouncing the eulogy over the men; nor did they show a base or ignoble spirit under the calamity which had befallen them, as Theopompus writes in his inflated style, but by the special honour and respect which they paid to their counsellor they made it manifest that they did not repent of the counsels he had given them.

The oration, then, was pronounced by Demosthenes, but to the decrees which he proposed he would not put his own name, but rather those of his friends, one after the other, avoiding his own as inauspicious and unfortunate, until he once more took courage upon Philip’s death. And Philip died, surviving his success at Chaeroneia only a short time;[*](Philip was assassinated by Pausanias, one of his royal bodyguard, in 336 B.C. See the Alexander, x. 4.) and this, it would seem, was foretold by the last verse of the oracle:—

1. Tears are for the conquered there, and for the
2. conqueror, death.

Now, Demosthenes had secret intelligence of Philip’s death, and by way of inspiring the Athenians with courage for the future, he came forth to the council with a glad countenance, declaring that he had a dream which led him to expect some great blessing for Athens; and not long afterwards the messengers came with tidings of Philip’s death. At once, then, the Athenians proceeded to make thank-offerings for glad tidings and voted a crown for Pausanias.

And Demosthenes came forth in public dressed in a splendid robe and wearing a garland on his head, although his daughter had died only six days before, as Aeschines says,[*](Against Ctesiphon (or On the Crown), § 77.) who rails at him for this and denounces him as an unnatural father. And yet Aeschines himself was of a weak and ungenerous nature, if he considered mournings and lamentations as the signs of an affectionate spirit, but condemned the bearing of such losses serenely and without repining.