Demosthenes

For Demosthenes could not resist, but was overcome by the bribe, and now that he had, as it were, admitted a garrison into his house, promptly went over to the side of Harpalus. Next day, after swathing his neck carefully in woollen bandages, he went forth into the assembly; and when he was urged to rise and speak, he made signs that his voice was ruined.

The wits, however, by way of raillery, declared that the orator had been seized overnight, not with an ordinary quinsy, but with a silver quinsy. And afterwards, when the whole people learned that he had been bribed, and would not permit him, when he wished it, to have a hearing and make his defence, but were angry and raised a tumult against him, someone rose and said jokingly: Men of Athens, will you not listen to the man who holds the cup?[*](At feasts the cup passed from guest to guest, and the one who held it had the right of uninterrupted speech or song.)

At that time, then, they sent Harpalus away from the city, and fearing lest they should be called to account for the moneys which the orators had seized, they made a zealous search for it, and went round to their houses on the quest, except that of Callicles the son of Arrhenides. For his house was the only one which they would not allow to be searched, since he was newly married and his bride was within, as Theopompus relates.

But Demosthenes put a bold face on the matter and introduced a bill providing that the case should be referred for investigation to the council of the Areiopagus, and that those should be brought to trial who were found guilty there. He was himself, however, among the first condemned by the council, and came before the court for trial, where he was sentenced to a fine of fifty talents and delivered over to prison in default of payment.

But out of shame at the charge under which he lay, as he says,[*](In the second of the letters which have come down to us under his name, § 17.) and owing to the weakness of his body, which could not endure confinement, he ran away, through the carelessness of some of his keepers and the connivance of others. At any rate, we are told that when he was in flight at a short distance from the city, he learned that some of the citizens who were his enemies were in pursuit of him, and therefore wished to hide himself;