Demosthenes

To him, then, Demosthenes made a sharp answer. Indeed, said he, thy lamp and mine, O Pytheas, are not privy to the same pursuits. To the rest, however, he made no denial at all, but confessed that his speeches were neither altogether unwritten, nor yet fully written out. Moreover, he used to declare that he who rehearsed his speeches was a true man of the people: for such preparation was a mark of deference to the people, whereas heedlessness of what the multitude will think of his speech marks a man of oligarchical spirit, and one who relies on force rather than on persuasion.

Another circumstance, too, is made a proof of his lack of courage for an emergency, namely, that when he was interrupted by the clamours of the people, Demades often rose and spoke off-hand in his support, but he never rendered such a service to Demades.

How, then, some one might say, could Aeschines call him a man of the most astonishing boldness in his speeches?[*](See Aeschines, On the Crown § 152.) And how was it that, when Python of Byzantium[*](An envoy of Philip to the Athenian assembly, in 343 B.C. See Demosthenes, On the Crown § 136.) was inveighing with much boldness and a great torrent of words against the Athenians, Demosthenes alone rose up and spoke against him? Or how did it happen that, when Lamachus the Myrinaean had written an encomium on Kings Philip and Alexander, in which many injurious things were said of Thebes and Olynthus,