'Antigone of Sophocles is a play often given by Theodorus, and by 'Aristodemus too. It contains iambic verses of exceeding beauty, 'which might have been of use to the defendant had he chosen to ' recall what he had so often recited; for you know that in the 'tragic stage the tritagonist has a right always to come on as the 'tyrant or person in authority. Now you shall hear what the 'dramatist makes Creon say, and, therefore, Eschines, his represen'tative; words which Æschines had often spoken, and has chosen 'to forget.'

The tritagonist then (as Mr. Arnold well insists in the preface to his Merope) had a definite line of parts; and his part in a given play (as in Antigone) may be the most prominent of all. So in the time of Shakespeare actors took their parts according to their genius and capacity, as anyone can learn who reads of Lowen, Taylor, and Burbage; not according to their jealousy and ambition as now, when a performer who does (as it is called) leading business must engross the part, whatever that may be, which is the most prominent in the piece.

It seems strange that Æschines failed on the stage; probably his acting wanted heart. (See the Falsa Legatio.)

Theodorus and Aristodemus are mentioned, it will be seen, in the above-cited passage as the managers of the company in which Æschines played. They were probably men of a superior stamp to Simylus and Socrates.

P. 79. The fruiterer in the proverb or the story.] This difficult passage is from another hand, better qualified to grapple with Greek. The fruiterer is a proverbial personage alluded to in Athenæus. The life of a hare.] It is strange that Leland suppresses this metaphor.

P. 80. I tested them.] Demosthenes obviously speaks of these mysteries with contempt. It is hard to guess why he chose to patronise them.

'Curses to the accursed.'] These words are most awkwardly introduced, unless taken as the beginning of a quotation which the speaker, by a sudden impulse, interrupts to use them as a denunciation. This is a further instance of a violent torrent of abuse immediately preceding the recitation of a document by the clerk.

Captives I may have ransomed.] See the Falsa Legatio (Kennedy, p. 169). Demosthenes, a wealthy man, has been accused of

being keen in the acquisition of wealth; perhaps truly, but he made a good use of it.

P. 82. The power of an orator lies mostly in the hands of his audience.] See Love's Labour Lost, act v. scene 2 :

'A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that utters it.'

Demosthenes puts this well, to flatter his audience, and evades the real drift of what Eschines had said, that the audience might be tricked by the sophistry of a speaker. The argument, however, is not extraordinarily unfair.

P. 83. Eloquence and voice.] See the Falsa Legatio (Kennedy, p. 183).

In a quarter whence he apprehends danger to the State.] For a parallel passage, see the Falsa Legatio (Kennedy, p. 211).

P. 85. That his voice should express sorrow when it was wanting at the heart.] So we translate & πокρινóμεvоν. Demosthenes is recorded to have said that vπóкρiσiç (absurdly translated into English as action-it means delivery) was the first, second, and third qualification for a speaker. He did say so, not meaning it; for he had failed for want of it, and spoke in bitterness. What he meant, and what is true, is this: it is an indispensable ingredient in success, and goes far with the majority. He lived to correct his defects, by the aid of Satyrus (see the Falsa Legatio, Kennedy, p. 176), and would never have repeated his complaint. Satyrus, the actor, enabled him to surmount his natural disadvantages. This is worth remembering, for in England we have been apt to undervalue this aid to persuasiveness.

P. 86. 'These are the brave.'] Campbell's translation has faults, but it has great beauties. Leland's is far too diffuse. Kennedy gives two versions, but neither is comparable to Campbell's, in whose version the line (which Demosthenes re-quotes),

'Th' immortal gods alone are ever great,'

is fortunately the happiest of all.

P. 88. In a fit of drunken liberality.] This is quite inconsistent with the accusation made throughout, that the independence of Greece was parted with deliberately, and for a consideration. But it is a literal translation of the Greek, and that is all a trans

I

Æschines played. Th to Simylus and Socrat

P. 79. The fruiterer passage is from anothe The fruiterer is a pro

The life of a hare.] metaphor.

P. 80. I tested them mysteries with contem patronise them.

'Curses to the acci

troduced, unless take speaker, by a sudden ciation. This is a fo immedia

of his speech beforehand. If both speeches in this trial were delivered on the same day, the sitting must have lasted about ten hours.

Who feels envy towards the dead?] The same sentiment appears in the Falsa Legatio (Kennedy, p. 214).

Is your brother?] Two brothers are mentioned in the Falsa Legatio. One certainly rose to the rank of a statesman: he went ambassador to a foreign court.

P. 94. Bloomed into extraordinary magnificence.] In the original Demosthenes here adds a few words, contrasting his own situation with that of Aschines; words which in English seem to make an anti-climax so complete as to require their omission.

With informations.] Every prior English translator renders this word ἐπαγγέλλομαι, to promise.

What strikes one most on reading this speech is the unfairness of the treatment Athens gave her public men. One understands the reason that the word orator is the only equivalent for the English statesman. The orators did not hold office. A public man never had the weapon of self-defence which a leader in our parliament has, the threat of resignation. The sovereign Demos was his own Premier.

With regard to the speech itself the most striking feature is the constant recurrence to the same topics after they had been seemingly despatched before. This shows how thoroughly the speaker carried his audience with him.

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lator has to provide. For an illustration of the meaning of the word πроivшv, see the Seventh Olympian Ode of Pindar, well translated by Carey.

P.89. Uncorrupted.] Yet Demosthenes was afterwards banished for corruption. Unjustly, for many reasons: in the first place, supposing him, a rich man, to have received a small present, did it at all influence his policy? Assuredly not. In the second place, Athens had no relations with Persia, and the property of Harpalus belonged to him, without any enquiry being necessary as to whether he had taken it from the Persian treasury. The real reason of the hostile vote against Demosthenes was this: the Athenians were tired of him, as they had been of Aristides. Their real estimate of his character appeared when, on the first hope of emancipation, they at once recalled him.

What was the course? &c.] The student of modern history will be reminded of the policy of Mr. Pitt in the war with Imperial France.

P. 90. The weakness of the generals.] In the Falsa Legatio (Kennedy, pp. 219-220), Demosthenes speaks in defence of Chares, one of the Athenian generals at Chæronea. It does not seem clear whether he or Lysicles was general-in-chief. The latter, who was executed for misconduct, was very probably to blame; and it may be that, if Demosthenes had had the command, fortune might have declared for Athens.

P. 92. You recall the great men, &c.] On this topic Eschines argued very fairly. He says at the Olympic games we give the prize promised to the best man, though he may be good only by comparison; but we measure our statesmen by an abstract standard. That is sound; but, on the other hand, Demosthenes is as much justified in his position that a comparison of a living man with an historical character is invidious and sinister:

'Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,

Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit.'

Hor. Ep. II. i. 88.

It is to be remarked that Æschines, in his speech for the prosecution, had answered by anticipation most of the arguments here. The same theory is to be found in the Falsa Legatio. Demosthenes knew even the poetical quotations which Æschines would make in his defence. This leads one to suppose it was incumbent on each opponent to give the other the leading points