EXTRACT FROM DEMOSTHENES. 259 What alliance has been ever obtained What ing the country's resources. for the state through your instrumentality? What succor? acquisition of good-will from others, or credit for ourselves? What embassy? What public service that has added to our national renown? What public affairs, whether domestic, Hellenic, or foreign, have been brought by you to a successful issue? What ships have you furnished? What arms? What dockyards? What fortifications? What cavalry? In what one respect have you been useful? What pecuniary contribution have you ever made upon public grounds for the benefit of either the rich or the poor? None. You were not deterred by your poverty, but by your anxiety to do nothing opposed to the interests of those for whose benefit all your policy has been designed. But what are the occasions of your brilliant displays, the exhibition of your youthful vigor? When aught is to be spoken against your countrymen, then is your voice best tuned, then is your memory most accurate; then you act your part to perfection. *** Every well-affected citizen, Athenians, (in such terms I am able to speak of myself least invidiously) is bound to possess two qualities: when in authority, the fixed resolve to maintain the honor and preeminence of his country; under all circumstances and at all times, loyalty. This Nature can command-to another power belong strength and success. By this spirit you find me to have been uniformly actuated. Observe-never when I was demanded for extradition, nor when Amphictyonic suits were prosecuted against me, nor when threats, nor when promises were brought to bear upon me, nor when these miscreants were let loose like wild beasts upon me--never was I induced to abandon one jot or tittle of my loyalty to you. From first to last I took the straight and true path of statesmanship-that of complete devotion to the maintenance and furtherance of the honor, the power, and the glory of my country. Never was I beheld strutting about the Forum, radiant with joy and exultation at foreign success, gesticulating congratulations to those who might be expected to report them elsewhere. Nor have I heard the tidings of our good fortune with dismay and lamentations, and prostration to the earth, like these impious men who inveigh against their country without perceiving that their invective is directed against themselves, whose eyes are cast abroad, who felicitate themselves on foreign success purchased by the calamities of Greece, and avow their anxiety to secure its permanence. Never, O ye Heavenly Powers never may such designs obtain favor at your hands! Rather, if it be possible, inspire even these men with better thoughts, and turn their hearts; but if their moral plague be incurable, cut them off from among us, and drive them forth to destruction, sure and swift, over land and over sea while to us who are spared ye vouchsafe the speediest deliverance from our impending alarms, and abiding security!"-SIR ROBERT COLLIER. Twice after the reverse of Chæronea Demosthenes succeeded in arraying his country against Macedon — at the assassination of Philip and on the death of Alexander. When news of Alexander's decease reached Greece, the orator was in exile, having been unjustly convicted of taking Macedonian treasure; yet he did his utmost to arm the Grecian cities, and was in consequence recalled to Athens by the fickle people. But it was all in vain. At last, marked for destruction by the Macedonian regent Antip'ater, and doomed to death by his cowardly fellowcitizens whose necks were now under the tyrant's heel, he fled to the temple of Neptune on Calaure'a and there found. relief from his troubles in a quill of poison which he kept ready for an emergency. In Demosthenes, Athens lost an incorruptible patriot-antiquity, one of her noblest characters. The Athenians erected to his memory a brazen statue on which was inscribed : "Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were, Eschines (389–314 B.C.), of whose early life little is known, after his defeat at the hands of Demosthenes, went into exile. We are told that his victorious rival magnanimously forgave him, and even offered him money for the journey; which led Æschines to exclaim: "How I regret leaving a country where I have found an enemy so generous that I must despair of ever meeting with a friend who shall be like him!" Æschines afterward established himself as a teacher of oratory in Rhodes. Here he once repeated to his pupils his famous oration against Ctesiphon in the contest for the crown, which filled them with wonder that so able an orator should have been defeated. But when at their request he read the reply of Demosthenes, his audience rose to their feet with eager acclamations; and the orator, forgetting all jealousy in his admiration, cried: "What would you have said, had you heard the wild beast himself roaring it out?" The oration against Ctesiphon is one of three familiarly known in antiquity as "the Three Graces"-a title indicative of the refinement and easy flow of the author's style, deficient as it was in the energy and vehemence of his great rival. METON, the Athenian astronomer (flourished 430 B.C.): founder of the Lunar Cycle of 19 solar years, which he discovered to be nearly equal to 235 revolutions of the moon round the earth. From the "Metonic Cycle" the Greeks computed their festivals; it is still used by the Western churches in fixing Easter. HIPPOCRATES (460-357 B.C.), born on the island of Cos, "the Father of Medicine:" knew little of anatomy; discovered the critical days in fevers. NOTES ON GREEK EDUCATION, ETC. Education recognized as all-important in ancient Greece, and even made compulsory by the great lawgivers. In Homer's time, children taught obedience, respect for the aged, and modesty of deportment; sons instructed in the use of weapons and gymnastic exercises; daughters, in domestic economy and virtue. Homer's epics long the chief text-books on all subjects. Reading and writing, accomplishments of the earliest periods. An ignorant Greek an anomaly. Even among the Spartans, who affected contempt for lit erature, reading and writing were practised. The magistrates and their officers were provided with wooden cylinders of the same size; when one desired to communicate, he wound a strip of parchment round his cylinder and wrote his message thereon; then, removing the strip, he sent it to the other party, who was enabled to read it by rolling it upon his own cylinder in the same folds. In the golden age, common schools were the glory of Greece; the rudiments of education everywhere taught. The importance of grammar urged by Plato, who was the first to explain the difference between nouns and verbs; articles and conjunctions distinguished by Aristotle, and also differences of number and case. The foundation of scientific grammar laid by the Stoics, who recognized eight parts of speech. Those who could afford it completed their education at the Lyceum, Academy, or some other celebrated school, often paying most extravagantly for instruction in rhetoric and philosophy. Some teachers charged their pupils as much as $2,000 apiece for a course of lectures. Foreign languages were never studied by the Greeks. Many private libraries were established during the golden age, but no circulating or public libraries. As early as 400 B.C. Athens carried on quite a trade in manuscripts, one quarter of the market-place being called "the book-mart." Books were generally abundant and cheap, being copied by slaves, but rare works were very costly. Plato paid $1,600 for three books, and Aristotle $3,000 for a few volumes. Wooden tablets for accounts sold for 18 cts. each about 400 B.C. A small blank book of two wax tablets was worth less than a penny. Pencils are said to have been invented 408 B.C. by Apollodorus, the self-styled "Prince of Painters." CHAPTER VI. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. Decline of Letters.-The triumph of the Doric states over Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) gave the first blow to the intellectual power of Greece. Literary decay forthwith set in; its progress was hastened by internal dissensions, and completed when liberty was hopelessly extinguished by Philip of Macedon and his successors. Alexander indeed benefited the East by introducing the Greek language and culture, and building magnificent cities in return for her hordes of barbarians slain; but his policy THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. 263 left out of view the interests of Greece. While Athens remained the seminary of Europe for several centuries after his death, Alexandria, founded by him at the mouth of the Nile, became the intellectual as well as commercial capital of the world. From this city, the period we are about to consider derives its name. It extends from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans (30 B.C.). The Alexandrian Age produced no grand masterpieces. No glorious struggle for freedom inspired the historian; there was no further need for the efforts of the orator; science and criticism flourished instead of poetry; and a host of imitators usurped the place of the mighty originals of the olden time. The national taste had sadly deteriorated; an affected obscurity was fashionable; and gaudy tinsel was more highly valued than true gold. Yet one bright bloom gladdened this waste-Idyllic Poetry, which expanded into a perfect flower in the hands of Theoc'ritus the Sicilian. A new school of comedy was also established by Menander and Phile'mon; and many seeds of Greek genius that Alexander had scattered broadcast over the earth sprung up on foreign soil, and yielded fruit-but fruit inferior to that ripened under its native sun. DRAMATIC POETRY. The New Comedy dealt with the follies and vices of society at large, not with individuals, the actor no longer venturing, since the downfall of political liberty, to imitate Aristophanes in representing living characters. Its simple plot was generally based on some love-intrigue. Though the broad fun of the Old Comedy was wanting, quiet humor contrasted happily with pathos, the grave with the gay; the audience, provoked by turns to laughter and to tears, were all the time learning some useful principle or moral lesson. Cicero styled |