(M707) It was at this time, B.C. 353, that Demosthenes, the orator, appeared before the Athenian people. He was about twenty-seven years of age, and the wealth of his father secured him great advantages in education. His father died while he was young, and his property was confided to the care of guardians, named in his father’s will. But they administered the property with such negligence, that only a small sum came to Demosthenes when he attained his civil majority, at the age of sixteen. After repeated complaints, he brought a judicial action against one of the guardians, and obtained verdict against him to the extent of ten talents. But the guardian delayed the payment, and Demosthenes lost nearly all his patrimony. He had, however, received a good education, and in spite of a feeble constitution, he mastered all the learning of the age. His family influence enabled him to get an early introduction to public affairs, and he proceeded to train himself as a speaker, and a writer of speeches for others. He put himself under the teaching of a famous rhetorician, Iænus, and profited by the discourses of Plato and Isocrates then in the height of their fame. He also was a great student of Thucydides, and copied his whole history, with his own hand, eight times. He still had to contend against a poor voice, and an ungraceful gesticulation; but by unwearied labor he overcame his natural difficulties so as to satisfy the most critical Athenian audience. But this conquest in self-education was only made by repeated trials and humiliations, and it is said he even spoke with pebbles in his mouth, and prepared himself to overcome the noise of the Assembly by declaiming in stormy weather on the sea-shore. He sometimes passed two or three mouths in a subterranean chamber, practicing by day and by night, both in composition and declamation, such pains did those old Greeks take to perfect themselves in art; for public speaking is an art, as well as literary composition. He learned Sophocles by heart, and took lessons from actors even to get the true accent. It was several years before he was rewarded with success, and then his delivery was full of vehemence and energy, but elaborate and artificial. But it was not more labor which made Demosthenes the greatest orator of antiquity, and perhaps, of all ages and nations, but also natural genius. His self-training merely developed the great qualities of which he was conscious, as was Disraeli when he made his early failures in Parliament. Without natural gifts of eloquence, he might have worked till doomsday without producing the extraordinary effect which is ascribed to him, for his speeches show great insight, genius, and natural force, as well as learning, culture, and practice; so that they could be read like the speeches of Burke and Webster, with great effect. He had great political sagacity, moral wisdom, elevation of sentiment, and patriotic ardor, as well as art.