This celebrated Grecian orator was born about 384 or 385 years B. C., at a period when Athens had reached the zenith of her literary, and had passed that of her political, glory. Juvenal has represented him slightingly, as the son of a blacksmith—the fact being that the elder Demosthenes was engaged in various branches of trade, and, among others, was owner of a sword manufactory. His maternal grandmother was a Thracian woman—a circumstance noticeable because it enabled his enemies, in the spirit of ill-will, to taunt him as a barbarian and hereditary enemy of his country; for the Greeks, in general, regarded the admixture of other than Greek blood, with the same sort of contempt and dislike that the whites of America do the taint of African descent. Being left an orphan when seven years old, Demosthenes fell into the hands of dishonest guardians, who embezzled a large portion of the property which his father had bequeathed to him. His constitution appears to have been delicate, and it may have been on this account that he did not attend the gymnastic exercises, which formed a large portion of the education of the youths in Greece; exercises really important where neither birth nor wealth set aside the obligation to military service common to all citizens; and where, therefore, skill in the use of arms, strength, and the power to endure fatigue and hardship, were essential to the rich as well as to the poor. It may have been on this account that a nickname expressive of effeminacy was bestowed on him, which was afterwards interpreted into a proof of unmanly luxury and vicious habits; indeed, the reproach of wanting physical strength clung to him through life; and apparently this was not undeserved. Another nickname that he obtained was that of “Viper.” In short, the anecdotes which have come down to us, tend pretty uniformly to show that his private character was harsh and unamiable. His ambition to excel as an orator is said to have been kindled by hearing a masterly and much admired speech of Callistratus. For instruction, he resorted to Isæus, and, as some say, to Isocrates, both eminent teachers of the art of rhetoric. He had a stimulus to exertion in the resolution to prosecute his guardians for abuse of their trust; and having gained the cause, B. C. 364, in the conduct of which he himself took an active part, recovered, it would seem, a large part of his property. The orations against Aphobus and Onetor, which appear among his works, profess to have been delivered in the course of the suit; but it has been doubted, on internal evidence, whether they were really composed by him so early in life.