I shall not here touch upon the Demosthenic speech De Coronâ in a rhetorical point of view, nor add anything to those encomiums which have been pronounced upon it with one voice, both in ancient and in modern times, as the unapproachable masterpiece of Grecian oratory. To this work it belongs as a portion of Grecian history; a retrospect of the efforts made by a patriot and a statesman to uphold the dignity of Athens and the autonomy of the Grecian world, against a dangerous aggressor from without. How these efforts were directed, and how they lamentably failed, has been recounted in my last preceding volume. Demosthenes here passes them in review, replying to the criminations against his public conduct during the interval of ten years, between the peace of 346 B. C., (or the period immediately preceding it) and the death of Philip. It is remarkable, that though professing to enter upon a defence of his whole public life,[690] he nevertheless can afford to leave unnoticed that portion of it which is perhaps the most honorable to him—the early period of his first Philippics and Olynthiacs—when, though a politician as yet immature and of no established footing, he was the first to descry in the distance the perils threatened by Philip’s aggrandizement, and the loudest in calling for timely and energetic precautions against it; in spite of apathy and murmurs from older politicians as well as from the general public. Beginning with the peace of 346 B. C., Demosthenes vindicates his own share in the antecedents of that event against the charges of Æschines, whom he denounces as the cause of all the mischief; a controversy which I have already tried to elucidate, in my last volume. Passing next to the period after that peace—to the four years first of hostile diplomacy, then of hostile action, against Philip, which ended with the disaster of Chæroneia—Demosthenes is not satisfied with simple vindication. He re-asserts this policy as matter of pride and honor, in spite of its results. He congratulates his countrymen on having manifested a Pan-hellenic patriotism worthy of their forefathers, and takes to himself only the credit of having been forward to proclaim and carry out this glorious sentiment common to all. Fortune has been adverse; yet the vigorous anti-Macedonian policy was no mistake; Demosthenes swears it by the combatants of Marathon, Platæa and Salamis.[691] To have had a foreign dominion obtruded upon Greece, is an overwhelming calamity; but to have had this accomplished without strenuous resistance on the part of Athens, would have been calamity aggravated by dishonor. [690] Demosthen. De Coronâ, p. 227. μέλλων τοῦ τε ἰδίου βίου ~παντός~, ὡς ἔοικε, λόγον διδόναι τήμερον καὶ τῶν κοινῇ πεπολιτευμένων, etc.