It remains only to say that the general consensus of ancient and modern opinion is, that Demosthenes was the supreme figure in the brilliant line of orators of antiquity. The chief general characteristics in all Demosthenes's public oratory are a sustained intensity and a merciless directness. Swift as waves before a gale, every word bears straight toward the final goal of his purpose. We are hardly conscious even of the artistic taste which fits each phrase, and sentence, and episode, to the larger occasion as well as to each other. Indeed, we lose the rhetorician altogether in the devoted pleader, the patriot, the self-forgetful chief of a noble but losing cause. His careful study of the great orators who had preceded him undoubtedly taught him much; yet it was his own original and creative power, lodged in a far-sighted, generous, and fearless nature, that enabled him to leave to mankind a series of forensic masterpieces hardly rivaled in any age or country. [Illustration: Signature: Robert Shark] THE THIRD PHILIPPIC THE ARGUMENT This speech was delivered about three months after the second Philippic, while Philip was advancing into Thrace, and threatening both the Chersonese and the Propontine coast. No new event had happened which called for any special consultation; but Demosthenes, alarmed by the formidable character of Philip's enterprises and vast military preparations, felt the necessity of rousing the Athenians to exertion.