Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
fine laid on him for the misdemeanor he was accused of, he should be
excused for only building an altar to Jupiter Servator in the Piraeus;
which decree was first proposed by Demon his near kinsman. This
being agreed on, he returned to the administration of affairs in the
commonwealth again.
But when Antipater was blocked up in Lamia, and the Athenians offered
sacrifices for the happy news, he happened, being talking with
Agesistratus, one of his intimate friends, to say, that his judgment
concerning the state of affairs did not jump with other men’s, for that
he knew the Greeks were brisk and ready enough to run a short course
but not to hold on a long race. When Antipater had taken Pharsalus, and
threatened to besiege Athens itself if they refused to deliver up such
orators as had declaimed against him, Demosthenes, suspecting himself
to be one of the number, left the city, and fled first into Aegina,
that he might take sanctuary in the temple of Aeacus; but being afraid
to trust himself long there, he went over to Calauria; and when the
Athenians had decreed to deliver up those orators, and him especially
as one of them, he continued a suppliant in the temple of Neptune. When
Archias came thither,—who, from his office of pursuing fugitives, was
called Phygadotheres and was the scholar of Anaximines the orator,—when
he, I say, came to him, and persuaded him to go with him, telling
him that no doubt he should be received by Antipater as a friend, he
replied: When you played a part in a tragedy, you could not persuade
me to believe you the person you represented; no more shall you now
persuade me by your counsel. And when Archias endeavored to force him
thence, the townsmen would not suffer it. And Demosthenes told them,
that he did not flee to Calauria to save his life, but that he might
convince the Macedonians of their violence committed even against the
Gods themselves. And with that he called for a writing-table; and if we
may credit Demetrius the Magnesian, on that he wrote a distich, which
afterwards the Athenians caused to be affixed to his statue; and it was
to this purpose:—
Hadst thou, Demosthenes, an outward force
Great as thy inward magnanimity.
Greece should not wear the Macedonian yoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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