As for example, when Demades exclaimed, "Demosthenes teach me! Will a sow teach Athena?" Demosthenes answered, "This Athena was caught in adultery in Kollytus[128] the other day." And when the thief who was surnamed Chalkus, that is, Brazen-face, attempted to sneer at him for sitting up late at night writing, Demosthenes answered, "I know that my habit of burning a lamp at night must disconcert you. But, men of Athens, need we wonder at the thefts which take place, when we see that our thieves are brazen, and our walls are only made of clay." However, although I could relate several more anecdotes of this kind, I must now stop, as we ought to discover what remains of the disposition and character of Demosthenes from a survey of his political acts. XII. He first began to take an active part in public affairs during the Phokian war, as we learn from his own words, and as we may also gather from his Philippic orations, some of which were pronounced after that war was ended, while the earlier ones touch on those matters most nearly connected with it. It is evident that when he prepared the oration against Meidias he was thirty-two years of age, and had not as yet acquired any fame or reputation. This appears to me to be the chief reason for his having made up his quarrel with Meidias for a sum of money, for he was far from being a "mild-mannered" man, but keen and savage in avenging the injuries which he received. It must have been because he saw, that to ruin a man who was so rich, so able a speaker, and so well-befriended as Meidias, was too difficult a task for a man of his political power, and so yielded to the entreaties of those who begged him to let the action drop; for I do not believe that the bribe of three thousand drachmae which he received would by itself have caused Demosthenes to lay aside the rancorous hatred which he bore to Meidias, if he had entertained any hopes of obtaining a verdict against him. In the defence of the liberties of Greece against the encroachments of Philip, Demosthenes found a noble theme for political oratory, which he treated in a manner worthy of the subject, and soon acquired such renown by his able and fearless speeches, that he was courted by the king of Persia himself, and was more talked about in the court of Philip than any of the other statesmen of the time, while even his bitterest antagonists admitted that they had to deal with no mean adversary; for both Æschines and Hypereides own as much in their invectives against him.