I need not discuss here the allegation that he made speeches for money on opposite sides in the successive trials of the same case. The fact appears to me clear enough, for it is only evaded by his panegyrists with their stock expedient of declaring one of such opposing speeches, though accepted by the best ancient critics, to be spurious. But the morals of the bar from that day to this are so peculiar--I will not say loose--as to make the layman hesitate in offering an opinion. That a man should take fees for a case in which he cannot appear, or retain them when he is debarred by lucrative promotion from appearing for his client, seems to be consistent with the morality of the modern bar. Why then try Demosthenes by a severer standard? [Sidenote: The affair of Harpalus.] But a larger question arises when we find him arraigned for embezzling a sum of money brought to Athens by a fugitive defaulter from Alexander's treasury, and moreover convicted of the embezzlement. The chorus of modern critics, with a very occasional exception, cry out that of course the accusation was false, and the verdict simply a political move to escape the wrath of the formidable Macedonian. But the facts remain, and this moreover among them, that the principal accuser of Demosthenes was his brother-patriot Hypereides, who afterwards suffered death for the anti-Macedonian cause[147:1]. [Sidenote: Was the verdict against Demosthenes just?] The evidence left to us seems to me not sufficient to overthrow the Athenian verdict on political grounds, and is certainly not such as to justify us in acquitting Demosthenes without further consideration. The real ground, however, which actuates modern historians is quite a different one from that of the evidence adduced, and is, I think, based on a historical misprision, a false estimate of the current morals of the day. I think it well to state the case here; for it is a test case, and affects many of our judgments of other Greek politicians as well as of Demosthenes. [Sidenote: The modern ground of acquittal.] § 61. The modern ground of acquittal urged is this, that we cannot for a moment conceive a pure and high-souled patriot, who had risked all for the national cause, to have been guilty of taking bribes or embezzling money. Schäfer indeed distinctly says[148:1] that his judgment is determined by his estimate of the moral character of its hero; and so not only weak and illogical speeches, but immoral or dishonest acts, are simply to be set aside as inconceivable in so lofty and unsullied a nature. Whether this be a sensible way of writing history, I leave the reader to decide. What I am now going to urge is this, that in the morality of Attic politics, taking money privately was not thought disgraceful, but was, with certain restrictions, openly asserted to be quite justifiable. [Sidenote: Morality of politicians expounded by Hypereides.]