Orators -- Greece; Oratory, Ancient; Speeches, addresses, etc., Greek -- History and criticism
In 323 B.C. Alexander died; the hope of freedom revived, and Demosthenes
started at once on a tour of the Peloponnese to urge on the cities the
need of joint action. He was reconciled with the party of Hyperides and
recalled from exile. He was fetched home in a trireme, and a procession
escorted him from the harbour to the city. By a straining of the law,
the public paid his fine. The Lamian war opened successfully under
Leosthenes, but at the battle of Crannon Antipater crushed the Greek
forces. Athens was forced to receive a Macedonian garrison, to lose her
democratic constitution, and to give up her leaders to the conqueror’s
vengeance. Demades carried a decree for the death of Demosthenes and
Hyperides. Demosthenes had already escaped and taken sanctuary in the
temple of Posidon on the island of Calauria. Here he was pursued by an
agent of Antipater, one Archias, known as the exile-hunter, who had been
an actor. This man tried to entice him forth by generous promises, but
Demosthenes answered, ‘Your acting never carried conviction, and your
promises are equally unconvincing.’ Archias then resorted to threats, but
was met by the calm retort, ‘Now you speak like a Macedonian oracle; you
were only acting before; only wait a little, so that I may write a few
lines home.’ While pretending to write he sucked poison from the end of
his pen, and then let his head sink on his hands, as if in thought. When
Archias approached again he looked him in the face and said, ‘It is time
for you to play the part of Creon, and cast out this body unburied. Now,
adored Posidon, I leave thy precinct while yet alive; but Antipater and
his Macedonians have left not even thy shrine undefiled.’ He essayed to
walk out, but fell and died upon the steps of the altar.[327]
Lucian, in his _Encomium of Demosthenes_, has given a fanciful account of
Antipater receiving the news from Archias; these are the concluding words:
‘So he is gone, either to live with the heroes in the Isles
of the Blest or along the path of those souls that climb
to Heaven, to be an attendant spirit on Zeus the giver of
Freedom; but his body we will send to Athens, as a nobler
memorial for that land than are the bodies of those who fell at
Marathon.’[328]
§ 4. _Literary Reputation_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.