Under the same heading must come the use of coarse expressions and terms of personal abuse. In many of the speeches relating to public law-suits Demosthenes allows himself all the latitude which was sanctioned by the taste of his times. In the actual use of abusive epithets—θηρίον, κατάρατος and the like—he does not go beyond the common practice of Aeschines, and is even outstripped by Dinarchus; but in the accumulation of offensive references to the supposed private character of his political opponents he condescends to such excesses that we wonder how a decent audience can ever have tolerated him.[334] Evidently an Athenian audience loved vulgarity for its own sake, apart from humour. In the private speeches there is at times a certain coarseness—inevitably, since police-court cases are often concerned with sordid details. Offensive actions sometimes have to be described;[335] but this is a very different matter from the irrelevant introduction of offensive matter. In the speeches delivered before the ecclesia Demosthenes set himself a higher ideal. Into questions of public policy, private animosities should not be allowed to intrude, and throughout the _Philippics_ and _Olynthiacs_ Demosthenes observes this rule. Under no stress of excitement does he sink to personalities; his political opponents for the time being are not abused, not even mentioned by name. The courtesies of debate are fully and justly maintained. § 5. _Style and Composition_ Though Demosthenes wrote in pure Attic Greek, it is to Lysias and Isocrates rather than to him that Dionysius assigns praise for the most perfect purity of language. It is probable that Demosthenes was nearer to the living speech. Even in his deliberative speeches he can use such familiar expressions as ὦ τᾶν, ὁ δεῖνα and such expletives as νὴ Δία, the frequent use of which would have seemed to Isocrates to belong to the vocabulary of Comedy. The epideictic style would also have shunned such vigorous touches as λαγὼ βίον ἔζης—‘you lived a hare’s life,’ or, to give the proper equivalent,’ a dog’s life.’[336] or the famous κακῶν Ἰλιάς—‘Twenty-four books of misery.’[337] Colloquial vigour is apparent in some metaphorical uses of single words, _e.g._ ἕωλα καὶ ψυχρά—‘stale and cold’ (applied to crimes),[338] προσηλῶσθαι—‘to be pinned down,’[339] or the succession of crude metaphors in the account of how Aristogiton, in prison, picked a quarrel with a newcomer; ‘he being newly caught and fresh, was getting the better of Aristogiton, who had got into the net some time ago and been long in pickle; so finding himself getting the worst of it, he ate off the man’s nose.’[340] There is bold personification of abstractions in ‘Peace, which has destroyed the walls of your allies and is now building houses for your ambassadors,’[341] and such phrases as τεθνᾶσι τῷ δέει τοὺς τοιούτους ἀποστόλους—‘they are frightened to death of so and so,’ are more vigorous than literary.[342]