‘When in the course of time you were relieved of these duties, having yourself committed all the offences of which you accuse others, I vow that your subsequent life did not fall short of your earlier promise. You engaged yourself to the players Simylus and Socrates, the “Bellowers,” as they were called, to play minor parts, and gathered a harvest of figs, grapes, and olives, like a fruiterer getting his stock from other people’s orchards; and you made more from this source than from your plays, which you played in dead earnest at the risk of your lives; for there was a truceless and merciless war between you and the spectators, from whom you received so many wounds that you naturally mock at the cowardice of those who have never had that great experience.’[370] He is generally described as deficient in wit, and he seems in this point to have been inferior to Aeschines, though on one or two occasions he could make a neat repartee.[371] As Dionysius says: ‘Not on all men is every gift bestowed.’[372] If, as his critic affirms,[373] he was in danger of turning the laugh against himself, he had serious gifts which more than compensated this deficiency. It must not be supposed that he was entirely free from sophistry. Like many good orators in good or bad causes he laboured from time to time to make a weak case appear strong, and in this effort was often absolutely disingenuous. The whole of the _de Corona_ is an attempt to throw the judges off the scent by leading them on to false trails. It may be urged in his defence that on this occasion he had justice really on his side, but finding that Aeschines on legal ground was occupying an impregnable position, he practically threw over the discussion of legality and turned the course of the trial towards different issues altogether. In this case, admittedly, the technical points were merely an excuse for the bringing of the case, and were probably of little importance to the court. The trial was really concerned with the political principles and actions of the two great opponents, while Ctesiphon was only a catspaw. But a study of other speeches results in the discovery of many minor points in which, accurately gauging the intelligence of his audience, he has intentionally misled them. Thus, his own knowledge of history was profound; but experience has proved that the knowledge possessed by any audience of the history of its own generation is likely to be sketchy and inaccurate. Events have not settled down into their proper perspective; we must rely either on our own memories, which may be distorted by prejudice, or on the statements of historians who stand too near in time to be able to get a fair view. This gives the politician his opportunity of so grouping or misrepresenting facts as to give a wrong impression. Instances of such bad faith on the part of Demosthenes are probably numerous, even if unimportant.