recovered from the _papyri_ of Egypt. § 3 It would seem that constitutional liberty and a strong civic feeling are indispensable as a basis for the growth of oratory. Such a statement must be made with caution, as it leaves out of account a thousand influences which may have been operative; but we have no records of oratory at Athens before the establishment of the democracy, and after the limitation of Athenian influence due to the spread of Hellenism under Alexander, oratory very rapidly declined. The imagination of Herodotus gives us, in the debates of the Persian court, some idea of what he conceived the oratory of an earlier age to be; but as he transferred the ideas of his own country to another, without any serious attempt at realism, such speeches are of little value to us. Thucydides again inserted speeches freely into his history, but these, he candidly admits, are not authentic records but imaginary reconstructions. Nevertheless, it is chiefly on Thucydides that we must draw for information about the eloquence of the early statesmen of the democracy. * * * * * Themistocles has left behind him some reputation as a speaker. Herodotus indicates how he harangued the Greeks before the battle of Salamis;[3] Thucydides commends him for ability in explaining his policy,[4] and the author of the pseudo-Lysian _Epitaphios_ names him as ‘equally capable in speech, decision, and action.’[5] Beyond these meagre notices, and a reference to his eloquence in Cicero,[6] we have nothing earlier than Plutarch,[7] who tells us that from early youth he took an interest in the practice of speech-making, and that he studied under a Sophist, Mnesiphilus, who apparently taught him something of the science of statesmanship. Plutarch records his answer to Eurybiadas, who had taunted him in the council of allies with being a man without a city—since Athens was evacuated—and therefore not entitled to the right of speech: ‘We, villain, have left our houses and our walls, disdaining to be slaves for the sake of these lifeless things; but still we have a city—the greatest of Greek cities—in our fleet of 200 triremes, which now are ready to help you if you care to be saved by their aid; but if you go away and betray us a second time, the Greek world shall forthwith learn that the Athenians possess a free city and a country no worse than the one they have lost.’[8] Another fragment is preserved by Plutarch, an address to Xerxes in quite a different vein, containing an elaborate metaphor which may have been thought suited to the Oriental mind: ‘The speech of man is like to a piece of cunning embroidery, for both when unrolled display their patterns, but when folded up conceal them.’[9]