_She was but a girl; and shall Demosthenes choose an unseemly life before a seemly death, and forget what Xenocrates and Plato have said of immortality?_ And then he was stirred to some bitter speech upon men puffed up by fortune. What remains to tell? At last, as I now besought and now threatened, mingling the stern and mild, 'Had I been Archias,' he said, 'I had yielded; but seeing that I am Demosthenes, your pardon, good sir, if my nature recoils from baseness.' Then I was minded to hale him off by force. Which when he observed, I saw him smile and glance at the God. _Archias_ (he said) _believes that there is no might, no refuge for the human soul, but arms and war-ships, walls and camps. He scorns that equipment of mine which is proof against Illyrians and Triballi and Macedonians, surer than that wooden wall_[23] _of old, which the God averred none should prevail against. Secure in this I ever took a fearless course; fearless I braved the might of Macedonia; little I cared for Euctemon or Aristogiton, for Pytheas and Callimedon, for Philip in the old days, for Archias to-day._ And then, _Lay no hand upon me. Be it not mine to bring outrage upon the temple; I will but greet the God, and follow of my free will._ And for me, I put reliance upon this, and when he lifted his hand to his mouth, I thought it was but to do obeisance. _Ant._ And it was indeed--? _Ar._ We put his servant to the question later, and learned from her that he had long had poison by him, to give him liberty by parting soul from body. He had not yet passed the holy threshold, when he fixed his eye on me and said: 'Take _this_ to Antipater; Demosthenes you shall not take, no, by ----' And methought he would have added, by the men that fell at Marathon. And with that farewell he parted. So ends, O King, the siege of Demosthenes. _Ant._ Archias, that was Demosthenes. Hail to that unconquerable soul! how lofty the spirit, how republican the care, that would never be parted from their warrant of freedom! Enough; the man has gone his way, to live the life they tell of in the Isles of the heroic Blest, or to walk the paths that, if tales be true, the heaven-bound spirits tread; he shall attend, surely, on none but that Zeus who is named of Freedom. For his body, we will send it to Athens, a nobler offering to that land than the men that died at Marathon. H. FOOTNOTES: [18] Homer, _Il._ xii. 243. 'One omen is best--to fight for our own country.' [19] See _Demosthenes_ in Notes. [20] Speeches in the law courts had a time limit appointed, which was measured by the water-clock or clepsydra, generally called simply 'the water', 'my water,' 'his water,' &c. [21] To get a meaning, I translate as though the Greek, instead of #ou Boiôtias oud' entha ti mê# were #ho men Boiôtias, ho d' entha#. [22] Euripides, _Hecuba_. See _Polyxena_ in Notes.