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Demosthenes (/ d ɪ ˈ m ɒ s. θ ə n iː z /; Greek: Δημοσθένης, romanized: Dēmosthénēs; Attic Greek: [dɛːmostʰénɛːs]; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens.
- 384 BC, Athens
- Overview
- Heritage and youth
- Demosthenes as speech writer
- Leader of the democratic faction
- Imprisonment and exile
- Influence and reputation
Demosthenes, (born 384 bce, Athens [Greece]—died Oct. 12, 322, Calauria, Argolis), Athenian statesman, recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators, who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great. His speeches provide valuable information on the political, social, and economic life of 4th-century Athens...
Demosthenes, a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, was the son of a wealthy sword maker. His father died when he was seven, leaving a large inheritance, but the boy’s unscrupulous guardians took advantage of their position, and when he came of age Demosthenes received very little of his estate. His strong desire to sue his guardian, Aphobus, in the courts, coupled with a delicate physique that prevented him from receiving the customary Greek gymnastic education, led him to train himself as an orator. He also studied legal rhetoric. In his Parallel Lives Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer, relates that Demosthenes built an underground study where he exercised his voice, shaving one half of his head so that he could not go out in public. Plutarch adds that Demosthenes had a speech defect, “an inarticulate and stammering pronunciation” that he overcame by speaking with pebbles in his mouth and by reciting verses when running or out of breath. He also practiced speaking before a large mirror.
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Despite this self-improvement program, his first youthful speaking efforts in the public Assembly met with disaster; he was laughed at by his audiences. His lawsuits against Aphobus and two other guardians in 363 were more successful; they produced little money, but he learned much about speaking strategy and methods of argument. Three of his speeches against Aphobus and two against the sculptor Antenor have survived.
At the age of 20 the young Demosthenes found himself without his fortune, without a trade or profession, and with seemingly little prospect for success in any field. But his rhetorical skill had been noticed. In 4th-century democratic Athens every citizen who wished to prosecute a lawsuit or to defend himself against accusation had to do the speaking himself. Not every citizen, of course, possessed sufficient skill to write his own speeches—a fact that gave rise to the practice of employing a speech writer (logographer) to prepare a speech for such occasions. Demosthenes’ skill in his speeches against Aphobus was recognized by wealthier men in need of a logographer; he soon acquired wealthy and powerful clients willing to pay well for his services. Thus began a lifelong career that he continued even during his most intense involvement in the political struggle against Philip of Macedon, much as a modern lawyer might retain a private practice while engaged in public affairs.
Demosthenes was already 30 when, in 354, he made his first major speech before the Assembly. The speech, “On the Navy Boards,” was a marked success. The Assembly or Ecclesia (Ekklēsia), a legislative body composed of all adult male Athenian citizens, had convened to consider a rumoured threat against Athens by the King of Persia. Demosthenes’ tightly reasoned oration helped persuade the Athenians to build up their naval strength quietly to show the Persians that, though Athens would not launch an attack, it was ready to fight. He pointed out that, while Athens would have no allies if it attacked first, every other Greek city-state would join Athens if the Persians were the first to attack. Here, for the first time, Demosthenes sounded a theme that was to run through his whole public career—the policy that Athens could best keep its democratic freedom by remaining independent of all other cities while, on the other hand, being ready to make temporary alliances whenever danger threatened. In the same speech, revealing his penchant for careful fiscal planning, he proposed an elaborate revision of the method used to tax the wealthy to raise money for ships.
From this point on (354), Demosthenes’ career is virtually the history of Athenian foreign policy. It was not very long before his oratorical skill made him, in effect, the leader of what today might be called the democratic party. Some interests, especially the wealthy, would have preferred an oligarchy instead of a democracy; many merchants would have preferred peace at almost any price. While they agreed that the Macedonians were barbarians, most Athenian citizens distrusted other Greek city-states such as Thebes and Sparta. The Athenian Assembly was a loosely organized, often tumultuous body of up to 6,000 male citizens; it was capable of shouting down a speaker it did not like or of routing him with laughter. Any citizen could speak, but the criteria were so high that only the best orators survived for long. In this turbulent arena Demosthenes stood out. Contemporaries refer to him as “a water drinker”; that is, a severe and perhaps forbidding personality. Although name-calling was common practice in the Assembly, Demosthenes’ wit was exceptionally caustic; when defending himself in his speech “On the Crown” against the attacks of his lifelong rival, Aeschines, he did not scruple to call him “sly beast,” “idle babbler,” “court hack,” and “polluted.” Demosthenes was not merely better at abuse than most; he also realized the advantage of making an audience lose respect for his opponent.
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He was an assiduous student of Greek history, using detailed historical parallels in almost all his public speeches, and reportedly copied out Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War eight times in order to improve his command of language and to absorb its history. He constantly asked the Athenians to recall their own history, to remember their past belief in democracy, and to remind themselves how much they hated tyrants. His love of democracy gives his speeches a humanistic breadth that makes them interesting even today. Demosthenes was also extremely industrious. Plutarch says that it was his habit to sit down at night and go over the conversations and speeches he had heard during the day, experimenting with various replies or speeches that could have been made. He excelled whenever he could prepare his speeches carefully in advance, but the nature of Athenian political life must often have forced him to reply to an opponent on the spur of the moment. Unfortunately, because all of the surviving speeches are carefully edited texts, it cannot be established how often Demosthenes spoke extemporaneously.
His famous speech in 354 “On the Navy Boards” was addressed to the threat from the East. Meanwhile, in Macedonia, to the north, the young king Philip, almost the same age as Demosthenes, was gradually annexing Greek cities south of his borders. In 356 Philip had captured an Athenian possession in Thrace, after hoodwinking the Athenians with promises to protect the city, and in 354 he took another Athenian possession. By 353 both Sparta and Arcadia were asking Athens for military assistance against Philip. When he continued to move south, employing bribery and threat as well as military force, the Athenians sent a small force to close off the pass at Thermopylae. Although Philip turned aside to the coast of Thrace, avoiding a direct confrontation with Athens, his intentions were clear. Yet many Athenians continued to believe that Philip’s threat was transitory.
The Philippics. Early in 351 Demosthenes delivered a speech against Philip, the so-called “First Philippic,” that established him as the leader of the opposition to Macedonian imperial ambitions. For the next 29 years Demosthenes never wavered; as Plutarch says, “The object which he chose for himself in the commonwealth was noble and just, the defense of the Grecians against Philip.” In the “First Philippic” he reminded the Athenians that they had once defeated the Spartans, who were as strong as Philip, and sarcastically pointed out that Philip would never have conquered their territories if he had been as timid as the Athenians seemed to be. He concluded by challenging his countrymen to take their affairs in their own hands rather than let Philip win by default.
Six years later, however, he was convicted of a grave crime and forced to flee from prison and himself go into exile. He was accused of taking 20 talents deposited in Athens by Harpalus, a refugee from Alexander. Demosthenes was found guilty, fined 50 talents, and imprisoned. The circumstances of the case are still unclear. Demosthenes may well have intended to use the money for civic purposes, and it is perhaps significant that the court fined him only two and one-half times the amount involved instead of the 10 times usually levied in such cases. His escape from prison made it impossible for him to return to Athens to raise money for the fine. The onetime leader of the Athenians was now a refugee from his own people.
Another dramatic reversal occurred the very next year, however, when Alexander died. The power of the Macedonians seemed finally broken; a new alliance was concluded against them. The Athenians recalled Demosthenes from exile and provided money to pay his fine. But at the approach of Antipater, Alexander’s successor, Demosthenes and other orators again fled the city. His former friend Demades then persuaded the Athenians to sentence Demosthenes to death. While fleeing Antipater’s soldiers, he killed himself by taking poison. Following his long service to the state, which nonetheless ended in abandonment by the fickle Athenian citizenry, Demosthenes’ death can be viewed as a symbol of the decline of Athenian democracy.
For almost 30 years Demosthenes rallied the citizens of Athens to oppose the military power of Philip of Macedon and Philip’s son Alexander the Great. Demosthenes’ speech “On the Crown,” the defense of his career delivered in 330, has been termed “the greatest speech of the greatest orator in the world.” In the century following his death, the scho...
- James J. Murphy
Mar 14, 2016 · Demosthenes (c. 384 - 322 BCE) was an Athenian statesman who famously stood against Macedonian king Philip II and whose surviving speeches have established him as one of the greatest patriots and powerful orators from ancient Greece. He is not to be confused with the 5th century BCE Athenian general of the same name.
- Mark Cartwright
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Feb 27, 2024 · Demosthenes (died 413 bc) was an Athenian general who proved to be an imaginative strategist during the Peloponnesian War (Athens versus Sparta, 431–404). In 426 he unsuccessfully besieged the Corinthian colony of Leukas and was severely defeated in an attempted invasion of Aetolia.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
May 23, 2018 · Learn about Demosthenes, the greatest of Greek orators and a prominent opponent of Macedon. Explore his early career, his famous speeches, his trials, and his death.
Sep 20, 2021 · Learn about the life and achievements of Demosthenes, the famed Athenian orator who eloquently opposed Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. Discover how he overcame his speech defect, studied legal and political rhetoric, and became a famous logographer and public speaker.
Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.E., Greek: Δημοσθένης (Dēmosthénēs)) was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens.
