The Historians' History of the World 04

For centuries the great model of all rhetoricians was Demosthenes. His inimitable greatness is most plainly manifest in their imitations, even though they be those of Cicero. He, too, is intelligible only in connection with his age and his city, the only time and place which could have brought him forth as their natural fruit. The statesmen of the great epoch of Athens had wrought with the living word, prisoned in no written document—thus, Pericles. Gradually the political pamphlet began to make its way, choosing amongst other forms that of the δημηγορία, or parliamentary speech. The leading statesmen, indeed, wrote very seldom; but the literati, whom they made their mouthpiece, in time became a power in the formation of public opinion. Pre-eminent among these was Isocrates; he too made use of the form of the δημηγορία amongst others, his studied arts of speech giving it a character which must have formed a singular contrast to the words dictated by the passion of the moment in the Pnyx. It was a result of existing conditions that the speech in the law courts was sometimes suited to produce its effect as a pamphlet pretty much in the form in which it had been delivered. The popularity of rhetoric also preserved many speeches in the courts which had no particular tendency, and thus, curiously enough, special pleading made its way into literature. But Demosthenes was the first to rise to the position of a leading statesman by the publication of orations to the people or to the courts which he had either actually made or else had reduced to this form. Simultaneously his works took their place among the most distinguished classics of his nation. His only education had been that of an advocate, which included, it must be admitted, all the arts of speech; nothing that may even remotely be called science ever touched him. In our moral judgment of him we should apply no standard but that which he recognised; he took the license which had been taken by patriotic Athenian statesmen even in the days of Themistocles. Possibly this did not tally with the Platonic standard, but then, neither did the state of Athens. The charm of Demosthenes lies in his faith in the democratic imperialistic ideals of the Athens of Pericles. That these had long been past hope, was the key to his fate; he himself was ruined by the fact. That by the power of the spoken word and the faith that alone makes the word powerful, he almost succeeded in inspiring his worn-out and selfish nation with his own patriotism, and, that in spite of everything, Athens once again entered the arena to champion liberty against Philip with the lives of her citizens—therein lies his greatness. The tragic side of this greatness heightens its fascination for one who sees through the illusions of Demosthenes and perceives the better right, historically speaking, on the side of Philip; but the fire of the passion of Demosthenes will carry even such a one away. This is not the charm to which the rhetoricians were susceptible. What held them spell-bound is what at first alienates our sympathies. Hellenic art restrained all wildness and passion, reducing it to the smoothest, most harmonious form. Demosthenes did not speak like this, of that we are sure. As a writer he practises the art of conventionalisation with the soundest judgment and the most cautious intelligence—we discover that this speaker can do whatever he pleases, his power knows no bounds; but he himself defines the narrow limits consistent with the growth of harmonious beauty; beauty, if you will, of the style in which contemporary art adorned its mausoleums; for in the case of Scopas and Leochares, too, vast pathos slumbers beneath the sweep of the beautiful line.