Alexander, were swaying popular
feeling, to deliver a bitter harangue against the whole life and policy
of his political opponent. Demosthenes answered in that magnificent
oration called by the Latin writers 'De Corona' Aeschines was not upheld
by the people's vote. He retired to Asia, and, it is said, opened a
school of rhetoric at Rhodes. There is a legend that after he had one
day delivered in his school the masterpiece of his enemy, his students
broke into applause: "What," he exclaimed, "if you had heard the wild
beast thunder it out himself!"

Aeschines was what we call nowadays a self-made man. The great faults of
his life, his philippizing policy and his confessed corruption, arose,
doubtless, from the results of youthful poverty: a covetousness growing
out of want, and a lack of principles of conduct which a broader
education would have instilled. As an orator he was second only to
Demosthenes; and while he may at times be compared to his rival in
intellectual force and persuasiveness, his moral defects--which it must
be remembered that he himself acknowledged--make a comparison of
character impossible.

His chief works remaining to us are the speeches 'Against Timarchus,'
'On the Embassy,' 'Against Ctesiphon,' and letters, which are included
in the edition of G.E. Benseler (1855-60). In his 'History of Greece,'
Grote discusses at length--of course adversely--the influence of
Aeschines; especially controverting Mitford's favorable view and his
denunciation of Demosthenes and the patriotic party. The trend of recent
writing is toward Mitford's estimate of Philip's policy, and therefore
less blame for the Greek statesmen who supported it, though without
Mitford's virulence toward its opponents. Mahaffy ('Greek Life and
Thought') holds the whole contest over the crown to be mere academic
threshing of old straw, the fundamental issues being obsolete by the
rise of a new world under Alexander.

A DEFENSE AND AN ATTACK

From the 'Oration against Ctesiphon'

In regard to the calumnies with which I am attacked, I wish to say a
word or two before Demosthenes speaks. He will allege, I am told, that
the State has received distinguished services from him, while from me it
has suffered injury on many occasions; and that the deeds of Philip and
Alexander, and the crimes to which they gave rise, are to be imputed to
me. Demosthenes is so clever in the art of speaking that he does not
bring accusation against me, again