ss, bade him take courage and persevere. Demosthenes now withdrew
awhile from public life, and devoted himself perseveringly to remedy
his defects. They were such as might be lessened, if not removed, by
practice, and consisted chiefly of a weak voice, imperfect
articulation, and ungraceful and inappropriate action. He derived much
assistance from Satyrus the actor, who exercised him in reciting
passages from Sophocles and Euripides. He studied the best rhetorical
treatises and orations, and is said to have copied the work of
Thucydides with his own hand no fewer than eight times. He shut
himself up for two or three months together in a subterranean chamber
in order to practise composition and declamation. His perseverance was
crowned with success; and he who on the first attempt had descended
from the bema amid the ridicule of the crowd, became at last the most
perfect orator the world has ever seen.

Demosthenes had established himself as a public speaker before the
period which we have now reached; but it is chiefly in connexion with
Philip that we are to view him as a statesman as well as an orator.
Philip had shown his ambition by the conquest of Thessaly, and by the
part he had taken in the Sacred War; and Demosthenes now began to
regard him as the enemy of the liberties of Athens and of Greece. In
his first "Philippic" Demosthenes tried to rouse his countrymen to
energetic measures against this formidable enemy; but his warnings and
exhortations produced little effect, for the Athenians were no longer
distinguished by the same spirit of enterprise which had characterized
them in the days of their supremacy. No important step was taken to
curb the growing power of Philip; and it was the danger of Olynthus
which first induced the Athenians to prosecute the war with a little
more energy. In 350 B.C., Philip having captured a town in Chalcidice,
Olynthus began to tremble for her own safety, and sent envoys to Athens
to crave assistance. Olynthus was still at the head of thirty-two
Greek towns, and the confederacy was a sort of counterpoise to the
power of Philip. It was on this occasion that Demosthenes delivered
his three Olynthaic orations, in which he warmly advocated an alliance
with Olynthus.

Demosthenes was opposed by a strong party, with which Phocion commonly
acted. Phocion is one of the most singular and original characters in
Grecian history. He viewed the multitude and their affairs with a
s