VIII. DEMOSTHENES
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Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes and Cleobulê daughter of Gylon, was of the deme Paeania. He was left an orphan at the age of seven yearsHe was born in 384 b.c.; cf. Orations xxx. 15 and xxi. 154. by his father, along with his five-year-old sister, and lived during his minority with his mother. Some say that he went to school to Isocrates, but most authorities say that he went to Isaeus of Chalcis, who was a pupil of Isocrates living in Athens. He imitated Thucydides and also the philosopher Plato, whose instruction, some say, he followed with especial zeal. But Hegesias of Magnesia says that he asked his attendant to let him hear Callistratus of Aphidna, son of Empedus, a noted orator who had been a commander of cavalry and had set up the altar to Hermes-of-the-MarketThe bronze Hermes Agoraios was ἐν μέσῇ τῇ ἀγορᾷ (schol. Aristoph. Eq. 297; Cf. Paus. i. 15. 1) and παρὰ τὴν ποικίλην (Lucian, Iup. Trag. 33). and was about to address the popular assembly; and Demosthenes, when he had heard him speak, fell in love with oratory. Demosthenes heard him, it is true, for only a short time, as long as Callistratus remained in Athens; but when he had been banished to Thrace and Demosthenes had finished his service as ephebe, i.e. at the age of twenty. This service, designed to be a training for citizenship, lasted two years. he went over to Isocrates and Plato; then he took Isaeus into his house and for four years exerted himself to imitate his speeches. But Ctesibius says in his work On Philosophy that through Callias of Syracuse he obtained the speeches of Zethus of Amphipolis and through Charicles of Carystus those of Alcidamas and that he studied them thoroughly.
