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When he attained his majority, because he received from his guardians less than was right, he brought them to trial for their administration, in the archonship of Timocrates.364-363 b.c. There were three of them: Aphobus, Therippides, and Demophon or Demeas, and he accused the last-named especially, since he was his mother’s brother.This is incorrect. The author seems to have confused Demophon and his father Demeas. Demosthenes accused Aphobus chiefly, and Aphobus was his cousin, not his uncle. Cf. Demosthenes, xxix. (Against Aphobus for False Witness) 59, also 6 and 20; xxviii. (Against Aphobus II.) 15; xxvii. (Against Aphobus I.) 4. He fixed the penalty in each suit at ten talents, and he obtained conviction of all three defendants; but he exacted no part of the penalty, for he let them off, some for money and some as an act of grace. When AristophonAristophon, a second-rate but influential politician, was especially active in the decade preceding the choregia of Demosthenes, but no connexion can be perceived between his retirement and Demosthenes’ choregia. He lived to be nearly 100 years old (ἤδη). at last on account of age resigned political leadership, Demosthenes was even made choregus.An indication of Demosthenes’ restored fortune. The choregus was a wealthy man who equipped the chorus for dramas and superintended its training. And wThen Meidias of the deme of Anagyros struck him as he was performing his duties in the theatre as choregus, he sued him for the act, but on receipt of three thousand drachmas he dropped the suit. They say that when he was still a young man he withdrew into a cave and studied there, shaving half of his head to keep himself from going out; also that he slept on a narrow bed in order to get up quickly, and that since he could not pronounce the sound of R he learned to do so by hard work, and since in declaiming for practice he made an awkward movement with his shoulder, he put an end to the habit by fastening a spit or, as some say, a dagger from the ceiling to make him through fear keep his shoulder motionless. They say, too, that as he progressed in his ability to speak he had a mirror made as large as himself and kept his eyes on it while practising, that he might correct his faults; and that he used to go down to the shore at Phalerum and address his remarks to the roar of the waves, that he might not be disconcerted if the people should ever make a disturbance; and that because he was short of breath he paid Neoptolemus the actor ten thousand drachmas to teach him to speak whole paragraphs without taking breath.
