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And when he entered upon political life, finding that the public men of the city were divided into two parties, one favouring Philip and the other addressing the populace in defence of liberty, he enrolled himself among those opposed to Philip and always constantly advised the people to support the cause of those peoples which were in danger of being subjected by Philip, in which policy he was associated with Hypereides, Nausicles, Polyeuctus, and Diotimus; and thus he also brought the Thebans, Euboeans, Corcyraeans, Corinthians, Boeotians, and many others into alliance with the Athenians. Once he was hissed out of the assembly and was walking home feeling discouraged; but Eunomus of the deme Thria, who was already an old man, happened to meet him and encouraged him, and more than anyone else the actor Andronicus,A tragic actor of the first part of the fourth century b.c. See O’Connor, Chapters in the History of Actors and Acting in Ancient Greece, p. 78. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, chap. vii. assigns to Satyrus about the same relation to the orator’s training as is here assigned to Andronicus. by telling him that his words were excellent but that his delivery was deficient, and then Andronicus declaimed from memory the speech which Demosthenes had delivered in the assembly; whereupon Demosthenes was convinced and put himself in the hands of Andronicus. Therefore when someone asked him what was the first thing in oratory, he replied Delivery, and what the second, Delivery, and the third, Delivery. On the meaning, broader than that of our delivery, in Greek rhetoric see Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii., ad init. And when he spoke again in the assemblies he was hissed for some new-fangled expressions, so that Antiphanes and Timocles made fun of him in their comedies, By earth, by founts, by rivers, and by floods,Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 128, no. 296. For Demosthenes’ metrical oath here parodied see Life of Demosthenes, chap. vii. for it was by swearing in this way that he had caused an uproar in the assembly. He used also to swear by Asclepius, putting the accent on the third syllable from the end, though it is properly on the final syllable; and he offered, a proof that he was right, for he said that the god was mild (epios). For this also he often provoked a clamour from the audience. But by going to school to Eubulides the Milesian philosopher he corrected all his faults. Once when he was at the Olympic festival and heard Lamachus of Tereina reading a eulogy of Philip and Alexander fand decrying the Thebans and Olynthians, he stood up and quoted the words of the ancient poets testifying to the glorious deeds of the Thebans and Olynthians, with the result that Lamachus was silenced and fled from the festival. And Philip said to those who reported to him the public speeches of Demosthenes against him, I myself, if I had heard Demosthenes speak, would have elected the man general to carry on the war against me. And Philip used to say that Demosthenes’ speeches were like soldiers because of their warlike power, but those of Isocrates were like athletes, because they afforded pleasure like that of a show.
