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But when Antipater was blocked up in Lamia, and the Athenians offered sacrifices for the happy news, he happened, being talking with Agesistratus, one of his intimate friends, to say, that his judgment concerning the state of affairs did not jump with other men’s, for that he knew the Greeks were brisk and ready enough to run a short course but not to hold on a long race. When Antipater had taken Pharsalus, and threatened to besiege Athens itself if they refused to deliver up such orators as had declaimed against him, Demosthenes, suspecting himself to be one of the number, left the city, and fled first into Aegina, that he might take sanctuary in the temple of Aeacus; but being afraid to trust himself long there, he went over to Calauria; and when the Athenians had decreed to deliver up those orators, and him especially as one of them, he continued a suppliant in the temple of Neptune. When Archias came thither,—who, from his office of pursuing fugitives, was called Phygadotheres and was the scholar of Anaximines the orator,—when he, I say, came to him, and persuaded him to go with him, telling him that no doubt he should be received by Antipater as a friend, he replied: When you played a part in a tragedy, you could not persuade me to believe you the person you represented; no more shall you now persuade me by your counsel. And when Archias endeavored to force him thence, the townsmen would not suffer it. And Demosthenes told them, that he did not flee to Calauria to save his life, but that he might convince the Macedonians of their violence committed even against the Gods themselves. And with that he called for a writing-table; and if we may credit Demetrius the Magnesian, on that he wrote a distich, which afterwards the Athenians caused to be affixed to his statue; and it was to this purpose: Hadst thou, Demosthenes, an outward force Great as thy inward magnanimity, Greece should not wear the Macedonian yoke. This statue, made by Polyeuctus, is placed near the cloister where the altar of the twelve Gods is erected. Some say this writing was found: Demosthenes to Antipater, Greeting. Philochorus tells us that he died by drinking of poison; and Satyrus the historiographer will have it, that the pen was poisoned with which he wrote his epistle, and putting it into his mouth, soon after he tasted it he died. Eratosthenes is of another opinion, that being in continual fear of the Macedonians, he wore a poisoned bracelet on his arms. Others say again, that he died with holding his breath; and others, lastly, say that he carried strong poison in his signet. He lived to the age of seventy, according to those who give the highest number,—of sixty-seven, according to other statements. And he was in public life two and twenty years.
