“There are times when you yourself make up new and different words and decide to call one interpreter “fine-spoken”, another smart man “wise-brained”, or some dancer “hands-wise”.
Let shamelessness be the one medicine you use if you offer a solecism or barbarism: immediately offer up the name of someone who doesn’t exist and never did—some poet or scholar—a wise man who was expertly precise in his language and condoned speaking in this way.
But don’t read the classics at all, especially not the silly Isocrates, or the Demosthenes blessed with little skill, or the boring Plato. No! read only those speeches from those a little bit before our time and those things they call ‘practice-pieces” so you may have a supply of phrases you can use at the right time as if you were pulling something from a pantry.”
In the following speech check out the extreme distance between the μὲν clause and the δὲ clause. Also note Aeschines’ assertions about the rules for speaking in court (descending from oldest to youngest) traced back to Solon.
Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 1-5
“Athenian men: you see the preparations and plans, how many there are, and the public pleading which certain men have used against what is measured and customary in the state. But I have come here because I have faith first in the gods and then in the laws and you—since I believe that no type of preparation is stronger among you than the laws and justice.
I [μὲν οὖν] would therefore wish, Athenian men, that the Council of Five Hundred and the Assembly would be governed rightly by those who led them and that the laws which Solon established about the proper order for public speakers would prevail: that it would be possible for the oldest citizen—as the laws prescribe—to speak prudently what he thinks is best for the city based on his experience on the platform without racket and trouble and then the rest of the citizens, as each desired, would provide their opinion about each matter in turn separated by age. In this way, the city would seem to me to be governed best, and the fewest cases would develop.
But [Ἐπειδὴ δὲ] since now all the standards which were previously agreed as acceptable have been rejected and certain men make illegal proclamations easily while others vote for them—and these are not men who were chosen by lot in the most just fashion to preside, but they sit in judgment by collusion and if any other councilor should actually obtain the right to be seated by lot and proclaims your votes correctly, then men who no longer believe that citizenship is a public good but think it is a private right threaten to accuse him; men who would take them as private slaves and make governments for themselves; these men who cast down the judgments of precedent and mete out their decisions based on the votes of anger—now the wisest and finest command of those in the city is silent: “Who of those men who are already fifty years old wishes to address the people?” and then in turn the rest of the Athenians. Now neither the laws nor the prytanes nor the selected officials nor even the selected tribe which is one tenth of the city is able to manage the disorder of the politicians.
“There are times when you yourself make up new and different words and decide to call one interpreter “fine-spoken”, another smart man “wise-brained”, or some dancer “hands-wise”. Let shamelessness be the one medicine you use if you offer a solecism or barbarism: immediately offer up the name of someone who doesn’t exist and never did—some poet or scholar—a wise man who was expertly precise in his language and condoned speaking in this way. But don’t read the classics at all, especially not the silly Isocrates, or the Demosthenes blessed with little skill, or the boring Plato. No! read only those speeches from those a little bit before our time and those things they call ‘practice-pieces” so you may have a supply of phrases you can use at the right time as if you were pulling something from a pantry.”
“There are times when you yourself make up new and different words and decide to call one interpreter “fine-spoken”, another smart man “wise-brained”, or some dancer “hands-wise”. Let shamelessness be the one medicine you use if you offer a solecism or barbarism: immediately offer up the name of someone who doesn’t exist and never did—some poet or scholar—a wise man who was expertly precise in his language and condoned speaking in this way. But don’t read the classics at all, especially not the silly Isocrates, or the Demosthenes blessed with little skill, or the boring Plato. No! read only those speeches from those a little bit before our time and those things they call ‘practice-pieces” so you may have a supply of phrases you can use at the right time as if you were pulling something from a pantry.”
In the following speech check out the extreme distance between the μὲν clause and the δὲ clause. Also note Aeschines’ assertions about the rules for speaking in court (descending from oldest to youngest) traced back to Solon.
Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 1-5
“Athenian men: you see the preparations and plans, how many there are, and the public pleading which certain men have used against what is measured and customary in the state. But I have come here because I have faith first in the gods and then in the laws and you—since I believe that no type of preparation is stronger among you than the laws and justice.
I [μὲν οὖν] would therefore wish, Athenian men, that the Council of Five Hundred and the Assembly would be governed rightly by those who led them and that the laws which Solon established about the proper order for public speakers would prevail: that it would be possible for the oldest citizen—as the laws prescribe—to speak prudently what he thinks is best for the city based on his experience on the platform without racket and trouble and then the rest of the citizens, as each desired, would provide their opinion about each matter in turn separated by age. In this way, the city would seem to me to be governed best, and the fewest cases would develop.
But [Ἐπειδὴ δὲ] since now all the standards which were previously agreed as acceptable have been rejected and certain men make illegal proclamations easily while others vote for them—and these are not men who were chosen by lot in the most just fashion to preside, but they sit in judgment by collusion and if any other councilor should actually obtain the right to be seated by lot and proclaims your votes correctly, then men who no longer believe that citizenship is a public good but think it is a private right threaten to accuse him; men who would take them as private slaves and make governments for themselves; these men who cast down the judgments of precedent and mete out their decisions based on the votes of anger—now the wisest and finest command of those in the city is silent: “Who of those men who are already fifty years old wishes to address the people?” and then in turn the rest of the Athenians. Now neither the laws nor the prytanes nor the selected officials nor even the selected tribe which is one tenth of the city is able to manage the disorder of the politicians.
“Kosmos for a city is a good-population; for a body it is beauty; for a soul, wisdom. For a deed, excellence; and for a word, truth. The opposition of these things would be akosmia. It is right, on the one hand, to honor a man and a woman and a deed and a city and a deed worthy of praise with praise and to lay reproach on the unworthy. For it is equally mistaken and ignorant to rebuke the praiseworthy and praise things worthy of rebuke.
It is thus necessary for the same man to speak truly and refute those who reproach Helen, a woman about whom the belief from what the poets say and the fame of her name are univocal and single-minded, that memory of sufferings. I want, by giving some reckoning in speech, to relieve her of being badly spoken, and, once I demonstrate and show that those who reproach her are liars, to protect the truth from ignorance”
Although the following Erotic Essay is included in the corpus of Demosthenes’ orations, it is considered spurious. It pretends to be a love speech for a young man named Epicrates, but turns out to be about how to be (and how to make) a good person. That part comes later; the awkward praise part comes first.
This speech is likely epideictic, which means it was written as a sort of rhetorical practice on praise, still performed in certain contexts. Perseus has the full speech: The topic and treatment is similar to epideictic speeches like Isocrates’ Euagoras or the speech presented by Lysias in Plato’s Phaedrus (or the practice of presenting speeches on love depicted in Plato’s Symposium). Most scholars accept that this was not written by Demosthenes for reasons of style (it is not like his other speeches) and content (Demosthenes was really, really busy writing political speeches).
A Lover’s Face?
Demosthenes, Erotic Essay 10-16
“I will begin to praise first what people see first—the way everyone recognizes you, your beauty, the complexion by which your limbs and your whole body shines. When I search for something to compare it to, I see nothing. But it remains my right to ask those who read this speech to look at you and witness this so that I may be forgiven for providing no comparison.
What similarity could someone offer when something mortal fills its witnesses with immortal desire, whose seeing never tires, and when absent stays remembered? How, when this has a nature in human form yet worthy of the gods, so like a flower in its good form, beyond even a whiff of fault? Truly, it is not possible to seek out even those things in your appearance which have marred many others who had their share of beauty. For either they have disturbed their natural form through some tremor of character or because of some bad luck they have undermined their natural beauty to the same end.
No, we couldn’t find your beauty touched by anything like this. Whoever of the gods planned out your appearance guarded so earnestly against every type of chance that you have no feature worthy of critique—he made you entirely exceptional. Moreover, since the face is the most conspicuous of all the parts that are seen, and on that face, the eyes stand out in turn, here the divine showed it had even more good will toward you.
For not only did he provide you with eyes sufficient for seeing—and even though it is not possible to recognize virtue when some men act–he showed the noblest character by signaling through your eyes, making your glance soft and kind to those who see it, dignified and solemn to those you spend time which, and brave and wise to all.
Someone might wonder at this next thing especially. Although other men are taken as harsh because of their docility, or brash because of their solemnity, or arrogant because of their bravery, or they seem rather dull because they are quiet, chance has gathered these opposite qualities together and granted them all in agreement in you, just as if answering a prayer or deciding to make an example for others, but not crafting just a mortal, as she usually does.
If, then, it were possible to approach your beauty in speech or if these were the only of your traits worthy of praise, we would think it right to pass over no part of your advantages. But I fear that we might not trust our audience to hear the rest and that we may wear ourselves out about this in vain. How could one exaggerate your appearance when not even works made by the best artists could match them? And it is not wondrous—for artworks have an immovable appearance, so that it is unclear how would they appear if they had a soul. But your character increases the great beauty of your body with everything you do. I can praise your beauty this much, passing over many things.”
