The Public Orations of Demosthenes, vol 1

The Public Orations of
Demosthenes, vol 1

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Title: The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1
Author: Demosthenes
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9060] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 2,
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
PUBLIC ORATIONS OF ***

Anne Soulard, Jon Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.

THE PUBLIC ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES IN TWO
VOLUMES VOL I
TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR WALLACE PICKARD

PREFACE
The translations included in this volume were written at various times
during the last ten years for use in connexion with College Lectures,
and a long holiday, for which I have to thank the Trustees of the Balliol
College Endowment Fund, as well as the Master and Fellows of Balliol
College, has enabled me to revise them and to furnish them with brief
introductions and notes. Only those speeches are included which are
generally admitted to be the work of Demosthenes, and the spurious
documents contained in the MSS. of the Speech on the Crown are
omitted. The speeches are arranged in chronological order, and the
several introductions to them are intended to supply an outline of the
history of the period, sufficient to provide a proper setting for the
speeches, but not more detailed than was necessary for this purpose. No
discussion of conflicting evidence has been introduced, and the views
which are expressed on the character and work of Demosthenes must
necessarily seem somewhat dogmatic, when given without the reasons
for them. I hope, however, before long to treat the life of Demosthenes
more fully in another form. The estimate here given of his character as
a politician falls midway between the extreme views of Grote and
Schäfer on the one hand, and Beloch and Holm on the other.

I have tried to render the speeches into such English as a political orator
of the present day might use, without attempting to impart to them any
antique colouring, such as the best-known English translations either
had from the first or have acquired by lapse of time. It is of the essence
of political oratory that it is addressed to contemporaries, and the
translation of it should therefore be into contemporary English; though
the necessity of retaining some of the modes of expression which are
peculiar to Greek oratory and political life makes it impossible to
produce completely the appearance of an English orator's work. The
qualities of Demosthenes' eloquence sometimes suggest rather the
oratory of the pulpit than that of the hustings or that of Parliament and
of the law-courts. I cannot hope to have wholly succeeded in my task;
but it seemed to be worth undertaking, and I hope that the work will not
prove to have been altogether useless.
I have made very little use of other translations; but I must
acknowledge a debt to Lord Brougham's version of the Speeches on the
Chersonese and on the Crown, which, though often defective from the
point of view of scholarship and based on faulty texts, are (together
with his notes) very inspiring. I have also, at one time or another,
consulted most of the standard German, French, and English editions of
Demosthenes. I cannot now distinguish how much I owe to each; but I
am conscious of a special debt to the editions of the late Professor
Henri Weil, and of Sir J.E. Sandys, and (in the Speech on the Crown) to
that of Professor W.W. Goodwin. I also owe a few phrases in the
earliest speeches to Professor W.R. Hardie, whose lectures on
Demosthenes I attended twenty years ago. My special thanks are due to
my friend Mr. P.E. Matheson of New College, for his kindness in
reading the proof-sheets, and making a number of suggestions, which
have