Excerpt from The I., II., III. Philippics of Demosthenes: With Historical Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes
Few of the ancient authors present such strong claims to the attention of the American student as Demosthenes. Whether we regard the matter or the form of his discourses, or whether we contemplate his character as a patriotic citizen and statesman, we find throughout an excellence and an elevation, which the better we understand the more we arc compelled to admire. The period of his political career embraces one of the most interesting portions of ancient history, the last twenty years of the independence of the Greek republics and their subjugation by Philip of Mace-don; and his writings contain such a full and at the same time such a faithful delineation of the manners, institutions, laws, and political events of the time, as almost to make him the historian of his age. He would merit this title, however, not so much by the narration of facts in chronological order, as by his masterly manner of appreciating and grouping them together, so as rarely to admit a doubt of the truth and justness of his conclusions. His orations abound in valuable notices of the character and policy of all the members of that celebrated confederacy, their antagonisms and affinities, their feuds, jealousies, and coalitions; but they offer a rich mine of information concerning Athens, that venerated mother of the liberal arts, whose hegemony in all that relates to high intellectual culture still remains undisputed.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The I., II., III. Philippics of Demosthenes (M. J. Smead)