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his style was really made up in the way vulgarly supposed to be Demosthenes'—the eclectic method of bringing together the features of all the previous orators. He specially imitated Demosthenes, so that he was called the rustic as well as the gingerbread (кpioivoç) Demosthenes. Nevertheless, the Roman rhetors, who were able to compare him with still later Greek orators, found him full of good qualities which they lacked. He was, in fact, brought up among the great traditions of the Attic courts and free assembly, and the reflection of this greatness threw its glory over the orator who outlived its decadence. The extant speeches are not faulty, but not striking; they are wanting in fire, in originality, in vivacity, in power, though the writer knows all the figures of thought and diction used by the great masters, and even overdoes the application of them. The MSS. are the same as those of Antiphon. The best special editions are Maetzner's and Blass'.

§ 559. A few words must be said in conclusion on the contemporary orators of repute, whose works have only reached us through uncertain or fragmentary tradition. Thus the defence attributed to Demades, which formed one of a collection of fourteen orations under his name, is certainly spurious, as this very remarkable speaker, whose striking extemporaneous aphorisms were long remembered and quoted, did not compose written speeches. The same was the case with Phokion, whose sententious addresses to the people were thought so effective by Demosthenes. Both Demades and Phokion were more thoroughly than Æschines representatives of the extempore school, which can only exist when supported by extraordinary natural gifts or great weight of character. But of Hegesippus, a contemporary and supporter of Demosthenes, we seem to have an oration-that on Halonnesus, which Dionysius notices as Lysian in style, and unlike Dionys. in Deinarch. c. 5). I do not think it permissible to translate, 'for he has no general complexion, or uniformity of style,' though Dionysius says this in the immediate sequel—that he is often like Lysias, again like Hypereides, and again like Demosthenes, and he then refers to special speeches to illustrate this. But to uniformity of style Dionysius applies the term ὁμοειδὴς οι ὅμοιος.

the other works of Demosthenes. Nevertheless, he did not doubt its genuineness. There is also the speech about the treaty with Alexander, and there are no doubt, among the collection in our MSS. of Lysias and Demosthenes, a good many court speeches by obscurer contemporaries, which give us a valuable insight into the average standard of Attic eloquence as compared with that of the acknowledged masters. As regards the speech on Halonnesus, it was first shown by Vömel in the last generation to be the work of Hegesippus, a partisan of Demosthenes, who had been sent to Macedonia to demand back, with other territory, the island of Halonnesus. On his return (342 B.C.) he gave an account of his negociations, and of the plans of Philip, which he had carefully studied. The style of the speech is clear and careful, archaic in its simplicity, and yet strong enough to persuade Dionysius of its genuineness. There are still critics disposed to agree with him, but the majority follow Vömel's decision.

§ 560. DEMETRIUS of Phaleron hardly belongs to the classical period, being both in life and doctrine the representative of the passage of letters from Athens to Alexandria. The favourable judgments on his writings arose chiefly, I fancy, from the personal popularity of the man. He was a leading figure in the history of decaying Athens, brought up in contact with Demosthenes, Hypereides and Aristotle; the pupil of Theophrastus, and friend of Menander. He was practically ruler of Athens for ten years (317-307 B.C.), and he gave an account of his stewardship in a special memoir. But he seems to have written memoirs about everything. After being honoured with 360 statues by the grateful Athenians, they condemned him to death when a stronger Demetrius (Poliorketes) invaded Athens. But he found a pleasant refuge with the first Ptolemy, whom he helped and advised in the founding of the university system (if I may so call it) of Alexandria. The second Ptolemy banished him to Upper Egypt, where he died of the bite of a serpent (283 B.C.). The immense and various catalogue of his works shows that polymath tendency which the Alexandrian grammarians seem to have adopted from the Peri

patetic school. Having suffered in his life the change from honour to contempt with commonalties and with kings, he has met the same destiny-that usual with second-rate respectability -at the hands of changing centuries. Admired and praised in his day for fruitfulness, for subtlety, and for elegance, he was presently and permanently forgotten.

man.

CHAPTER XIII.

ARISTOTLE.

§ 561. THE last great name, with which the classical literature of Greece may be said to close, is that of Aristotle, and he-great in so many directions-is least of all a literary To us he is such only as a literary critic, but even to the ancients, who possessed his dialogues, and who praise the elegance of their form, Aristotle's literary performances were as nothing in comparison to his scientific works. And with him, too, we find, perhaps first among the Greeks, perhaps second to Heracleitus only, the feeling that literature and science are distinct, and that the seeker after accurate knowledge need not adorn his researches with the graces of eloquence or of poetry. Nay he even regarded literature, as such, from a purely scientific point of view, and the works which take their place in this history are his investigation of the nature and conditions of epic and tragic poetry, and of the psychological groundwork of eloquence. Even his Politics, though he does not enter upon a criticism of historiography, seem (together with his lost TOMITεíα) a distinct protest against the Isocratic principle of confusing the narrative of events with rhetorical display, and a reassertion of the style of the bald chronicle with a philosophical rearrangement of facts under logical classes. Thus the numerous and monumental scientific treatises of Aristotle have not the same claim which the dialogues of Plato have to be treated in this book, and we will refer the student who desires to know the deeper side of the man to the library of works on his philosophy, of which Zeller's volume,' being the newest

Philosophie der Griechen, II Th. 2te Abth., 3rd edition, Leipzig, 1879. This volume is being translated, as the others have been, but as yet is not accessible in English.

as well as the ablest, may be regarded as giving an excellent summary.

The various lives still extant of Aristotle are very disappointing, when we consider the number of details they record. The fullest is that of Diogenes Laertius, which gives us also the text of his will, and the catalogue of his works; then there is the epistle to Ammæus of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which is mainly devoted to proving that the rhetoric of Demosthenes was developed anterior to Aristotle's teaching, and therefore independent of it. There are also several versions of a life attributed to Philoponus, first printed in the Aristotle of Aldus. These materials are well worked up for English readers by Sir A. Grant and by Grote, in their respective works on Aristotle.

Aristotle

The life of the philosopher coincides very curiously with that of his great contemporary, Demosthenes: they were born in the same year, and died in the same year. But in all else the circumstances of their career were widely different. was born in 384 B.C. at Stageira in the Chalkidike—a region then thickly settled with flourishing Hellenic towns. His father, Nikomachus, was personal physician and friend of the Macedonian king Amyntas. His mother, Phæstis, may have been of Eubœan origin, for we hear of the family owning a house at Chalkis, to which the philosopher retired towards the close of his life. It is probable that Nikomachus lived with his royal friend, and that Aristotle was brought up about the Macedonian court; but we know nothing of his education beyond the fact that his parents died early, and that a family friend, Proxenus of Atarneus, took charge of him; a kindness which Aristotle repaid by adopting Nikanor, Proxenus' son, and afterwards also giving him his daughter in marriage. We hear that Aristotle had brothers and sisters, but they are as obscure as the brothers and sisters of Kant or Des Cartes.

In his eighteenth year, being apparently a young man of good fortune, and, as some said, even of luxurious and dissolute habits, he came to Athens, and joined the school of Plato (367-6 B.C.). Of this early period at Athens we hear nothing but occasional bits of scandal circulated by Epicurus, Timæus, and VOL. II.-17

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