The Declaration of Independence - A Brief
History
By: Stanley L.
Klos
Demosthenes
384-322 BC
As a youth in ancient Athens, Demosthenes had a severe speech
impediment, and people jeered at his stuttering when he addressed his first
large public assembly.
Demosthenes, the son of a prosperous sword maker, was orphaned when he was
only 8. His guardians so pilfered his estate that little was left when
Demosthenes came of age. Seeking justice, he successfully pleaded his own
case and won damages. To improve his elocution, he talked with
pebbles in his mouth and recited verses while running along the seashore over
the roar of the waves.
Demosthenes' diligent work was successful and at the age of 25 he
had entered public life. He had won popularity and power when King Philip of
Macedon was beginning the conquest of Greece. Realizing the peril, Demosthenes
made eloquent appeals for his countrymen to unite and preserve their freedom.
These powerful orations against Philip were known as philippics, a term still in
use to describe any impassioned denunciation or tirade.
The Athenians were too late in heeding Demosthenes ' warnings and
he was falsely accused of taking a bribe. He was fined and imprisoned but
escaped. When his final effort to obtain freedom for Greece failed, he
swallowed poison from his pen and died.
Demosthenes' greatest oration is entitled `On the Crown'. He delivered it
in 330 BC. It was a review and justification of his public life and a
condemnation of his bitter rival, Aeschines, who was forced into exile.
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1]
If the decree, men of the senate, ordered that the crown should be given to the
man having the largest number of advocates, it would have been senseless for me
to claim it, for Cephisodotus
alone has spoken on my behalf, while a host of pleaders has spoken for my
opponents. But the fact is, the people appointed that the treasurer should give
the crown to the one who first got his trireme
ready for sea; and this I have done; so I declare that it is I who should be
crowned.
[2]
Also I am surprised that my opponents neglected their ships, but took
care to get their orators ready; and they seem to me to be mistaken in regard to
the whole affair, and to imagine that you are grateful, not to those who do
their duty, but to those who say they do it; and they have formed a totally
different estimate regarding you from that which I hold. For this very reason it
is right that you should feel more kindly disposed toward me; for it is plain
that I entertain a higher opinion of you than they do.
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Rhetorical
Figures
... claim to be professional teachers of rhetoric actually say, Socrates. ...
Lysias, Against
Eratosthenes 21. *Demosthenes, On the Crown 48. Anastrophe: transposition ...
The Internet
Classics Archive | Demosthenes by Plutarch
... though at that time the accusers of Demosthenes were in the height of power,
and ... the
rest of his life in teaching rhetoric about the island of Rhodes, and upon ...
Greek Prose Style:
Greek 701 at CUNY
... home page for Greek 701, Greek Rhetoric and Prose Style, a course in ...
centuries BCE,
ranging from Hekataios to Demosthenes. Assignments are fairly brief (about ...
Demosthenes
- Britannica.com
... orator. He also studied legal rhetoric. In his Parallel Lives Plutarch, the
Greek
historian and biographer, relates that Demosthenes built an underground study
...
Rhetoric Notes:
Issues
... Bibliomania; George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric; Christian Classics
Ethereal
Network Contains ... Gorgias and his Phaedrus, Demosthenes' On the Crown;
Various ...
Plurabelle Books -
Rhetoric
... John Bender; David Wellbery: The Ends of Rhetoric. History, Theory,
Practice. Stanford
UP 1990. xiv ... Demosthenes: The Oration of Demosthenes against Meidias. Ed ...
Classical
Rhetoric
... subject, Aristotle (384-322 BC) defined rhetoric as the art of identifying
(and ... the
speeches of his exact contemporary Demosthenes (384-322 BC) and especially ...
Rhetoric for Rookies
... Analysis Technical vocabulary: grammar, rhetoric, logic Parsing Literature
Notebooks;
Genesis Imitation ... lives, such as that comparing Demosthenes and Cicero. ...
Perseus
Encyclopedia - Who was Demosthenes?
... more in their own terms. And because of the relatively low standing of
rhetoric
in our time, Demosthenes is less read than formerly. But he still represents ...
Rhetoric
| Classic
... to live the life proper to man. Rhetoric , Poetics and others. ... Nathaniel
Cordova.
Cicero Homepage. The Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero (Trans. John Dryden).
...
Academics,
Classical Languages - Albright College
... III Advanced Greek prose; selections from Herodotus and Thucydides
(history),
Plato and Aristotle (philosophy), and Isocrates and Demosthenes (rhetoric). ...
Perseus
Encyclopedia demosthenes
... more in their own terms. And because of the relatively low standing of
rhetoric
in our time, Demosthenes is less read than formerly. But he still represents ...
Classical
Rhetoric Syllabus
... by Lysias, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides, and the Letter of
Philip
II of Macedon. Plato: Gorgias. This is Plato's attack on the way rhetoric was
...
Rhetoric
bibliography, FSEM019, Fall 1996
... A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric. Ed. James J. Murphy. Davis, CA:
Hermagoras
P, 1983. 77-89. Murphy, James J., ed. Demosthenes' On the Crown: A ...
Reading Classics
Gateway: Rhetoric & Law
... Arpinas: Maggia 1996 (italiano). Classical Medieval and Renaissance
Rhetoric;
Demosthenes, information collected by Marieke Roelofs (under construction ...
Demosthenes
and Cicero Compared by Plutarch
... in speaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said; that Demosthenes, to make
himself
a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he had, natural or acquired ...
Cleopatra,
the Last Pharaoh
... a child, she was educated in Hellenic culture Homer's epic poems,
Demosthenes rhetoric,
lyre-playing and horsemanship. But Cleopatra was also the first Ptolemy ...
DEMOSTHENES
... the 'death of Greek political liberty' Some people dismiss Demosthenes'
outbursts
as political rhetoric, others hold his political abuse of Philip from Macedon ..
THE COMPARISON OF
DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
... faculties in speaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said; that Demosthenes,
to make
himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he had, natural or ...
Methods
and Perspectives, 10: Rhetoric
... presentation (contrast modern usage: 'strong on rhetoric, short on
substance' etc). ... speeches
by the great orators: Demosthenes, Cicero etc become school texts ...
Rhetoric
and Public Speaking
... on rhetoric and political philosophy, as well as panegyric speeches
(somewhat in
the manner of Isocrates, probably), and a biopgraphy of Demosthenes; and he ...
Canon
or Rhetoric
... the other canons will not matter. Demosthenes contended that this was the
most ... of
these canons and basically felt that rhetoric was merely style, memory and ...
Presidential $1 Coin Controversy - --
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Forgotten Founders vs. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
Samuel
Huntington
First President of the
United States of America
in Congress Assembled
March 1, 1781 to July 6, 1781
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