[314]
And from these performances you emerge a land-owner,
a person of high consideration! Take another point. Before he did all that
mischief to the commonwealth, he used to admit that he had been a clerk; he was
grateful to you for his appointments; his demeanor was quite modest. But since
he has perpetrated wrongs without number, he has become mightily supercilious.
If a man speaks of “Aeschines, the man who was once a
clerk,” he makes a private quarrel of it, and talks of defamation of
character. Behold him pacing the market-place with the stately stride of
Pythocles, his long robe reaching to his ankles, his cheeks puffed out, as who
should say, “One of Philip's most intimate friends, at your
service!” He has joined the clique that wants to get rid of
democracy,—that regards the established political order as an
inconstant wave,—mere midsummer madness. And once he made obeisance to
the Rotunda!1
1 See Dem. 19.249.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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