Book VI.

Famous Orations.

LEONIDAS TO HIS THREE HUNDRED.

E men of Sparta, listen to the hope with which the gods inspire Leonidas! Consider how largely our death may redound to the glory and benefit of our country. Against this barbarian king, who, in his battle array, reckons as many nations as our ranks do soldiers, what could united Greece effect? In this emergency there is need that some unexpected power should interpose itself;-that a valor and devotion, unknown hitherto, even to Sparta, should strike, amaze, confound, this ambitious Despot! From our blood, here freely shed to-day, shall this moral power, this sublime lesson of patriotism, proceed. To Greece it shall teach the secret of her strength; to the Persians, the certainty of their weakness. Before our scarred and bleeding bodies, we shall see the great King grow pale at his own victory, and recoil affrighted. Or, should he succeed in forcing the pass of Thermopyla, he will tremble to learn, that, in marching upon our cities, he will find ten thousand, after us, equally prepared for death. Ten thousand, do I say? O, the swift contagion of a generous enthusiasm! Our example shall make Greece all fertile in heroes. An avenging cry shall follow the cry of her affliction. Country! Independence! From the Messenian hills to the Hellespont, every heart shall respond; and a hundred thousand heroes, with one sacred accord, shall arm themselves, in emulation of our unanimous death. These rocks shall give back the echo of their oaths. Then shall our little band,-the brave three hundred,-from the world of shades, revisit the scene; behold the haughty Xerxes, a fugitive, re-cross the Hellespont in a frail bark; while Greece, after eclipsing the most glorious of her exploits, shall hallow a new Olympus in the mound that covers our tombs.

Yes, fellow-soldiers, history and posterity shall consecrate our ashes. Wherever courage is honored, through all time, shall Thermopyla and the Spartan three hundred be remembered. Ours shall be an immortality such as no human glory has yet attained. And when ages shall have swept by, and Sparta's last hour shall have come, then, even in her ruins, shall she be eloquent. Tyrants shall turn away from them, appalled; but the heroes of liberty-the poets, the sages, the historians of all time-shall invoke and bless the memory of the gallant three hundred of Leonidas!

AESCHINES ON THE CROWN.

HEN Demosthenes boasts to you, O Athenians, of his Democratic zeal, examine, not his harangues, but his life; not what he professes to be, but what he really is;-redoubtable in words, impotent in deeds, plausible in speech, perfidious in action. As to his courage-has he not himself, before the assembled People, confessed his poltroonery? By the laws of Athens, the man who refuses to bear arms, the coward, the deserter of his post in battle, is excluded from all share in the public deliberation-denied admission to our religious rites, and rendered incapable of receiving the honor of a crown. Yet now it is proposed to crown a man whom your laws expressly disqualify.

Which, think you, was the more worthy citizen,-Themistocles, who commanded your fleet when you vanquished the Persian at Salamis, or Demosthenes the deserter?-Miltiades, who conquered the Barbarians at Marathon, or this hireling traitor?-Aristides, surnamed the Just, or Demosthenes, who merits a far different surname? By all the gods of Olympus, it is a profanation to mention in the same breath this monster and those great men! Let him cite, if he can, one among them all to whom a crown was decreed. And was Athens ungrateful? No! She was magnanimous; and those uncrowned citizens were worthy of Athens. They placed their glory, not in the letter of a decree, but in the remembrance of a country, of which they had merited well,-in the living, imperishable remembrance!

And now a popular orator-the mainspring of our calamities-a deserter from the field of battle, a deserter from the city-claims of us a crown, exacts the honor of a proclamation! Crown him? Proclaim his worth? My countrymen, this would not be to exalt Demosthenes, but to degrade yourselves-to dishonor those brave men who perished for you in battle. Crown him? Shall his recreancy win what was denied to their devotion? This would indeed be to insult the memory of the dead, and to paralyze the emulation of the living.

When Demosthenes tells you that, as ambassador, he wrested Byzantium from Philip, that, as orator, he roused the Acarnanians, and subdued the Thebans,-let not the braggart impose on you. He flatters himself that the Athenians are simpletons enough to believe him,-as if in him they cherished the very genius of persuasion, instead of a vile calumniator. But when, at the close of his defence, he shall summon to his aid his accomplices in corruption, imagine then, O Athenians, that you behold, at the foot of this tribune, from which I now address you, the great benefactors of the Republic arrayed against them. Solon, who environed our liberty with the noblest institutions,-Solon, the philosopher, the mighty legislator,-with that benignity so characteristic, implores you not to pay more regard to the honeyed phrases of Demosthenes than to your own oaths, your own laws. Aristides, who fixed for Greece the apportionment of her contributions, and whose orphan daughters were dowered by the People, is moved to indignation at this prostitution of justice, and exclaims: "Think on your fathers! Arthmius of Zelia brought gold from Media