Demosthenes, 354-324BCE

Summary

Demosthenes is generally acknowledged as the greatest orator in history. He overcame a stammer and the theft of his inheritance by his legal guardians to become as foundational to oratory as his contemporaries Plato and Aristotle are to philosophy.

Much like a major contemporary political figure, he overcame a stammer on his journey to greatness, with “inarticulate and stammering pronunciation.” He was known as “a water drinker”; a stern and serious presence at all times.

His great battle was against the waning of Athenian democracy, which slowly disintegrated into oligarchy and treason over his lifetime. As a legislator, ambassador, and leader he fought against the inexorable rise of Philip of Macedon and, later, Philip’s son Alexander. Fighting for the peace, democracy and equality that Athenian ancestors brought to all Greece, his tale ends in ruin as Athens finally falls, after more than thirty years trying to hold the line.

In historical terms, many of the patterns, descriptions and arguments presented here will seem eerily familiar, like listening to Songs In The Key Of Life for the first time. Every part of it has been reused a thousand times by people ever since its creation, so you are intimately familiar with the style, even if you have never come across it before.

After a prestigious career of public service, the tide turned against him. An accusation of bribery leads to his most famous speech, On The Crown. This defense of his career as the tides turned against him has been described as “the greatest speech of the greatest orator in the world.”

After his conviction, he escaped from prison and went on the run. He was exiled, brought back, then sentenced to death; eventually, fleeing the city again, this time to the island of Kalaureia (modern-day Poros). Discovered by Archias, he asked for time to write a letter to his family, and took poison from a reed.