the struggle for the liberties of Hellas. Of this you have home proofs.
_They_ did not wrong who fought at Marathon, at Salamis, and Plataea.”
Instead of this, in a sudden moment of supreme exaltation he bursts out
like some inspired prophet with that famous appeal to the mighty dead:
“Ye did not, could not have done wrong. I swear it by the men who faced
the foe at Marathon!”[1] He employs the figure of adjuration, to which I
will here give the name of Apostrophe. And what does he gain by it? He
exalts the Athenian ancestors to the rank of divinities, showing that we
ought to invoke those who have fallen for their country as gods; he
fills the hearts of his judges with the heroic pride of the old warriors
of Hellas; forsaking the beaten path of argument he rises to the
loftiest altitude of grandeur and passion, and commands assent by the
startling novelty of his appeal; he applies the healing charm of
eloquence, and thus “ministers to the mind diseased” of his countrymen,
until lifted by his brave words above their misfortunes they begin to
feel that the disaster of Chaeronea is no less glorious than the
victories of Marathon and Salamis. All this he effects by the use of one
figure, and so carries his hearers away with him.

[Footnote 1: _De Cor._ 208.]

3
It is said that the germ of this adjuration is found in Eupolis--

“By mine own fight, by Marathon, I say,
Who makes my heart to ache shall rue the day!”[2]

But there is nothing grand in the mere employment of an oath. Its
grandeur will depend on its being employed in the right place and the
right manner, on the right occasion, and with the right motive. In