THE PUBLIC ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL I

TRANSLATED BY
ARTHUR WALLACE PICKARD




PREFACE

The translations included in this volume were written at various times during
the last ten years for use in connexion with College Lectures, and a long
holiday, for which I have to thank the Trustees of the Balliol College Endowment
Fund, as well as the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, has enabled me to
revise them and to furnish them with brief introductions and notes. Only those
speeches are included which are generally admitted to be the work of
Demosthenes, and the spurious documents contained in the MSS. of the Speech on
the Crown are omitted. The speeches are arranged in chronological order, and the
several introductions to them are intended to supply an outline of the history
of the period, sufficient to provide a proper setting for the speeches, but not
more detailed than was necessary for this purpose. No discussion of conflicting
evidence has been introduced, and the views which are expressed on the character
and work of Demosthenes must necessarily seem somewhat dogmatic, when given
without the reasons for them. I hope, however, before long to treat the life of
Demosthenes more fully in another form. The estimate here given of his character
as a politician falls midway between the extreme views of Grote and Schaefer on
the one hand, and Beloch and Holm on the other.