HKB
parts of it to his allies, the Argives and Arcadians, and announced his plans for the invasion of Persia at the head of the Greeks; he then returned to Macedonia.
In 337 Demosthenes was again Commissioner of Fortifications, as well as Controller of the Festival Fund--the most important office in the State. He not only performed his work most efficiently, but gave considerable sums for public purposes out of his private fortune; and early in 336 Ctesiphon proposed, and the Council resolved, that he should once more be crowned at the Dionysia. But before the proposal could be brought before the Assembly, Aeschines indicted Ctesiphon for its alleged illegality. The trial did not take place until late in the summer of 330. We do not know the reason for so long a delay, but probably the events of the intervening time were such as to render the state of public feeling unfavourable to Aeschines. In 336 Philip was assassinated, and was succeeded by Alexander. In 335 Alexander destroyed Thebes, which had revolted, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. He also demanded from Athens the surrender of Demosthenes and other anti-Macedonian politicians and generals, but was persuaded to be content with the banishment of Charidemus and Ephialtes, and the promise of the prosecution of Demosthenes for using subsidies from Persia to help Thebes--a prosecution which was allowed to drop. From 334 onwards Alexander was pursuing his conquests in the East, and we know practically nothing of the history of Athens until the trial of Ctesiphon came on in 330.
Aeschines alleged against Ctesiphon (1) that it was illegal to propose to crown any one who had not passed his examination before the Board of Auditors at the end of his term of office; and that Demosthenes, who had been Commissioner of Fortifications and Controller of the Festival Fund, was still in this position: (2) that it was illegal to proclaim the grant of a crown at the Dionysia, except in the case of crowns conferred by foreign states: (3) that it was illegal to insert untrue statements in the public records, and that the language in which Ctesiphon's decree described the political career of Demosthenes was untrue. On the first point Aeschines was almost certainly right: Demosthenes' defence is sophistical, and all that could really be said was that the rule had often been broken before. On the second point, certainty is impossible: the most probable view (though it also has its difficulties) is that there were two inconsistent laws, and that one of them permitted the proclamation in the theatre, if expressly voted by the people; but the alleged illegality had certainly been often committed. The third point, which raised the question of the value to Athens of Demosthenes' whole political life, was that upon which the case really turned; and it is to this that Demosthenes devotes the greater part of his speech, breaking up his reply into convenient stages by discussions (of a far less happy description) of the other counts of the indictment, and of the character and career of Aeschines. As in the Speech on the Embassy, certain facts are misrepresented, and there are passages which are in bad taste; but Demosthenes proves beyond doubt his unswerving loyalty to the high ideal of policy which he had formed for his country, and it is with good reason that parts of this speech have always been felt to reach a height of eloquence which has never been surpassed.
The jury acquitted Ctesiphon: and Aeschines, failing to obtain a fifth part of the votes, and thus incurring a heavy fine and the loss of some of the rights of a citizen, left Athens, and lived most of the remainder of his life at Rhodes.
The following is an analysis of the speech in outline:--