Book Description

Excerpt from The Public Orations of Demosthenes, Vol. 1 of 2 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 Groteand Schäfer on the one hand, and Beloch and Holm on the other. I have tried to render the speeches into such English as a political orator of the present day might use, without attempting to impart to them any antique colouring, such as the best-known English translations either had from the first or have acquired by lapse of time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.