aided him; in
every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is
impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule
laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the
cities of northern Greece.

=Demosthenes.=--The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator
Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age
of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As
soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and
compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of
Isaeus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when
he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of
laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For
several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he
shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be
tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on
the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of
the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his
voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his
orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of
Greece.

The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished
to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to
withstand the king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war,"
said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however,
misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed
himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and
employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of
peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to
war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on
Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of
them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered
with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus
when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When,
then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam
about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah!
How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian
conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought
to equip fifty galleys an