DEMO'STHENES was born probably in D.O. 384 or 385. Ho was the son of Demosthenes, an Athenian citizen of the demur Preania, who carried on the trades of cutler and cabinet-maker, aud of Cleobule, the daughter of Gylon. This Gylen, who had been governor of Nyni phieum, an Athenian settlement in the Taurio Chersoneeus, betrayed it to the Scythians, and afterwards taking refuge with their chief, married a Scythian woman, who was the maternal grandmother of Demosthenes. This impurity of blood, and the misconduct of Gylon, his maternal grandfather, formed a theme for the taunts of Dailies. ('Oration against Ctesiphon.') There ie a well-known allusion iu Juvenal to the trade of Demosthenes the older (x. 130). The point of the satirist ie however somewhat lost, when we remember that Plutarch applies to the father is term which expresses all that can be said to the advantage of a man, and that ho had two manufactories containing on the whole more than fifty slaves. (Creuzer, ' View of Slavery iu Rome,' note 40, and the 'Orations of Demosthenes against Aphobus.) Demosthenes the elder died when his son was seven years old, leaving him and a sister, younger than himself, to the care of three guardians—Aphobus and Demophon, Lin first cousins, and Therippides, a friend. The property left by him amounted to fifteen talents (above 30001. in specie, taking silver as the standard). The guardians how ever, as we learn from Demosthenes himself, disregarded all his father's injunctions, and, while they neglected to improve the property of which they were trustees, embezzled nearly the whole of it. (' Orations against Aphoblis.) Plutarch states that they also deprived Demos theme of proper masters. He himself however, in a passage where it is his object to magnify all that coucerns his own history, boasts of the fitting education which he had received. (' Orations on the Crown,' p. 312.) He is said to have studied philosophy under Plato, and to have been a pupil of Eubulidea of fililetue.
Having heard Cellintratue plead on one occasion, he was fired by that orator's success with ambition to become an orator himself, and lie accordingly received iuetructions in the rhetorical art from Isious.
Cicero (' De Oratore,' ii. 94) mention. Demosthenes as one of those who came forth from the school of lacerates : Plutarch, on the other hand, expressly states that ho wne not a pupil of Isocrates, and goes out of his way to invent reasons why Demosthenes should have pre ferred the Instructions of Levu& We assume however that lemurs was his principal Instructor, in accordance with the testimony of the various biographers. (Libanius, Zosimus.) We are told that many suspected the speeches against his guardians to have been written, while others said that they were corrected, by Isieus, partly because Demoathenea was so young when they were delivered, and partly because they bore marks of the style of Is He is said to have taken lessons in action from Arietonicue, a player.
The physical disadvantages under which Demosthenes laboured are well known, and the manner in which he surmounted them is often quoted as an example to encourage others to persevere. It should be observed however that the authority for seine of these stories is but small, and that they rest on the assertions of writers of late date. lie was naturally of a weak constitution ; be had a feeble voice, an indis tinct articulation, and a shortness of breath. Finding that these defects impaired the effect of his speeches, ho set resolutely to work to overcome them. The means which he is said to have taken to remedy these defects look very like the inventions of some writer of the rhetorical school, though Plutarch (' Demosth.; x.) quotes Deme trius; the Phalerian as saying that he had from the orator's own mouth what Plutarch has stated in the chapter just referred to. Among these means we hear of climbing up hills with pebbles in his mouth, declaiming on the sea-shore, or with a sword hung ao as to strike his shoulder when he made an uncouth gesture. Ho is also said to have shut himself up at times in a cave under ground for study's sake, and this for months together.