He tells us himself that he entered upon public business in the time of
the Phocian war, and the same may be collected from his Philippics.
For some of the last of them were delivered after that war was
finished; and the former relate to the immediate transactions of it.
It appears, also, that he was thirty-two years old when he was
preparing his oration against Midias; and yet at that time he had
attained no name or power in the administration. . . .
He had a glorious subject for his political ambition to defend the
cause of Greece against Philip. He defended it like a champion worthy
of such a charge, and soon gained great reputation both for eloquence
and for the bold truths which he spoke. He was admired in Greece, and
courted by the king of Persia. Nay, Philip himself had a much higher
opinion of him than the other orators; and his enemies acknowledged
that they had to contend with a great man. For Aeschines and
Hyperides, in their very accusations, give him such a character.
I wonder, therefore, how Theopompus could say that he was a man of no
steadiness, who was never long pleased either with the same persons or
things. For, on the contrary, it appears that he abode by the party
and the measures which he first adopted; and was so far from quitting
them during his life that he forfeited his life rather than he would
forsake them.
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