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.
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