Declamation of the Philosopher, Physician, and Orator

Supplications religious processions of thanks or prayer

Cicero

Demosthenes

This is Demosthenes

To strike like lightning

To thunder

ning, have been helped by the power of the orator; he even proscribed condemned to death/confiscation Antonius. In his name, supplications were decreed by the Senate, which is the greatest honor given to leaders victorious in war—an honor that was awarded to no one in a civilian capacity before Cicero. Greece also admired Demosthenes; the King of Persia observed him, and there was much talk about him in the court of Philip, whose glory was so famous and fluttering on the lips of all that an old woman carrying water whispered to another, οὐτος εστι ΔΗΜΟΣΘΕΝΗΣ this is Demosthenes; and he is the one to whom, in earlier times, a statue—not gilded, but made of solid gold—was dedicated by Greece at Delphi to the rhetorician Gorgias of Leontini. Such great honor was held for professors of the oratorical art. In man, there are especially two things: Reason and Speech. Hence, as Apuleius says, men are fortified by reason and flourish in speech. But reason without speech is nearly mutilated and crippled. Therefore, if we have received nothing from that Parent and Fabricator of the world, God, better than speech, if everyone knows it is most useful to be powerful in eloquence, so that an orator can lead the senate, the people, the army, and all mortals wherever he wishes; if by the powers of pleading he can achieve so much that he seems to shine, to strike like lightning, and to thunder, as happened to Pericles—judge, pronounce in favor of the orator and give the verdict for me. And so that I, who have come to you as an orator, may depart from you as one who has persuaded you, see to it that if rhetoric is the maker of persuasion and the very marrow of Suada the goddess of persuasion, I may seem to have spoken persuasively before you. For whether persuasion or speaking well is the goal and the highest point in an orator, I shall seem to have fulfilled both duties if, having obtained my wish, I depart in accordance with your opinion and verdict. I have spoken.

It is credible that after the controversy was pleaded by the three brothers, the judges themselves, with harmonious consent, pronounced in favor of the orator by all votes, and adjudged the paternal inheritance to him.

The end of this short work, printed in Paris by Thielman Kerver on the Kalends of April, the year 1500.