In the spring of 340 B.C.E., news arrived that Philip of Macedon had seized a town in central Greece, a base from which he could march on Athens. In the fierce debates about how to respond to the rising threat in the north, Demosthenes, the greatest orator of his day, goaded the Athenian Assembly into confronting Philip on the field of battle. Though that effort failed and Athens later fell into the grip of Alexander the Great, Philip’s son and successor, Demosthenes had established himself as one of history’s most eloquent defenders of democracy.
James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College, follows Demosthenes from his early career as a legal speech writer through his rise in politics, his fall from grace in a corruption scandal, and his desperate flight to the island of Calauria—where he took his own life rather than submit to Macedonian forces. Romm explores the mind of the man who took on the challenge of saving Greek freedom and examines how democracies can be destroyed by internal divisions such as those ignited by the insult-filled verbal brawls of Athenian orators
Romm’s new book, Demosthenes: Democracy's Defender (Yale University Press), is available for purchase.
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