ARTICLE II.

REVIEW OF CHAMPLIN'S ESCHINES.

The Oration of Eschines against Ctesiphon, with notes by J. T. Champlin, Professor of Greek and Latin in Waterville College. Cambridge: John Bartlett, 1850.

Two editions of the oration of Eschines on the Crown have been presented to the American public. Of the first, prepared by Mr. Negris, a Greek then domiciliated in this country, it will not be thought harsh to affirm that the editor was very inadequate to his task; that his principles of criticism led him into the most rash alterations of the text; that he betrays great ignorance of Greek history and antiquities; and that he has either misinterpreted or passed over in silence the few difficult passages which interrupt the easy flow of this oration. Mr. Champlin, on the other hand, has adopted a reputable text; he has explained all the difficulties which demanded an explanation from his hands; and is usually au courant of Grecian antiquities. In one particular, to say nothing of others, he has improved upon his edition of the rival oration of Demosthenes, by more mastery over the English language in his translations, which in his earlier work are sometimes not a little awkward.

Mr. Negris published the orations of Eschines and Demosthenes together, but with no preface calculated to make known to the student how and why the suit was brought. Mr. Champlin's edition of the oration of Eschines being apparently an afterthought, he has not been able to pursue a well ordered plan, including both the orations. This is to be regretted, and it is greatly to be desired, that at some future day Mr. C. should publish the two together, with a common introduction embracing the most important historical, and archaeological topics; to which reference might continually be made throughout the notes. There are no remains of antiquity where the allusions to the events and institutions of the day are more frequent than in these very orations; and without some such introduction, even when supplied with books of reference, the student will be apt to grope in the dark. Thus the first thing that an intelligent student will say is, "how could such a suit be brought, and why could not the Athenian people do as they pleased, in respect to passing a resolution to crown Demosthenes?" Here then at the outset, he needs to have an idea of

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the difference between a psepleisma and a law; of the different methods observed in passing them, and of the reaçn zagoróμaw, by which illegal resolutions were rendered perilous to their proposer. The way in which this process suspended further proceedings in the Senate or before the people upon a resolution, and the course of the trial, until the time of pleading, will also need explanation. Again the cause was delayed a number of years. Can any reason be given for this? What had been the relations of the parties anterior to the trial to which Æschines subjected Ctesiphon, and what was his political aim in instituting the trial? Here a compressed chronological table might be embodied in the introduction, in which all the events referred to by either orator, occurring during their age, could be found under their appropriate dates, and we should like to see exhibited in the same way, but in a different type, so as not to be confounded with the truth, the various attempts which Boeckh, Böhneke and others have made to assign the documents inserted in the oration of Demosthenes to their historical position.

The remainder of our remarks will be occupied in following Mr. Champlin through his notes, and in discussing certain topics to which he there calls attention. This we shall attempt to do in a spirit of impartial criticism, being convinced that it is only in such a way that American scholarship can be honored or be improved. We must lay in an apology beforehand for the length of some of our remarks, which may seem to some of our readers to lose sight of the book which is under examination, and to wander off into perplexed questions of history. May we say then that having at a former period studied these orations with care, having begun to lay up materials for editing them before Mr. Champlin's edition of Demosthenes on the Crown appeared in 1843, and having felt an interest in the progress of investigation into them since that time, we have cherished the fond, although perhaps the groundless hope that we might offer a contribution to the criticism of these orations which would not be regarded as entirely without value.

We follow Mr. C. according to the sections of Bekker, which accompany his text.

§ 4. At the close of this section, Æschines says that the orators had become so disorderly, that neither the prytanes nor the proedri, nor the tribe enjoying the precedency and constituting a tenth of the whole people were found sufficient to preserve the assemblies of the people from confusion. This passage affords very clear proof that the prytanes still had something to do with the preservation of order at public meetings; although Mr. Champlin assigns this duty entirely

to the proedri and the epistates. As for the proedri, it is known that some antiquaries, as Boeckh and Schömann,1 following the authority of one class of grammarians, hold that there were two sorts of them, those from the tribe which had the prytany and those from the nine other tribes; while K. F. Hermann 2 regards the existence of the former class of proedri as extremely improbable. All agree that the proedri here named were those who have been termed non contribules. And this Mr. C. has correctly stated. And an argument in favor of this view may be derived from § 3, where the orator speaks of proedri fraudulently chosen by lot to fill their office. If there were proedri from the presiding tribe in the senate, that is, if the prytanes were divided into five decades, each of which presided about seven days, as this allotment must have happened at the commencement of their prytany, it is not easy to see what collusion could have taken place. But it is very easy to see how the epistates of the senate on the day of a public assembly may have made a fraudulent election by lot of proedri out of the nine other tribes.

That the epistates of the day was one of the presidents of the assembly, as Mr. C. asserts, is denied, probably without good reason, by Hermann, who confines that duty to the nine proedri non contribules. But this passage shows that Hermann goes too far when he says that the prytanes had nothing to do with the assemblies of the citizens at all except to summon them.

ἡ προεδρεύουσα φυλή. What was that? We are not sure that Mr. C. has explained the usage correctly, for while in his note on § 3, he speaks of "a tribe selected for this purpose," [for the purpose of presiding or keeping order]; he explains these same words, in his note on § 4, as referring to the representatives of one of the ten tribes. The usage is alluded to only in three passages, in the present passage; in the first oration against Aristogiton, § 90,3 Bekker, where the same phrase occurs; and also in the oration of Eschines against Timarchus, where an explanation is given of its origin. Eschines there says, (§ 33 Bekker,) that after some gross proceedings of Timarchus, a new

Boeckh, C. I. No. 1. Vol. 1, p 180. Schöm. Antiq. Juris. publ. Græc. p. 216 etc. 2 Lehr. 6. d. Gr. Alt. § 127.

3 As the spuriousness of this oration is probable, the reference to this usage is a proof of nothing more than that the author had read the orations of Eschines. His words οὐ πρύτανις, οὐ κῆρυξ, οὐκ ἐπιστάτης, οὐκ ἡ προεδρεύουσα φυλὴ τούτον kparεiv dúvaraι afford some proof that he read, in the orators whom he imitates, of prytanes and epistatae as concerned in keeping order; but is it not rather singular that he omits the most important officers of the assembly, the proedri? Does he jumble together what he has found in several passages of ancient authors without a definite idea of the meaning of the words?

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law was passed ἀποκληροῦν φυλὴν ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα ἥτις προεδρεύσει. How long this singular custom continued we do not know, but we see from this passage, that it arose but a few years before the Oration on the Crown was delivered.'

§7. μηδένα . . . ἐξαιρεῖσθαι. “Depends upon ηγεῖσθαι taken (by zeugma) in the sense of quλázrɛova." But such a zeugma is quite out of the question. Zeugma is allowed, we believe, only when one notion of the same genus supplies the place of another, specifically different, as an affirmative in the place of a negative notion of the same kind, a notion of sense pertaining to the sight, the place of one pertaining to the hearing. But what communion of meaning has prioar with quλárrεova. Reiske from one Codex supplied far, 'you ought to allow no man to take away,' etc. On which Bremi observes that lav is unnecessary. Concedendi enim et prohibendi notionem antiqui supprimunt quum ea ex contextu sponte in animum influat.' And of this seeming ellipsis there are frequent examples. If this be so, the clause does not depend on ýyɛtóvα, and the same is true, if we content ourselves with the expedient of simply supplying zen.

§ 12. The decree was proposed by Ctesiphon in the autumn of B. C. 338. See our remarks on Mr. C's note on § 27.

§ 13. The Thesmothetae, i. e. the six inferior archons.' We know of no inferiority, either in rank or importance of attributes. The archon indeed, (thence called by writers below the Attic age eponymers but known by no such official title,) gave name to the year; but the board of nine stood we believe on the same level.-Again, aguesíaus, "assemblies for electing magistrates, probably held at stated times." We are not able to perceive what need there is of qualifying these words by probably; although we are not able to say when the elections were held. No settled community which annually chose a vast number of officers by lot would fail of having a stated time when the elections were held. For conjectures as to the exact time, see K. F. Hermann's Lehrbuch, 3rd edition, § 152, note 2, and Petersen in Bergk and Caesar's Zeitschrift, Vol. IV. No. 7, who tries to show that it was near the close of Thargelion, the eleventh month of the Attic year.

§14. xoziós. This appears to have been a regular magistracy, filled annually by the choice of one from each of the ten tribes.' In the instance mentioned § 27, it is created by special vote, and not a

'How Boeckh speaking of this qvâù πpoɛdpevovσa can say (u. s.) "quae et ipsa alia est atque ea ex qua prytanes sunt," we do not see. The word αποκληροῦν shows that the lot respected all the tribes.

* Bremi's Eschinis Opera. Zurich, 1824. The same remarks repeated for substance in his Lysiae et Aeschinis Orat. Select. Gotha, 1826, containing of Eschines this oration only.

stated magistracy. We doubt not however that some stated functionaries had the ordinary oversight of the walls; probably the odoлotí. See § 25.

§ 18. It might be added here for the student, who would not guess out the matter, that by xŋouxas — which we think ought to be printed with a capital — is intended the gens, out of which were selected the sacred crier and the daduchus at the Eleusinia, and to which the wealthy family of the Calliae and Hipponici belonged. The Eumolpidae held the dignity of hierophant at the same mystical feast besides other honors. Consult, si tanti est,' M. H. E. Meier de gentilitate Attica, p. 41-44. (Halle, 1835.)

§ 19. "They fitted them out [the galleys] at their own expense." It would perhaps be advisable to state on Boeckh's authority, of which Mr. C. often makes good use, just what was expected of the trierarchs at this time of Athenian history.

§ 20. tqvqat. “Shall not then the council of Areopagus be crowned? (i. e. since their office was for life.)" The parenthesis seems to us not to be to the point. The author had said nothing of the lifelong tenure, but had spoken only of the gravity and important duties of the council. As for the rest, the note of Mr. C. on this context, which is one of the few places where the clear and easy style of Æschines leaves room for doubt, will compare most advantageously with the failure of Mr. Negris to see into the drift of the passage.

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§ 24. "And thus generally on is now, in some way out of season, i. e. too early or too late, like the Latin jam." We think that Mr. C. on consideration will be inclined to recal this remark. If at any time the notion of too soon or too late is found in on, it is due to the context. Aristotle gives the following definition of this word, (Phys. auscult. 4. 13.) "on is the portion of future time which is nigh the present moment. When do you walk? dŋ: [i. e. at once:] because the time is near in which he is to walk. And of past time it is the portion which is not far off from now. When do you walk? ŋồŋ ßɛBadiva, [i. e. I have walked already.] But is (8) already taken, because it is very far simple and natural definition all the uses of dŋ can be without much difficulty evolved.

we do not say that Troy from now." From this

§ 25. For Eubulus the foe of Demosthenes for a long period previous to the battle of Chaeronea, the patron of Eschylus, and one of the leaders of the peace-party at Athens, consult Ruhnken Crit. Hist. Orat. Graec. (Opusc. 1. 338); and for Hegemon the same work, p. 354. It is uncertain when Hegemon's law was passed. Böhneke (Forschungen, p. 574) assigns it to some time between Olymp. 111. 2 and 112. 2, that is, at all events, after the accession of Alexander.