William Jackson Brodribb

“ This, of course, ought to have been returned—and the people were, it seems, prepared to do so; but when the money was counted it was found that there was no more than 350 talents, barely half the original sum. How was the deficiency to be explained? There was a great stir and outcry. People said that it must have been used in bribery, and that the missing money must have stuck to the fingers of the orators and public men. There was a general feeling that somebody ought to be punished, but there was not a scrap of evidence against any one, and no means of procuring it. ”

“ In this list appeared the name of Demosthenes as a debtor to the amount of twenty talents. The next step was to give the accused parties the choice of taking their trial or of paying the sum with which the Areopagus had debited them. Of those brought to trial, Demosthenes was the first. He was tried before a jury of 1500 of his fellow-citizens, was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of fifty talents (about £12,000) . It is very possible that among the jury which condemned him there may have been many who wished to please Alexander, and many, too, of the friends of Harpalus. ”

“ But, as a fact, Demosthenes did not drop his opposition to Harpalus. It was on his motion, as we have seen, that Harpalus was arrested and his treasure sequestrated.
We left the great orator in exile at Trœzen. He was recalled soon after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. An attempt was then made once more to rid Greece of the Macedonian ascendancy. It was finally crushed by Antipater in the battle of Crannon in 322 B.C. The conqueror demanded the surrender of the leading anti-Macedonian orators—Demosthenes, of course, among them. Athens from this moment ceased to exist as a free state. ”