Hmmm, fascinating, Kallistos. I'm more familiar with the way Cicero considered Demosthenes - of course, in the late Republican period, Demosthenes had become a myth of the brave patriot standing forth against tyranny, and Cicero's (honestly brave) speeches against Antony after Caesar was murdered, were always known as his "Phillipics" after the model of the speeches Demosthenes made against Philip. Ironic, if Demosthenes himself was a man whose words and whose actions didn't connect!

Another thing I've picked up from somewhere, is the notion that Demosthenes, after getting the Greeks to stand up to Phillip at Chaeronea in 38 BC, actually volunteered as a soldier but somehow managed to scarper either just before or during the battle. If true, that ALONE to me, blows ALL his credibility. It's like when I found out that the actor John Wayne, for all his words and movies, wriggled out of any military service during WWII in a way that leads one to believe he was an arrant coward.

I have my doubts about Cicero, but comparing him to Demosthenes may be all to the good for Cicero! (who was, all things considered, a genuine patriot, however muddled his ethics sometimes got)

It's a dumb question, but did Demosthenes' speeches survive, and if so, can I read them today?