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Summary of Life of Demosthenes by Plutarch

In his Life of Demosthenes Plutarch first tells us about the childhood of Demosthenes, a famous ancient Greek orator. He was a son of an Athenian citizen, who had a large workhouse.

Unfortunately, after his father's death, Demosthenes' guardians wronged him taking quite a part of his fortune. This was the reason that he never received an education that he should have had.

He first became interested in oratory after he first heard Callistratus, the orator, plead in open court for Oropus and win the case. Demosthenes began exercising in the art of speaking and taking lessons from Plato and Ctesibius. At first, he was not very successful, but after a while he became on of the best orators in Athens. Theophrastus mentioned that he was not just an orator "worthy of the city of Athens", but "above it". However Demosthenes himself later regretted choosing this path in his life, saying that if he only knew all the schemes and troubles this kind of life had, he would rather prefer a death to it.

He experienced everything he could ever go through in his life: he has been in the battle and fled from it, he was mostly being an honest citizen and accepted briberies sometimes, he was banished from the city and then asked to come back, he was sentenced to death and, finally, had to commit suicide to avoid the cruelty of Macedonians.

Demosthenes was a remarkable person, but the author is definitely lifting Demosthenes high in his bibliography. Even though Plutarch himself was not an Athenian, I could certainly sense the loyalty of a Greek to another Greek here. Despite the fact that the Demosthenes fled from the battlefield, got drunk on wine and accepted briberies, historian likes the orator, and it is made very clear in the way he describes the Athenian's life.