the Sicilian command, would soon have brought Syracuse to submission.

The fame of Demosthenes the general has been dimmed by the superior
lustre of his great countryman, Demosthenes the orator. When the name of
Demosthenes is mentioned, it is the latter alone that is thought of. The
soldier has found no biographer. Yet out of the long list of great men
whom the Athenian republic produced, there are few that deserve to stand
higher than this brave, though finally unsuccessful leader of her fleets
and armies in the first half of the Peloponnesian war. In his first
campaign in Aetolia he had shown some of the rashness of youth, and had
received a lesson of caution by which he profited throughout the rest of
his career, but without losing any of his natural energy in enterprise
or in execution. He had performed the distinguished service of rescuing
Naupactus from a powerful hostile armament in the seventh year of the
war; he had then, at the request of the Acarnanian republics, taken on
himself the office of commander-in-chief of all their forces, and at
their head he had gained some important advantages over the enemies of
Athens in Western Greece. His most celebrated exploits had been the
occupation of Pylos on the Messenian coast, the successful defence of
that place against the fleet and armies of Lacedaemon, and the
subsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the isle of Sphacteria,
which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta throughout the war, and
which had mainly caused her to humble herself to make the truce with
Athens.

Demosthenes was as honorably unknown in the war of party politics at
Athens as he was eminent in the war against the foreign enemy. We read
of no intrigues of his on either the aristocratic or democratic side. He
was neither in the interest of Nicias nor of Cleon. His private
character was free from any of the stains which polluted that of