15
'Callisthenes remarked of Aeschylus that he wrote his tragedies in wine, which lent vigour and warmth to his work. With Demosthenes it was otherwise; he composed not on wine but on water; whence the witticism of Demades, that most men’s tongues are regulated by waterSpeeches in the law courts had a time limit appointed, which was measured by the water-clock or clepsydra, generally called simply ‘the water,’ ‘my water,’ ‘his water,’ etc., but Demosthenes’s pen was subject to the same influence. And Pytheas detected the smell of the midnight oil in the very perfection of the speeches. Well, there is much in common between your subject and mine, so far as this branch of them is concerned; on Homer’s poems I was no worse off than you are.
16
‘But when you come to your hero’s acts of humanity, his pecuniary sacrifices, his grand political achievements’ (and he was going on in full swing to the rest of the catalogue, when I interrupted, with a laugh: ‘Must I be dowsed with the remainder of your canful, good bath-man?’ ‘Most certainly,’ he retorted, and went straight on), ‘the public entertainments he gave, the public burdens he assumed, the ships, the wall, the trench he contributed to, the prisoners he ransomed, the girls he portioned, his admirable policy, the embassies he served on, the laws he got passed, the mighty issues he was concerned in—why, then I cannot but laugh to see your contracted brows;, as if a recital of the exploits of Demosthenes could lack matter!’
