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Demosthenes: Alexander
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Although Demosthenes' policy had been disastrous, he remained an influential politician. During the reign of Alexander the Great, he supported the Macedonians only half-heartedly, and after 324 he embarked again upon a war policy. After the death of Alexander in Babylon on 11 June 323, there was indeed a Greek insurrection against Macedonian control (the Lamian War), but the Macedonians were victorious. After this defeat, Antipater, Alexander's trusted general and governor of Greece demanded Demosthenes be handed over, to prevent this he committed suicide.
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After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Demosthenes again urged the Athenians to seek independence from Macedonia in what became known as the Lamian War. However, Antipater, Alexander's successor, quelled all opposition and demanded that the Athenians turn over Demosthenes and Hypereides, among others. Following his request, the ecclesia adopted a decree condemning the most prominent anti-Macedonian agitators to death. Demosthenes escaped to a sanctuary on the island of Calauria, where he was later discovered by Archias, a confidant of Antipater. He committed suicide before his capture by taking poison out of a reed, pretending he wanted to write a letter to his family. When Demosthenes felt that the poison was working on his body, he said to Archias: "Now, as soon as you please you may commence the part of Creon in the tragedy, and cast out this body of mine unburied.
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In his speech on the crown Demosthenes gave his response. He pointed out the long delay in time which allowed Aeschines to accumulate charges, abuse, and distortions. Once again Demosthenes noted that Philocrates was more closely associated with Aeschines than himself in the peace treaty, that he urged the delegates to sail at once to get Philip's oath sooner, and that it was Aeschines who accepted land in Boeotia and sold out to Philip and the Thebans. After the treaty Aeschines went again to Macedonia, and Demosthenes called him a hired employee of Philip and Alexander. For Demosthenes the larger question was what Athens' policy should be, faced with Philip's continued machinations to achieve tyranny over the Greek world. Demosthenes saw the whole world being enslaved by Philip, stood against him, and gave continual warnings and admonitions not to allow it. He was responsible for sending forces to save the Chersonese and Byzantium, while representatives of the tyrants Cleitarchus and Philistides stayed with Aeschines, who sponsored them.
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Demosthenes was exiled after a convoluted affair involving money taken by one of the lieutenants of Alexander the Great. He was recalled to the Greek states after Alexander died, where he attempted once again to rally the Athenian people against Macedonia, but he was unsuccessful and took poison rather than face capture and punishment.
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Demosthenes' career is marked above all by the two features that became his legacy: opposition to the Macedonian kings Philip and Alexander and rhetorical art. The latter had its roots in Demosthenes' career before politics but found its true calling when it was put in service of the former.
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Demosthenes was charged by his enemies with accepting money from Harpalus, and the council reported that he had received twenty talents of the missing money. In his trial Demosthenes asked for a detailed accounting of the sums he had received and from whom, and he argued that the council was trying to please Alexander by prosecuting him; he was convicted, fined fifty talents, and put in prison until he could pay. It has been reasonably argued by scholars that he may have used some of this money to prepare for war, just as he had used Persian gold to help Thebes against Philip. Unable to bear prison at his age, Demosthenes escaped to Aegina and Troezen. After Alexander died and as the Macedonians became unpopular, the Athenian assembly voted to recall Demosthenes and paid him fifty talents to decorate an altar so that he could pay his fine. When the Athenian revolt against Macedonian rule was crushed by Antipater, Demosthenes and other patriotic orators were sentenced to death for high treason. Demosthenes took refuge in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Calaureia; but when the Macedonian soldiers refused to honor that, he poisoned himself with the ink in a quill, dying in 322 BC.
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