Libri secundi de antiquis oratoribus reliquiae

1. The Halicarnassian says: "The mouth is kept pure for Demosthenes."

2. He seems to have used the metaphor too tragically right at the outset; but the same thought is expressed more in the civic manner by Demosthenes at the very beginning of the speech On the False Embassy, which runs thus: "How great, men of Athens, has been the exertion and the canvassing," and what follows. One might find fault with the proem as being tragic, excessive, and more like an epilogue than a proem. (Scholion, ibid., p. 353 R.) Observe how he began in the manner of an epilogue, with the dismissal of advocates, just as Demosthenes also did.

(Compare.) Some think fit to find fault with the orator for having, in a trial, made a dismissal of advocates, when this ought to be done in the epilogue.

3. "Having taken more turns than the Euripus" (p. 331, schol.). This clause is a witticism. The critics praise this clause, saying that it has been phrased with discretion and not frivolously.

4. Dionysius objects that "to deposit for safekeeping" rather implies an increase, whereas in the case of bodies the opposite occurs, for they are sometimes destroyed. Aeschines therefore used the expression badly.

5. Dionysius objects. For, he says, we do not wish to overcome virtue, as we do our adversaries.