Demosthenes : democracy's defender /
"In the spring of 340 B.C.E., news arrived that Philip of Macedon had seized a town in central Greece, a base from which he could march on Athens. In the fierce debates about how to respond to the rising threat in the north, Demosthenes, the greatest orator of his day, convinced the Athenian As...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New Haven :
Yale University Press,
[2025]
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| Series: | Ancient lives (Yale University Press)
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "In the spring of 340 B.C.E., news arrived that Philip of Macedon had seized a town in central Greece, a base from which he could march on Athens. In the fierce debates about how to respond to the rising threat in the north, Demosthenes, the greatest orator of his day, convinced the Athenian Assembly to confront Philip on the field of battle, Though that effort failed and Athens fell into the grip of Alexander the Great, Philip's son and successor, Demosthenes had established himself as one of history's most eloquent defenders of democracy. In this thrilling biography of the man who led the charge for Greek freedom, James Romm follows Demosthenes from his early career as a legal speech writer through his rise in politics, his fall from grace in a corruption scandal, and his desperate flight to the island of Calauria--where he took his own life rather than submit to Macedonian forces. As he brings to life the bare-knuckle, insult-filled verbal brawls of Athenian orators, Romm not only explores the mind of the man who took on the challenge of saving Greek freedom but also shows how democracies can be destroyed by infighting and internal division"-- |
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| Physical Description: | x, 196 pages : map ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780300269383 0300269382 |