Plutarch, a Greek from Chaeronea in what is now central Greece, wrote Parallel Lives around the year 100. The series pairs famous Greeks with famous Romans and weighs character as well as events. This unit is the life of Demosthenes, the Athenian orator. Plutarch later sets him beside Cicero, the Roman speaker who also died for a republic without a king.

Demosthenes put pebbles in his mouth and walked the shore against the wind until Athens had to listen. His Philippics, speeches named for the enemy, tried to wake the city while Philip of Macedon took the north of Greece. The battle of Chaeronea ended that fight; Demosthenes still gave the funeral speech. A treasurer’s gold brought exile, then a return, then Macedon’s demand for his body. He took poison in a temple on Calauria, an island off the Greek coast, rather than be dragged north.