If you were cheering for Draco, I apologise but I have already written about him. Instead, today we’ll be looking at Demosthenes.

Demosthenes was born in Athens in 384 BCE and orphaned at age seven. Fortunately, he had a prudent father who had arranged for his young son’s future if he could no longer be there. Unfortunately, however, greed got the better of Demosthenes’s legal guardians and they squandered most of his inheritance. When Demosthenes came to maturity and realised this, he began studying rhetoric in order to better present his case in court when he sued them.

For a while Demosthenes used his rhetorical training to make a living as a logographer, a professional speech writer, but he eventually ventured into politics. As a politician, he was an idealist and dreamed of a day when Athens would be restored to its former glory. That is probably part of the reason why he so vehemently opposed Macedonian expansionism, which could come to put many Greek city-states under its influence and weaken Athens’ historical standing. He tried to establish an alliance of Greek states against Macedon, but it would prove futile when Philip II of Macedon came south and Athens had to sue for peace.

When Philip died suddenly, Demosthenes helped lead an uprising against Macedon’s young and inexperienced new king. Alas, the young king was the vengeful Alexander the Great. He set his hounds on Demosthenes, who committed suicide to evade arrest.

That’s it for δ. Until it’s time for ε, feel free to nominate ancient great Greeks of any letter of the alphabet following δ in the comments section.

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About the author: E P Wohlfart is a twenty-something freelance writer with a Classical Archaeology degree, a laptop and a maxed-out library card. Aside from administrating PastPresenters.com, which she started in 2008, she works with several historical publications and is a regular contributor at Suite101.