The imperial republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Aegospotami.

She was at length reduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws.
During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towards its highest excellence.

And it was when the moral, the political, and the military character of the people was most utterly degraded, it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that the world has ever known.
The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign.
The division of labour operates on the productions of the orator as it does on those of the mechanic.

It was remarked by the ancients that the Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though he could not vie with a boxer in the use of the cestus, or with one who had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater general vigour and health than either.

It is the same with the mind.