William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

4. τριῶν ἢ τεττάρων: this small vote shows how little the Assembly understood the importance of the election.

5. ἀξίωμα, prestige, dignity (of a delegate of Athens).

6. εἰς τοὺς Ἀμφικτύονας: this was the meeting in the spring of 339 B.C., described by Aeschines (III. 115—124).

8. εὐπροσώπους, plausible (fair- faced; cf. barefaced).—μύθους, tales, referring to the eloquent account of the first Sacred war in the time of Solon (Aesch. III. 107—112).—ὅθεν... καθιερώθη, from the time when the plain of Cirrha was consecrated: cf. Aesch. III. 61, λέξω ὅθεν μάλιστα παρακολουθήσετε. We see by this that Aeschines repeated to the Amphictyons in 339 his story of the consecration of the plain of Cirrha, with all the terrible curses which were imprecated against those who should cultivate the devoted land, which he told in court in 330. The consecration was made at the end of the first Sacred war, about 586 B.C.

10. ἀπείρους λόγων: “to the com- paratively rude men at Delphi, the speech of a first-rate Athenian orator was a rarity.” (Grote.) The Amphictyonic Council was composed chiefly of representatives of obscure and uncultivated states. It was, in fact, a mere relic of antiquity, which had outlived its right to exist; and in the time of Philip it was merely galvanized into an unnatural vitality, which proved fatal to Greece and helpful only to the invader. See Grote's remarks at the beginning of chap. 87. Hist. §§ 59, 60.