William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

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1. τειχισμὸν, the repair- ing of the walls of Athens in 337— 336 B.C., for which Demosthenes was τειχοποιός. See Aesch. III. 27. Demosthenes was then appointed by his tribe, the Πανδιονίς, and received from the treasury (according to Aesch. 31) nearly ten talents for the expenses (cf. § 113.6,7).—ὃν σύ μου διέσυρες: cf. τοῦτό μου διαβάλλει § 28.3.

3. πόρρω, i.e. far below.

4. οὐ λίθοις ἐτείχισα τὴν πόλιν: a famous passage, often quoted by the rhetoricians. See the beginning of the ὑπόθεσις of Libanius. Plutarch (Lycurg. 19) quotes a saying of Lycurgus the lawgiver, οὐκ ἂν εἴη ἀτείχιστος πόλις ἅτις ἀνδράσι καὶ οὐ πλίνθοις ἐστεφάνωται. Whiston refers to Sir Wm Jones's ode, “What constitutes a State?” The passage is a most effective answer to the taunts of Aeschines (236) about the walls and ditches.

5. πλίνθοις: sun-dried bricks, of which no small part of the walls of Athens and of the Long Walls to the Piraeus were built. The brick wall was built on a solid foundation of stone. See Thuc. I. 93, οἱ θεμέλιοι παντοίων λίθων ὑπόκεινται (of the walls of Athens). The stone walls of Mantinea, which are still standing almost complete, have at most only four courses of stone, which were once surmounted by a wall of brick: Pausanias (VIII. 8, 7) describes this wallas ὠμῆς ᾠκοδομημένον τῆς πλίνθου, built of raw (i.e. unbaked) bricks.

8. τόπους, countries, Euboea, Boeotia, the Chersonese, as opposed to cities.

9. τοὺς ὑπὲρ τούτων ἀμυνομένους, the defenders of these (our fellowcitizens).