On the Birth-Year of Demosthe^ies. 397 been such as is implied by the chronology of Dionysius, even according to Mr Clinton's construction. The case of Demos- thenes alone would be sufficient to shew the absurdity of imagining that a boy just entering into his sixteenth year could have been expected to struggle against such difficulties as those which Demosthenes represents himself to have en- countered in asserting his rights. But we may also ask whether it is probable that a boy only one year older should have been held qualified for svich a task, and should for this purpose have been pronounced a man (dvr^p elvai ^oKijaaa- Oei^). For at this age it was, according to Mr Clinton's calculation, that Demosthenes began to call his guardians to account, and it seems to have been only by their artifices and evasions that he was so long prevented from bringing them into court. He might have done so as soon as his minority expired : and it is possible that he might then have been able to plead his own cause : but it is difficult to believe that the law, which supposed that every litigant did so^, should have placed a boy of sixteen in a situation that required it. The question then is, at what age the yoving Athenian underwent that examination (^oKifxacTLo) after which he was declared a man, admitted to the enjoyment of his estates, if an orphan, and subjected to all the dangers and difficulties that might often attend the vindication of his rights. This subject was discussed by Boeckh in one of his Academi- cal Procemia, published in 1819, where he arrives at the conclusion, that this event happened in the eighteenth year of an Athenian'^s life. His reasoning is founded not so much on a comparison of the express testimonies of the ancients on the point, as on a review of the various leading epochs that marked the citizen'^s progress toward political maturity. Passing over the religious rites with which he was admitted in his infancy into the cpparpia and the yevos to which he belonged, w^e find that at about fifteen he was subjected to an examination, probably in a similar assembly and at the same time of the year, for the purpose of ascer- taining his age. This appears from the words of Aristotle quoted by the scholiast on the Wasps 576 : 'ApidroTeXri^ Se 2 Quinctilian ii. 15. 30.
