Bust of Demosthenes, Roman copy after a Greek Hellenistic original; copy of Polyeuktos, c.a. 280 BC, via the British Museum.
When I was an undergraduate, one of my teachers used to talk only half-seriously about “Great Losers in American History,” beginning with Aaron Burr. It’s not a theme that George Patton would have warmed to. As the general said to the troops, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” No doubt that’s true—and not just in the U.S.—when it comes to choosing leaders. Yet even Americans evince a certain fascination for failure. Ahab or Gatsby or Willy Loman, anyone?
When the defeated goes down fighting, moreover, when he insists on the grandeur of his deeds or ideas, then he may even have a certain attraction that a winner lacks. A Francophile like Patton needed no introduction to the glamour of Napoleon. For that matter, I doubt if an orator of Patton’s caliber could have entirely resisted the glory of one of the charter members of any list of “Great Losers in Ancient History,” Demosthenes.
An Athenian statesman, Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.) devoted his career to convincing first his countrymen and then the rest of the Greeks to band together and fight the rising power first of Philip II of Macedon (382–336 B.C.) and then of his son Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.). It was a grand effort and it failed. Macedon won; Athens and its allies lost.
Winston Churchill has often
