The first writer in which the story takes something of the form in which Erasmus gives it is Aulus Gellius (Noct.  Att. l. xvii. c. 21.):—­

“Post inde aliquanto tempore Philippus apud Chaeroneam proelio magno Athenienses vicit.  Tum Demosthenes orator ex eo proelio salutem fuga quaesivit:  quumque id ei, quod fugerat, probrose objiceretur; versu illo notissimo elusit, [Greek:  anaer d pheugon], inquit, [Greek:  kai palin machaesetai].”

We here see that the senarius is designated as a well-known verse, so that it must have been in the mouths of the people long before it was applied to this piece of gossip.  I have hitherto not been able to trace it to an earlier writer.

The Apophthegmata of Erasmus were first published, I believe, in 1531, in six books.  I have an edition printed by Frobenius, at Basle, in 1538, in which two more books are added; and, in an epistle prefixed to the seventh book, Erasmus says,—­

    “Prodiit opus, tanta aviditate distractum est, ut protinus a
    typographo coeperit efflagitare denuo.”

He names twenty-one ancient Greek and Latin authors from which the apophthegms had been collected; and, with regard to what he has taken from Plutarch, he mentions the licence he has used:—­

    “Nos Plutarchum multis de causis sequi maluimus quam
    interpretari, explanare quam vertere.”

It is from this book of Erasmus that the worthy Nicolas Udall selected his Two Bookes of Apophthegmes; and he tells his readers,—­

    “I have been so bold with mine author as to make the first
    booke and second booke, which he maketh third and fowerth.”

Udall has occasionally added further explanations of his own to those translated from Erasmus.  He promises, in good time, the remaining, books, but says,—­

    “I have thought better, with two of the eight, to minister
    unto you a taste of this bothe delectable and fruitefull
    recreation.”

Those who are desirous of knowing at large the course pursued by Erasmus in the compilation of this amusing and once popular work, will find it fully stated in his preface; one passage of which will show the large licence he allowed himself:—­

    “Sed totum opus quodammodo meum feci, dum et explanatius
    effero qua Graece referuntur, interjectis interdum quae apud
    alios autores additur comperissem,” &c.

The only sure ground, as far as I can discover, for this gradually constructed legend, is the mention of the flight of Demosthenes by AEschines and Dinarchus.  In the more amplified editions of Erasmus’s Adages, after the publication of the Apophthegmata, he repeats the story in illustration of a Latin proverb (probably only a version of the Greek), “Vir fugiens et denuo pugnabitur;” and I find in some collections of the sixteenth century both the Latin and Greek given upon the authority of Plutarch!