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Here's the passage I had in mind from Plutarch:

"It is necessary, indeed, that a political leader should prevail by reason of his eloquence, but ignoble for him to admire and crave the fame that springs from his eloquence. Wherefore in this regard Demosthenes is more stately and magnificent, since he declares that his ability in speaking was a mere matter of experience, depending greatly upon the goodwill of his hearers,​ and considers illiberal and vulgar, as they are, those who are puffed up at such success."

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Demosthenes+Cicero*.html

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The way you phrase the last question it seem obvious we should choose Cicero, although I am not so sure Demosthenes really prodded his fellow Athenians to rethink their republic--Phocion was heading more in that direction, it seems to me. I'm less educated in that late-Athenian-democracy story than with respect to Cicero. Two fine books that would help the reader better understand why Plutarch might admire Demosthenes more, and why Cicero could be charged with loving praise too much, would be Tom Holland, Rubicon, and Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: A Portrait.

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I didn't think it was obvious which we should choose, according to CJ. The Athenian & Roman situations were indeed very different. Philosophy needed defense only in the Roman situation, which Cicero uniquely provided. Of course, for his nobility, he did make mistakes that should trouble the serious student of politics.

As for the great Phokion--Plutarch compares him to Cato Uticensis; it is usual with Plutarch to prefer the Greek to the Roman, but this comparison is especially telling; the Cicero-Demosthenes one much less so.

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One funny aspect of Cicero's love of praise is that he actually tried his hand for a bit in writing an epic poem about his own political service against Cataline. "Let arms to toga yield!" was apparently in the first line. Friends wisely steered him away from continuing the work.

Ancients also liked to mock him for some of his letters during his exile by Clodius. There are a few where he really just whines about his own fate, and this formed the basis of criticism of him not having the dignity and lack-of-reputational concern befitting a real philosopher. Plutarch briefly mentions this, with a quick comment suggesting--a la Plato's Gorgias--how difficult it is to enter the political arena and maintain proper philosophic aloofness from political passions, but somewhere in Dio Cassius's massive Roman history, written in the same era as Plutarch, the historian drops his narrative to provide an extended dialogue b/t a such a bewailing-his-own-fate Cicero and a philosopher, set in Athens. It's set-piece, but pretty funny. One of the longest dialogues or speech-exchanges in Dio Cassius, in fact. Maybe if carefully studied one might find Xenophon-level profundity in it--doubt it, but maybe...

Lest we have too much fun at Cicero's expense, Plutarch does have one little bit where he says that the overall judgment of Cicero action against the Cataline conspiracy, in his consulship and then dictatorship, vindicated Plato's "prediction" about republics needing philosopher kings.

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