The pairing of Demosthenes and Cicero in Plutarch's Parallel Lives presents a dual interest, as on one hand, the biographical subjects are not strictly military figures but rather orators with significant political activity, and on the other hand, these lives depict two men facing a necessarily imposed monarchy (Philip-Augustus), against which the only defensive weapon they had was speech.

Moreover, as orators, these figures embody the ideal of the educated man of their time (eupaidetos/eruditus), and thus their thoughts, reactions, and planning of their actions gain further interest as results of their high upbringing and education.

Finally, both men had tragic and inglorious endings, as they perished along with their ideals, and their deaths coincided with the onset of a markedly different era characterized by the suppression of individual freedom and the concentration of political power in a dominant figure.