 From then until the fourth century AD copies of his orations multiplied at a time when Demosthenes was deemed the most important writer in the rhetorical world and every serious student of rhetoric needed access to his writings.Texts of his speeches were in a relatively good position to survive the tense period from the sixth until the ninth century AD.Scholars have recorded 258 Byzantine manuscripts of Demosthenes' speeches and 21 of extracts.