Attic Orators

This paper explores the principles underlying decisions to inscribe Athenian laws and decrees on stone, finding (against a recent paper by Michael Osborne) that many laws and decrees were not inscribed, including those of ephemeral significance. The basis of the paper is a comparative analysis of the inscribed record of 352/1-322/1 BC and the literary record of decrees proposed by Demosthenes, which extends across the same time period. It finds that three main criteria were relevant to decisions to inscribe: durability of intention; the intention to deliver a message; and religious content. The effect of the establishment of the state archive of papyrus copies of laws and decrees at the end of the fifth century is explored, and the existence of the archive identified tentatively as a factor, alongside others, explaining the very small number of extant inscribed laws from the fourth-century democracy (ca. 12) in comparison with the number of decrees (ca. 550-600).

Since Antiquity, Gorgias has been linked with some figures of style, named after him γοργίεια σχήματα.
But ancient testimonies are, on that matter, far less unanimous than modern ones. This paper deals
with two main problems : why do some ancient testimonies ascribe to Gorgias the invention of those
figures ? How was the phrase γοργίεια σχήματα created ? The criticism of excess in the use of
antithesis, parisosis and paromoiosis (which are the main Gorgianic figures) can be traced back to
Peripatetic and Stoic attacks against the Isocratic period. This criticism is first essentially focused on
Isocrates. It is only during the Quarrel between Atticists and Asianists that Gorgias' name became more
than an mere exemple, i. e. the paradigm of excess. The phrase γοργίεια σχήματα was probably forged
by Denys of Halicarnassus for that purpose. Therefore one should be cautious when considering
γοργίεια σχήματα as characteristic of Gorgias' style : it is an anachronistic (and rather isocratic) point of
view, based on criterias inherited from Atticism.

An analysis of Lysias' first oration in light of the typical adultery tale. This study explores some as yet unappreciated ironic touches in Euphiletus' account and examines some of the deeper structures that inform his seemingly transparent narrative. The article then considers the historicity of the speech: while certainty is impossible, there are indications that Lysias 1 could represent a rhetorical exercise, designed both to display the logographer's skill and to entertain.

It is commonly said that we know only a few verdicts of the forensic speeches preserved in the canon of the Attic orators. Moreover, the lists of successes and defeats drawn up by law specialists do not match. The survey of the known or conjectured results makes it possible to propose a clear and reliable list, which reveals a relatively extensive knowledge of the verdicts delivered: the jurors’ decision can be proposed with a certain probability for almost a third of the corpus. It is true that we know the sentence of pleadings written for or against one of the canon’s authors more than when they wrote their speeches as logographers, but our knowledge of the judgements is broader than what historians and commentators think and repeat. Jurors’ verdicts are of particular interest because they provide a better understanding of the speeches themselves, through the examination of the strategies that support the publication of a text.

This paper studies the way litigants in viewed the verdicts given by Athenian courts and is based on a catalogue of all cases mention in the forensic speeches of the Attic Orators. It shows that the Athenian believed that accusers won convictions when the proved the legal charges in the plaint and lost when they could not prove them. Litigants thought that unjust verdicts occurred because of false testimony or procedural violations. The Athenians did not view their trials as feuds in which the courts regulated enmity or contests of prestige among the elite. The function of the courts was to enforce the substantive rules contained in statutes. This essay has now appeared in The Use and Abuse of Law in the Athenian Lawcourts edited by C. Carey et alii (Brill; Leiden 2018): 42-74.

This chapter explores the development of ideas about legislation and legislative procedures in ancient Athens. It isolates an ideology of legislation that mistrusted legal change, and that came into conflict with democratic ideas and practices. It then discusses the creation of nomothesia procedures at the end of the fifth century BCE that reconciled the need for legal change with that for consistent and stable laws, and follows the workings of these procedures throughout the fourth century BCE.

This chapter discusses the place of metaphor in ancient and modern political rhetoric. It starts with the idea of metaphor in classical rhetorical and stylistic theories and juxtaposes it with modern cognitive theories, to note that the differences between Greek theorists’ and modern linguists’ views have often been misconstrued and overemphasised. It argues that the cognitive aspect of metaphor, well represented in Greek theorising, was sidelined in Roman and later tradition. It also analyses examples of some prominent types of metaphors in classical Athenian and recent rhetorical practice, including Cold War rhetoric, and discusses their real-life impact (including metaphors of states as structures and containers, personifications and body politic, and war as a sporting competition).

This paper aims to critically analyse the testimonies concerning Athenian impiety trials of the classical period. First, it reaffirms the arguments that some of them must have been an invention of Hellenistic and later authors. Second, it presents a likely political background behind the historical cases. Third, it discusses a number of legal issues, along with new arguments concerning the procedures employed. Finally, it examines some less well-known material from the fourth century BCE. Overall, it seeks to provide a possibly coherent and comprehensive framework of Athenian impiety trials based on their shared characteristics.

This essay studies the role of written documents in public cases in Classical Athens. The essay reviews the kinds of written documents available in the Metroon (laws and decrees of the Council and Assembly, honorary decrees from other states, records of trials, letters from officials and foreign kings, records of import and export duties, leases of mines and sales of property, lists of citizens). These documents were used extensively in public cases starting in the late fifth century (Andocides On the Mysteries, Lysias Against Agoratus) down the late fourth century (Aeschines Against Ctesiphon, Demosthenes On the Crown) and are often used more than the testimony of witnesses.

"In this volume, I study the 'state' documents (laws and decrees) preserved in the public speeches of the Demosthenic corpus. These documents purport to be Athenian statutes and, if authentic, would provide invaluable information about Athenian history, law, and institutions. Offering a comprehensive account of the presence of the documents in the corpora of the orators and in the manuscript tradition, the volume summarizes previous scholarship and delineates a new methodology for analyzing the documents.
Examining the documents found in Demosthenes' On the Crown, Against Meidias, Against Aristocrates, Against Timocrates, and Apollodorus' Against Neaera, the core of the volume provides a guide for the reliability of the individual documents, and advances new interpretations of important Athenian laws, such as homicide regulations, legislative procedures, laws on theft, seduction, naturalization, and outlawry. I argue that some of the documents have been inserted into the speeches in an Athenian environment at the beginning of the third century BC and are therefore reliable, while many others are later forgeries. These are early products of the tradition of historical declamations and progymnasmata, and could be used as evidence of Hellenistic oratory and rhetorical education."

The book provides a comprehensive study of Demosthenes' Against Leptines as a document for the reconstruction of Athenian fourth-century politics, law and public economy. The importance of the speech has been increasingly recognized in recent years, with research on Athenian lawmaking highlighting its centrality and the inadequacy of previous accounts, and work on honours for benefactors and on the liturgical system stressing its importance for understanding the development and conceptualization of euergetism. The speech is the earliest and only extensive ancient account of the ideological, theoretical and moral underpinnings of these institutions and developments. The introduction and commentary offer a comprehensive treatment of these aspects, providing historians with key insights into Athenians conceptions of public service, public honour and reciprocity. Other work has stressed the importance of the speech for the study of the Greek public economy, and the introduction and commentary make these aspects central. The Against Leptines stands at the crossroads of some of the liveliest and most important current discussions in Greek history, and this commentary aims to advance our historical understanding in these areas.

the article is available at https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Erga-Logoi/article/view/2055/1506

ABSTRACT: This article offers an analysis of the legal arguments that Demosthenes uses in his speech Against Meidias, concerning the punch, to prove that Meidias is guilty of hybris and that he (Demosthenes) deserves adequate (i.e. public) reparation for the outrage suffered. Demosthenes claims his right to a punishment (timoria) capable of repairing the collective, more than individual, damage. This claim appears to allow him, on the one hand, to legitimise, with effective legal argumentation, all the choices made in the aftermath of the episode of the punch, and on the other, to give a strong legal basis for requesting the death penalty for Meidias. The paragraphs 2-3 of the article deal with the choices Demosthenes made after the episode of the punch. Here I intend to show that Demosthenes is able to demonstrate to the judges the relevance of the procedural choices and to qualify them as ‘choices’ precisely because they were moti- vated and considered at length. In the following paragraphs of the article I discuss the legal argumentation that Demosthenes uses with regard to the ‘measure’ of the penalty required (the death penalty). The aim is to understand what roles the principle accord- ing to which Meidias’s hybristic conduct must be assessed from an overall view and the principle of justice as reciprocity play in this argument. The latter must take into account the merit of the epieikes Demosthenes as compared to the hybristes Meidias.

(see https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-demosthenes-9780198713852)

As a speechwriter, orator, and politician, Demosthenes captured, embodied, and shaped his time. He was a key player in Athens in the twilight of the city's independence, and is today a primary source for its history and society during that period. The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes sets out to explore the many facets of his life, work, and time, giving particular weight to elucidating the settings and contexts of his activities, as well as some of the key themes dealt with in his speeches, and thereby illustrating the interplay and mutual influence between his rhetoric and the environment from which it emerged.
The volume's thirty-five chapters are authored by experts in the field and offer both comprehensive coverage and an up-to-date reference point for the issues and problems encountered when approaching the speeches in particular: they not only showcase how Demosthenes' rhetoric was profoundly influenced by Athenian reality, but also explore its reception from Demosthenes' own day right up until the present and how his presentation of his world has subsequently shaped our view of it. The wide range of expertise and the different scholarly traditions represented are a vivid demonstration of the richness and diversity of current Demosthenic studies and the contribution the volume makes to enriching our knowledge of the life and work of one of the most prominent figures of ancient Greece will be of significance to a wide readership interested in Athenian history, society, rhetoric, politics, and law.

This chapter discusses the afterlife of Demosthenes as a political model in the Hellenistic period, and through his image the afterlife of Athenian democratic values in the Hellenistic world. It shows how political struggles in Athens between the heirs of Demosthenes' 'party' and pro-Macedonian politicians and philosophers shaped the later reception of this figure - the biographical tradition on Demosthenes has its foundation in slanderous assessments of his character and ability by Peripatetic philosophers after his death. Against the scholarly consensus, it argues that this was a minority tradition, and far from ignoring Demosthenes, a flourishing rhetorical and political tradition in the Hellenistic poleis saw Demosthenes as a political and rhetorical model symbolizing the civic virtues of a free city. This tradition is less represented in the works transmitted, but allusions to rhetorical exercises in Polybius and elsewhere and new papyrological finds shed light on its importance and its characters.

Looking into the heated discussions developed around Antiphon’s Tetralogies, one of the most controversial yet fascinating aspects concerns “the law forbidding just as well as unjust killing”, the prohibition  of «μήτε δικαίως μήτε ἀδίκως ἀποκτείνειν», which is mentioned four times in the second and third tetralogy. The prohibition is seemingly incompatible with the Athenian juridical system of the classical period, for it counted certain cases in which killing was considered lawful, therefore unworthy of punishment. This explains why some scholar has even got to deny that the trials depicted by Antiphon took place in Athens, as well as the juridical significance of the Tetralogies. This study, after an accurate analysis of the most authoritative opinions regarding the subject, suggests a personal new interpretation of the “law forbidding just as well as unjust killing”.

Emotions abounded in the Classical city-state. However, they were not exclusively considered to be disruptive factors jeopardizing the social harmony. Emotions were regarded as indispensable tools to internalize the collective norms and values – and thus ultimately helped strengthening the community. This volume, based on a 2017 conference, sets out to illuminate the pragmatics of emotions in ancient Greek communities of the Classical era from an interdisciplinary perspective. By bringing together contributions from philology, ancient history, and classical archaeology, it covers a wide spectrum of sources as well as methodological and theoretical approaches, and thus accounts for the variety of aesthetic, rhetorical, and performative means that contributed to the 'theatre of pathos' in the Classical polis.

In the long-running debate about Greek political ideals and the extent of individual liberty in the Athenian democracy, scholars have taken numerous positions, not infrequently founded upon Aristotle’s systematization of constitutions. This classification rested upon the philosopher’s view of democracy—or its “extreme” form, also found in Athens—as a disorderly, unlawful polity based on unrestrained freedom. This paper aims to question this influential testimony by highlighting the language of democratic discourse, based primarily on the surviving Athenian speeches as the source closest to the political beliefs of the majority of Athenian citizens. It will thus deal with the question whether the Athenians as individuals and as a collective believed that they should be able to “do whatever they wished” and “live however they wanted” and if they shaped their political system upon this premise. In doing so, this essay aims at a more complete understanding of what has been studied under the label of “Athenian freedom”.

Series: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies This study is devoted to the channels through which geographic knowledge circulated in classical societies outside of textual transmission. It explores understanding of geography among the non-elites, as opposed to scholarly and scientific geography solely in written form which was the province of a very small number of learned people. 20% Discount Available-enter the code FLR40 at checkout* Hb: 978-0-367-43970-5 | £96.00 * Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount and only applies to books purchased directly via our website. For more details, or to request a copy for review, please contact: Lizzi Risch, Senior Editorial Assistant, elizabeth.risch@tandf.co.uk For more information visit: www.routledge.com/9780367439705

This article discusses the rationale and the implications of the inclusion of slaves as victims of punishable hybris in the law about the graphe hybreos. It argues that hybris against slaves was a punishable offence in Athens not because slaves had institutionally and legally recognized rights or a modicum of honour, but rather because it was hybris, as a disposition to overstep and overestimate one’s claims to honour (although manifested in concrete acts), that was deemed unacceptable. The article also investigates the implications of the law for our understanding of the connectedness of ‘legal’ and allegedly ‘extra-legal’ spaces, as well as advocating an understanding of honour that is not necessarily competitive and zero- sum, but also cooperative and aimed at securing smooth social interaction in all spheres of social life.

Open Access: https://www.austriaca.at/?arp=0x003d1382

Die Reihe „Akten der Gesellschaft für griechische und hellenistische Rechtsgeschiche“ publiziert seit 1975 die Vorträge und Antworten, die auf den regelmäßigen Tagungen der Gesellschaft gehalten werden. Der vorliegende Band enthält dreißig Beiträge, die sich dem Recht Athens, dem öffentlichen Recht und der Administration in den griechischen Poleis, sowie Fragen der Sklaverei und Freilassungen widmen.

…

The series „Akten der Gesellschaft für griechische und hellenistische Rechtsgeschicht“ (Acts of the Society for Greek and Hellenistic Legal History) has been publishing the papers and responses presented at the regular meetings of the Society since 1975. The present volume contains thirty papers devoted to the law of Athens, public law and administration in the Greek poleis, and questions of slavery and manumissions.

CANEVARO M.
This chapter investigates the idea that appeals to memory can be exploited as powerful instruments of persuasion. Through close analysis of the fourth-century BC Greek orators’ frequent allusions to shared memories, especially of poetical texts, but also of laws, recent events and debates, it draws a nuanced picture of what was considered appropriate for an Athenian citizen to remember. Against extensive scholarly consensus, the chapter argues that our evidence does not support the idea that there might be an inappropriate, excessive, elitist and ‘undemocratic’ memory, but only that inappropriate uses of memory can be made. The orators’ claims that their audience surely remember a certain fact, or law, are at times used to manipulate and misdirect the audience’s expectations, lending authority to the orators’ own questionable, and sometimes false, statements. Such rhetorical manipulations of the memory of individuals could also achieve the goal of constructing new shared collective memories. This complex dynamic in the use (and abuse) of memory claims and ascriptions attests to the enduring authority of memory, collective and individual, in the public discourse.

https://www.steiner-verlag.de/Raeume-der-Reputation/9783515122337           

Dass sich Reputation und Anerkennung in vormodernen Gesellschaften, darunter im spätklassischen Athen, über Kommunikation in der Öffentlichkeit konstituierten, gilt als unbestritten. Wie wirkten sich aber Präsenz und Agieren in bestimmten Räumen, etwa auf der Straße oder der Agora, auf die Reputation der Athener aus? Welche Strategien setzten sie beim öffentlichen Auftreten ein und über welche Medien erfolgte die bürgerliche Kommunikation? Wie strukturierten Räume das Handeln der athenischen Bürger und inwiefern prägten soziale Normen ihr Alltagsverhalten?

Antworten auf diese Fragen findet Rafał Matuszewski im athenischen Stadtbild: von den Straßen und Wegen, über die Agora, Bäder, Walkereien, Bordelle, Gymnasien und Palästren bis hin zu den Läden der Barbiere, Parfümhersteller, Schuhmacher und den Tischen der Bankiers, aber auch in Hotels, Wirts- und Spielhäusern. Darüber hinaus nimmt er gesellschaftliche Verhaltensnormen und Kommunikationsmedien der Athener in den Blick und zeigt, wie Räumlichkeit, Normativität und Sozialität im spätklassischen Athen miteinander verschränkt waren. So entwirft Matuszewski ein anschauliches Bild der Lebenswelt athenischer Bürger im 4. Jh. v. Chr.

M. Curnis, L'Ificrate di Aristotele, in Aristotele citatore o la riappropriazione da parte della filosofia dei discorsi di sapere anteriori / Aristote citateur
ou la réappropriation par la philosophie des discours de savoir antérieurs
a cura di Elisabetta Berardi, Maria Paola Castiglioni, Marie-Laurence Desclos, Paola Dolcetti, Edizioni dell'Orso, Alessandria 2020, pp. 307-327.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview and to explore the different ways in which the text of a statute, among other pisteis, was employed in fourth-century Athenian forensic speeches in order, i) to support the claims of the speaker, and ii) to counter the arguments of his opponent, sometimes based on the same statute.

Initially, it is necessary to distinguish between on the one hand, modern concepts of abuse of law and abusive exercise of individual rights and on the other hand, how similar notion may have operated in the idiosyncratic legal framework of classical Athens. For this purpose it is helpful to define “use of law” as the invocation of legal provision(s) in order to circumscribe litigants’ actions and to construct their arguments (i.e. justify, support their claims or further their interests) and “abuse of law” as any treatment of legal rule(s) by a litigant so as to confer an (unfair?) advantage to his case.

Most often statutes submitted in the anakrisis stage, were read by the clerk in the law court and were used in order
• to support the central claim and advance the arguments of the speaker
• to illustrate the violation of law by the opponent
• to discount the opponent’s arguments
• to legitimize the use of a particular legal procedure
• to underline any dealings of the opponent(s) with the law, accusations, convictions, or even pending trials in order to taint his reputation and to depict the speaker as law-abiding, moderate citizen.

The most usual technique of introducing a law into a law court speech was to paraphrase it; the speaker could then proceed to explain – interpret key words or legal terms using arguments, a contrario, ex minore ad maiore (or vice verso), by analogy, by extending or contracting the meaning of a provision, or referring to the presumed will of the legislator.

Sometimes, the treatment of a legal rule turns out to be a bit more drastic, such as manipulating key elements of a legal rule (e.g. the speaker may be economical with the truth), adulterating a legal rule with elements from similar institutions or social expectations, or finally manoeuvring into the plethora of available judicial procedures.

In conclusion, the question of use and abuse of law in classical Athens pertains essentially to the interpretation of a legal rule; instead of treating them as two diametrically opposed notions, it might have been more fruitful to consider them as parts of a spectrum, of an interpretative continuum, defined by the absolute respect for the text of the law and the desire to win the case.

In their analysis of the Athenians' shared image of their past as an essential element of Athenian collective identity, scholars have largely focused on polis-wide commemorative activities such as the Athenian public funeral oration for the war dead. Taking the inherent multipolarity of social memory into account, this paper examines the collective memories of two types of Athenian subgroups , namely demes and tribes, and explores how their shared memories and the 'official' Athenian polis tradition mutually influenced and sustained each other in th-and th-century Athenian public discourse. Im Zentrum der Analyse des Geschichtsbilds der Athener als integralem Element ihrer kol-lektiven Identität standen bisher vornehmlich die polisweiten Formen des öffentlichen Ge-denkens, wie z. B. die öffentliche Leichenrede für die gefallenen Athener. Ausgehend von der dem kollektiven Gedächtnis inhärenten Multipolarität widmet sich dieser Beitrag den in den Demen und Phylen gepflegten Erinnerungen und untersucht, wie diese und die ‚offizielle' athenische Polistradition sich im öffentlichen Diskurs der Athener im. und. Jahrhundert v. Chr. gegenseitig beeinflussten und stützten.

This paper begins by demonstrating that speakers in the Assembly did not misrepresent major events in recent history. An examination of Demosthe- nes’ speeches to the Assembly shows that his statements about recent events are accurate but are usually brief. This is true for speeches to the Assembly found in Thucydides and Xenophon. The main part of the essay shows that the speech On the Peace attributed to Andocides makes major mistakes about recent events (such as the walls and fleet of Athens, peace between the Boeotians and the Spartans, Athenian control over Euboea, peace with Persia, etc.). The speech also does not conform to the rhetorical conventions of the Assembly (naming one’s ancestors, giving lengthy accounts of past events), con- tains statements about presbeis autokratores which are inconsistent with the evidence for this institution in Classical Greece and uses the term spondai in a way unparalleled in Classical sources. All this evidence shows that the speech is not a genuine work of Andocides but a forgery composed in the Hellenistic or Roman period.

Dans l’Athènes classique, la femme est le plus souvent caractérisée par sa discrète soumission, que les « silences de l’histoire » tendent à renforcer. Attachée éternellement à un tuteur (kyrios), la femme passe de la surveillance de son père ou de son frère à celle de son mari. Mais certaines sources permettent de déceler quelques failles, dès lors que la famille athénienne implose sous l’effet d’une tension interne. La tragédie attique permet ainsi de mettre en scène des femmes prenant en main leur destin à l’occasion d’une crise (Médée, Clytemnestre, Antigone), s’émancipant des modèles masculins de domination et s’appropriant même les symboles virils de puissance et de décision, jusqu’à la saisie de l’épée et au meurtre. Les procès d’héritage du IV e siècle av. J.-C. laissent aussi entrevoir des personnalités féminines qui modifient le premier constat d’une totale et irréversible dépendance des épouses-mères de l’Athènes classique.