Comment dire l’excellence ? Quelques remarques sur le vocabulaire de la distinction dans les plaidoyers politiques de Démosthène

Abstract

In Demosthenes’ political forensic speeches, the leader’s excellence is based upon a certain number of traditional virtues that define the ἦθος of the city, but most of all upon a set of qualities (summarised by the notions of εὔνοια and προθυμία which pertain both to the origins and to the nature of the individual. Examining certain terms referring to those qualities brings to light a possible tension between the criteria of excellence, belonging to an elite and inherited from an aristocratic perspective. Contrary to characters like Meidias or Aeschines, the good leader readily makes use of his personal talents for the benefit of the community and the defence of city’s order, embodying its political choices and its ideals. This study also reveals Demosthenes’ evolution towards the end of his career, corresponding to recent history and to Athens’ defeat to Philip. Excellence is not anymore measured by success, but by loyalty to a political project (προαίρεσις). The orator then appropriates an aristocratic vocabulary (καλὸς κἀγαθός, γενναῖος), which he adapts to the democratic setting and which ideally conveys the heroic dimension that the political man acquires, as an actor in the Athenian tragedy.