Forensic Speeches Research Articles

ПРОБЛЕМЫ ЭВОЛЮЦИИ ЭТИКО-ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ ВЗГЛЯДОВ АНТИФОНТА В СВЯЗИ С ХРОНОЛОГИЕЙ ЕГО ТВОРЧЕСТВА

Antiphon was a significant figure in Athenian public life and social thought of the last half of the 5th century B.C. The article raises a question whether his opinions in ethical and especially political sphere changed. with the course of time. In his late career, Antiphonte acted as a staunch opponent of democracy, and in 411 BC he is known to have co-leaded an oligarchic coup in Athens and the resulting regime of the Four Hundred (for which he was executed after the overthrow of this government). The author proceeds from the following chronology of Antiphon’s work: “Tetralogies” and “On the truth” – 440s B.C., “On the concord” – 430s or 420s B.C., forensic speeches – 410s B.C. There are the following conclusions. In the field of ethics, Antiphon in his early treatise “On the truth” expressed some non-traditional opinions, which were even chocking for their cynicism, but in his later works he held more conservative views. As to his political position, it was never really democratic. Antiphon was and remained an opponent of democracy and proponent of oligarchy; it is possible that he gradually changed from a more moderate oligarch to a more radical one.

The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past by Matteo Barbato

Reviewed by: The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past by Matteo Barbato Christine Plastow (bio) Matteo Barbato, The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past. Edinburgh, GB: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. 252 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4744-6642-4. Barbato's book offers a new analysis of Athenian ideology through the application of a New Institutionalist approach to the city's democratic institutions as demonstrated by their use of stories from the mythical past. He argues for a middle ground between Marxist and culturalist understandings, characterising Athenian ideology as value-neutral, flexible, normative, constructive, and bidirectional. This is illustrated through an analysis of the varied presentations of four myths across several institutional contexts: particularly the epitaphioi logoi, but also tragedy, Assembly and forensic speeches, and private genres. An introduction lays out the structure of the book and summarises previous approaches to Athenian ideology; there is a particular focus on the Marxist approach of Nicole Loraux and others, and the culturalist approach illustrated by the work of Josiah Ober. The second chapter explores Athenian knowledge of mythology, identifying the theatre as its main source but also noting the importance of religious festivals such as the Panathenaia, public institutional contexts, and private learning. The third chapter establishes Barbato's theoretical approach, drawing on New Institutionalism to argue that the different democratic institutions of Athens had their own discursive frameworks and that discourse within them was necessarily structured by these: the need to create an imagined community in the funeral speeches; the requirement to argue in favour of justice in the law courts; the principle of advantage for the Athenians in the Assembly, and both justice and advantage in the Council; and the ability to play with the ideological frameworks of other institutions and the need to appeal to a diverse audience at the dramatic festivals. The subsequent four chapters examine the use of four stories from the Athenian mythic past in these institutional contexts and in private genres: the concept of Athenian autochthony, the sheltering of the Heraclidae, the Amazonomachy, and the assistance provided to Adrastus against Thebes. A short conclusion summarises the book's arguments and contextualises its contributions to the study of Athenian ideology, democracy more broadly, and interactions between Classics and political science. [End Page 88] There is much to commend Barbato's book. His analysis of Athenian ideology highlights two important points that are not prominent in the work on the subject to date. First, he emphasises that Athenian ideology was not fixed but fluid and dynamic, and that the presentation of ideological material necessarily differed based on the context in which it was delivered. This is an important point to grasp to understand the Athenians' apparent tendency to contradict themselves from source to source. Barbato successfully illustrates the appropriateness of different perspectives in different institutional contexts. For example, his nuanced analysis of the various versions of the myth of Adrastus presented in Lysias' funeral oration, Euripides' Suppliant Women, and Assembly speeches convincingly shows how the emphasis on or exclusion of certain narrative features—such as the hybris of the Thebans—can be manipulated to evoke aspects of the democratic ideology suitable to the setting. Second, he is right to draw attention to the fact that ideological material not only describes the audience's viewpoint but also moulds it by demonstrating a norm to which they are expected to conform, touching implicitly on an important point regarding the cognitive effects of rhetoric. Indeed, this methodology in combination with a cognitive approach could produce a particularly strong reading: for instance, how was the ideological result affected by the movement of audience members between the institutions and their memory of the different versions they had heard in other arenas? Barbato is working within a particular school of thought in the study of Athenian oratory that proposes that strict expectations of acceptability were in place in the various contexts of public speaking. Indeed, in his conclusion he summarises that the institutionalist reading of fixed discursive parameters in the institutions "corroborates the view that Aristotle's subdivision of the discipline into three genres was based on the observation of actual oratorical practice" (219). While the...

Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes

Abstract This paper investigates the distribution of different types of impersonal constructions in Attic oratory and focuses on the data taken from two political speeches, i. e., Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon (speech 3) and Demosthenes’ On the Crown (speech 18). The topic of impersonal constructions in Ancient Greek has not yet received much attention from scholars, with the exception of some studies devoted to singular aspects, e. g., the semantics and morphosyntax of impersonal verbs and the comparison with other Indo-European languages. No attention has been paid to the analysis of textual distribution of impersonal constructions and to the effects that impersonal constructions produce in communicative terms. This paper aims at filling the gap, by analysing different types of clauses under the umbrella of impersonal constructions. Some of them are usually recognised as impersonal constructions, while others are not. Constructions are of three types: the first includes constructions with impersonal verbs, e. g., δεῖ, δοκεῖ, etc., which are to be compared with the corresponding personal constructions. The second group contains some non-personal uses of grammatical persons, namely the non-referential uses of the first person plural and the clauses with indefinite subject τις. Finally, the third type includes constructions with non-human subjects, which display no-agreement in number between the verb and its external argument. The purpose of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at contributing to the debate on ancient Greek impersonal constructions; on the other hand, it investigates the role played by impersonal linguistic strategies in building the contents of forensic speeches and conveying the messages that orators wanted to communicate to the audience.

Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose: A Linguistic Approach by AlessandroVatri

Reviewed by: Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose: A Linguistic Approach by AlessandroVatri Vasiliki Zali-Schiel AlessandroVatri, Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 344 pp. ISBN: 978019879590 Vatri has produced a well-researched book that helpfully and skilfully marries the cultural-historical and the linguistic character of his work. The excellent use and review of scholarship enables Vatri to achieve the purpose of the book, which is to examine, with the help of modem psycholinguistics, whether there is any linguistic difference between classical Attic prose texts intended for public oral delivery and those intended for written circulation and private performance. The book starts with a thorough discussion of the complicated relationship between oral and written style (Chapter 1). The medium alone is not a decisive divisive factor because there is a great variety of communicative situations and priorities one needs to take into consideration even when the same medium is used. And this is indeed the case with Attic prose, where we cannot clearly distinguish between “literally” oral and written texts. However, the distinction between a written and a non-written conception can be traced very early in the development of ancient Greek stylistic theory (e.g., Alcidamas, Isocrates, Aristotle). For example, Isocrates in his Philip clearly marks the difference between speeches meant to be read and those meant to be delivered: those meant to be read may not be timely, hence their persuasive ability is compromised. Speeches for reading may also not manage to persuade the listeners because they may not be successfully delivered by the reader. This affects the reception of a text and changes the emphasis of the distinction between writtenness and non-writtenness from composition to performance. [End Page 96] Chapter 2 turns to contexts of reception. In classical Athens, close scrutiny of prose texts was possible in solitary and private group reading (“off-line” perusal) but not in situations whose norms of interaction excluded this possibility, such as public oratorical performances and semi-formal small- scale epideixeis. In such public competitive contexts, there was no room for anything but clarity (saphēneia) to convince an audience unable to revisit the text (“on-line” reception). Public texts could therefore not afford obscurity of expression by contrast to private texts (“where off-line perusal is possible, there is no need to take excessive pains to ensure the optimal on-line comprehension of a text,” 35). Hence, the different contexts of reception may be associated with linguistic difference. In Chapter 3, Vatri looks at the distinction between texts that were meant for off-line perusal/reception (scriptures) and those meant for on-line reception (scripts). The writing of Attic prose texts was quite a complex process, with several oral stages—and plausibly even oral composition— preceding written dissemination. But there were also revisions of publicly delivered texts (scripts), such as deliberative and forensic speeches, after their performance and often for the purpose of making a new version of the text public through written dissemination. After examining literacy and reading in classical Athens, Vatri determines the conception of written prose texts as scripts or scriptures proceeding on a genre-by-genre basis. Chapter 4 focuses on clarity (saphēneia), which was extremely important for texts meant for on-line reception (scripts) and especially so for public speeches in particular. The centrality of clarity of expression is already highlighted in ancient Greek rhetorical literature. For “Demetrius” (for example), clarity and familiarity are key to persuasiveness; persuasiveness and clarity can be achieved through plain style—an idea that can be traced back to the criticism of Aeschylus’ obscure language in Aristophanes’ Frogs. According to “Demetrius,” plain style is distinguished not only by its clarity but also by a vividness generated by precision (aknbeia). Both Aristotle and Isocrates consider precision an important feature of texts meant for reading, which may also generate saphēneia. Vatri then looks closely at a range of examples from ancient Greek rhetorical literature to examine what they say about the rhetorical devices employed to produce saphēneia. A recurrent issue in ancient discussions is ambiguity, which can be generated by vocabulary (e.g., ambiguous character of certain...

Impersonalización, modalidad deóntica y discurso judicial: un estudio del modal δεῖ en Lisias

Impersonalization is a communicative peculiarity of courtroom discourse and the modal verb δεῖ is one of the linguistic devices that encode it in Greek. Δεῖ expresses deontic modality, which includes directive value for the expression of orders and other directive speech acts. This paper offers a study of δεῖ in Lysias’ forensic speeches.

A Triangle in the Law-court: Speakers-Opponents-Audiences and the Use of the Imperative

AbstractThis paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of thepolis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.

Witnesses of an Orgy: Participants or Spectators?

In ps.-Dem. 59.34, Apollodoros calls as witnesses "bystanders" and "spectators" of the dinner during which Neaira had sexual intercourse with a lot of people, including slaves. Are they "eyewitnesses"? This unique designation in forensic speeches is in fact a way to distinguish them from other guests who took part in this orgy.

Антифонт. Фрагменты и свидетельства

Antiphon (c. 480–411 BCE) was famous in antiquity for his forensic speeches as well as more theoretical works, such as The Truth and On concord. He is also credited with the invention of logography as a profession. The majority of his heritage is now lost. The present publication contains a collection of scant doxographic evidence about Antiphon’s life and writings. The evidences are based on A. Lask and G. Most’ Early Greek Philosophy (2016).

Quel est votre verdict ?

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.

Oratio pro Aulo Caecina Cycerona – prawo pomiędzy jurysprudencją a retoryką

Punktem wyjścia rozważań autora jest prezentacja jednej z mów Cycerona w sprawie cywilnej, oratio pro Caecina. Na tym tle próbuje on odpowiedzieć na następujące pytanie, od dawna stawiane w nauce prawa rzymskiego: czy Cyceron był prawnikiem? W artykule zaproponowano spojrzenie na ten problem z dwóch perspektyw – historycznej i współczesnej. Zdaniem autora w perspektywie historycznej Cyceron nie był prawnikiem w rzymskim znaczeniu tego pojęcia; natomiast w perspektywie współczesnej powinniśmy go jednak uznać, stosując terminologię anglosaską, za jurist (nawet jeśli nie za lawyer). W artykule analiza prowadzona jest nie z pozycji historii prawa rzymskiego, lecz w ujęciu filozoficzno-prawnym.

The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory

The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory

<em>Kurios, Kuria</em> and the Status of Athenian Women

A term that has not been studied for the question of Athenian female citizenship is the adjective kurios. Rather than focus on the substantivized and technical use of the term as a female's guardian, this article explores the wider applications of the word kurios, particularly as an expression of power over property, the continuation of the oikos, and its connotations for citizenship. Women are in fact called kuriai over property in forensic speeches (D. 27.53, D. 45.74, [D.] 50.60, Is. 10.23, Is. 6.30). Examining these passages, I argue that women's power over property has legal connotations and is further proof of a female citizenship that shared facets with male citizenship.

Kurios, Kuria and the Status of Athenian Women

A term that has not been studied for the question of Athenian female citizenship is the adjective kurios. Rather than focus on the substantivized and technical use of the term as a female's guardian, this article explores the wider applications of the word kurios, particularly as an expression of power over property, the continuation of the oikos, and its connotations for citizenship. Women are in fact called kuriai over property in forensic speeches (D. 27.53, D. 45.74, [D.] 50.60, Is. 10.23, Is. 6.30). Examining these passages, I argue that women's power over property has legal connotations and is further proof of a female citizenship that shared facets with male citizenship.

Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater by Jon Hall

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 207 One cannot help but feel that this book is a missed opportunity. If, on the one hand, Feeney encourages readers to appreciate the exceptionality of Latin literature at every step of the way, on the other he fails to stress the importance of engaging with all the sources available, even when they are fragmentary and elusive. University of Canterbury Enrica Sciarrino Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater. By Jon Hall. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 190. Jon Hall's Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater provides a lucidly written, well-argued, and highly interesting study of Cicero’s use of “theatrics” (or, as Hall calls it, “showmanship,” 2) in his forensic speeches. As such, the book focuses on all the non-verbal forms of communication used by Cicero to persuade his audience, and sets Cicero’s practice into its oratorical, rhetorical, historical, and political context as far as the evidence (mainly Ciceronian) allows. Hall’s expertise in the material is evident in his many publications on Cicero, oratorical delivery, and gesture, along with his long-standing interest in performing Cicero’s orations in pedagogical context.1 Hall’s familiarity with the questions around delivery and gestures show in this book, which is full of excellent analysis based on well-chosen examples and provides a strong overview of the topic. The book is cleverly focused on the aspect of Cicero’s oratory for which he was most famous in his own time: his emotional appeal and the techniques by which he elicited passionate responses in the judge or jury. This focus not only ensures rich material , but also allows for connections with several popular strands in current classical scholarship, such as Ciceronian studies, the study of emotions and their expressions in Greek and Roman contexts, and the interplay between rhetoric and drama and performance . In his brief introduction, Hall sets the scene for his study by highlighting the historical and oratorical contexts of forensic speech in the Roman republic, as well as the enduring relevance of studying and understanding the power of non-verbal oratorical devices in public speeches. Hall’s modern example of an American congressman in the US House of Representatives using a child as a prop to support his argument on healthcare reform (3) is not judicial but political, and he rightly emphasises that these devices can be found outside the forensic context too. The first chapter provides the historical, rhetorical, judicial, and dramatic (i.e., related to Roman theatre) contexts for the “showmanship ” in Roman forensic speeches before the introduction of two early examples of Cicero’s use of showmanship (Pro Roscio Amerino and In Verrem 2.1). In the following chapters, Hall focuses on specific types of theatrics in, mainly, the Roman courts to explore the range of such showmanship and the ways in which these theatrics were employed. The second chapter focuses on the use of sordes, black and often filthy clothes donned to indicate a form of mourning (personal, political, or both). Hall must, of course, deal with Cicero’s and his supporters’ ill-advised use of sordes in early 58 b.c. to protest Clodius’ machinations against Cicero. In this analysis, Hall pushes the interpretation much further 1 Notably, Politeness and Politics in Cicero’s Letters (Oxford 2009) and A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (co-edited with W. Dominik, Malden, MA 2007). 208 PHOENIX than current scholarship has hitherto been able to do because of his contextualisation of and close familiarity with the social etiquette in elite republican circles. Moreover, he identifies a distinction between the formal rhetorical theory which focused on verbal communication and Roman cultural and dramatic practices in public: there was only so much the rhetorical handbooks could teach the aspiring orator. Chapter Three considers the ways in which appeals and supplications were used in the courts. As in the other chapters, Hall’s main focus is Ciceronian usage, but he rightly contextualises this usage by discussing non-Ciceronian instances (often ones recorded by Cicero) in the courts and outside of the courts. For example, the theme of appeals and supplications to judge and jurors was socially related to...

Rhetorical Strategy in Forensic Speeches: Multidimensional Statistics-Based Methodology

Rhetorical strategy is relevant in the law domain, where language is a vital instrument. Textual statistics have much to offer for uncovering such a strategy. We propose a methodology that starts from a non-structured text; first, the breakpoints are automatically detected and lexically homogeneous parts are identified; then, the shape of the text through the trajectory of these parts and their hierarchical structure are uncovered; finally, the argument flow is tracked along. Several methods are combined. Chronological clustering of multidimensional count series detects the breakpoints; the shape of the text is revealed by applying correspondence analysis to the parts×words table while the progression of the argument is described by labelled time-constrained hierarchical clustering. This methodology is illustrated on a rhetoric forensic application, concretely a closing speech delivered by a prosecutor at Barcelona Criminal Court. This approach could also be useful in politics, communication and professional writing.

Poverty as argument in Athenian forensic speeches

This article explores the way in which common assumptions concerning poverty were used to construct persuasion strategies in Athenian forensic speeches. These rhetorical tactics were supported by the dramatized presentation to the court of “poor people”. They provide valuable information on the perception of – and imagery on – poverty in the Athenian society of the late fifth and fourth centuries BC.

Attic Building Accounts and the Athenian Jury

My paper offers some new insights from the building accounts of the Erechtheion on the socioeconomic situation, ideology and mentality of Athenian citizen builders.In recent decades, the ideological and socio-economic profile of ordinary Athenians has mostly been studied through analysis of Attic forensic orations (Ober, Todd, Markle, with further bibliography). The social composition of Athenian juries has been deduced from the values speakers used in trying to persuade jurors. This creates an obvious danger of circularity, since ideological analysis of a speech presupposes some knowledge of the composition of the audience. Besides, this assumes a mechanical relationship between objective status and recognition of interests. Epigraphical material can provide independent information both about Athenian ideology and about the ‘hard facts’ of Athenian life.Attic building accounts, our richest source of information on the economic life of Classical Athens, have been studied for at least a century (Kuznetsov, Feyel, with further bibliography). However, thescholars studying Athenian democracy have usually concentrated on two particular aspects of the building documents: the builders’ wages, which were compared to per diems for political participation (Todd, 149-52, 156-7), and the remuneration of State officials at various stages of Athenian history (Hansen, 241; Loomis, 99, 101).I shall argue that the social composition of the building workforce, and the methods of its recruitment, are relevant for our understanding of the structure of Athenian society and of the dominant ideology. In the accounts of the Erechtheion – the only ones where the civic status of most workers is recorded – no Athenian citizen was hired on a daily basis: daily pay was reserved for metics and slaves. Architects and their assistants received a fixed salary. Other citizen workmen were paid by piecework or in a lump sum (Kuznetsov, 60-1, 67; Epstein, 104). I suggest that the citizen builders were unwilling to be hired by the day for ideological reasons. A daily wage did not encourage hard work, so the worker had to be closely supervised, like a slave. Being paid by piecework, or receiving a previously stipulated sum, our builder could be perceived, by himself and by others, as selling the products of his labor, not the labor itself. In other words, he was seen as an independent artisan, not as a hired worker. Moreover, the citizen builders had some means of their own. Even those who did not have independent means preferred military or political pay – the latter of which was never guaranteed – to the builders’ per diem, even though builders received twice as much. In these respects, there was no significant difference between farmers and craftsmen among Athenian citizens, so we do not need to account for certain motifs in the forensic speeches by supposing, as does Todd, that juries were chiefly made up of peasants: the attitudes that Todd associates with farmers were characteristic of urban workers as well.My conclusion is that in contrast to the demos in France and Russia during the age of the great revolutions there, the Athenians were not proud of being sans-culottes or proletarians. In this respect, their mentality was closer to the Anglo-Saxon – especially the American – mentality. I will adduce examples where this hypothesis can help to resolve some puzzling problems arising from literary sources.Bibliography:Sh. Epstein, 2008: ‘Organizing Public Construction in Ancient Greece’, Scripta Classica Israelica 27, 95-111 (review of Kuznetsov 2000).Ch. Feyel, 2006: Les artisans dans les sanctuaires grecs aux epoques classique et hellenistique a travers la documentation financiere en Grece, BEFAR 318.M. H. Hansen, 1991: The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, Oxford.V. D. Kuznetsov, 2000: Organization of Public Construction Works in Ancient Greece (in Russian), Moscow.W. T. Loomis, 1998: Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens, Michigan.M. M. Markle, 1990: ‘Participation of Farmers in Athenian Juries and Assemblies’, Ancient Society 21, 149-65.J. Ober, 1989: Mass & Elite in Democratic Athens, Princeton, NJ.S. Todd, 1990: ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the Attic orators: the social composition of the Athenian jury’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 110, 146-173.

Divorce in Classical Athenian Society: Law, Practice and Power

The practice of divorce in classical Athens sheds light on relationships which are fundamental to our understanding of Athenian society: between husband and wife, between separate households, and between household and state. The power which informs these relationships, as illuminated by divorce, can be measured not only in juridical terms, but in social and economic terms as well. The main primary sources for the study of divorce in classical Athens are the forensic speeches of the Attic orators. These speeches show that whereas it was easy, legally, to obtain a divorce, it was often complicated in actual practice. Divorce, in fact, was often avoided—even when the state intervened to mandate the dissolution of a marriage—and I argue that the practice of divorce, as opposed to the laws governing it, reveals an unexpected balance of power between the constituents to an Athenian marriage.

Hypereides, The Forensic Speeches. Introduction, Translation and Commentary by David Whitehead

Hypereides, The Forensic Speeches. Introduction, Translation and Commentary by David Whitehead. Oxford: Oxford UP 2000. XVII, 523 S. 75 £.

ταυτ' εγω μαρτυρομαι: Bystanders as Witnesses in Aristophanes

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to examine the function of bystanders as witnesses in Aristophanes. It includes an examination of the relevant passages and a presentation of the legal aspects that they exhibit. I argue that, while forensic speeches depict different types of assistance offered by the bystanders to victims of criminal action, the 'victims' on Aristophanes' comic stage, usually annoying intruders, fail to secure the assistance of those within earshot.