Greek Oratory

Patterns and Functions of the Enthyíneme in Attic Speeehes. According to the authors interpretation. Aristotle assumes in his Rhetoric that the enthymeme may fulfill three functions: it may increase the speaker’s credibility, or stir the emotions of the audience, or aim especially at the logical reasoning. A detailed study of 17 examples taken from Attic speeches shows that these three functions interact with one another. Particular attention is paid to the syntactic shape enthymemes may take, especially when embedded in conditional clauses. Differences of tense are also to be observed depending on the genre of the speeches. Gencrally speaking, enthymemes refer to the past in judicial speeches, but to the future in deliberative speeches.

In their pleadings Against Timarchos and On the false embassy, Aeschines and Demosthenes both evoke a statue of Solon erected on the agora of Salamis which would show the legislator with his hand inside his cloak, a gesture indicating his moderation when he spoke in public. The controversy about this representation has already been analysed in order to deepen various questions such as the conflict between the two speakers, our knowledge regarding Solon, the history of the Greek statuary or the reception of the past in Antiquity. The quarrel can be reinterrogated thanks to the heuristic tool of the truth-telling mechanism, used here in the sense of all the procedures, arguments and rhetorical figures that allow litigants to claim the truth. Then, the statue is a privileged means for both Aeschines and Demosthenes to put forward the direct knowledge that the jurors have of the facts. It is a point of tension from which one can examine the articulation between sight and knowledge in Classical Athens.

This is a set of slides on ancient Rhetoric and Oratory. As for other topics taught in the course "Approaches to Ancient Studies", it was meant just as a quick initiation, i.e. making the students aware of the significance of these activities which were so important in the Greek and Roman worlds.

The textbook used was D.M. Schaps, Handbook for Classical Research, Routledge 2011. I follow it quite closely in these slides as I was teaching this topic for the first time during a colleague's sabbatical year.

I had the opportunity to use this brilliant paronomasia:

"No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationary."

This is the first commentary in Italian on Lysias' speech 25. The Greek text reproduces that oxoniensis of Ch. Carey (2007), from which it departs in a few places. In the general introduction (pp. 9-48), some fundamental questions are first dealt with: the speech's title, legal context, dating, fictititious or authentic charachter. The second part initially focuses on the modern reception of this speech in order to enlighten the biases against Lysias in modern scholarship, which only a different comprehension of the nature of Athenian law system, given by anthropology, can remove. Eventually an original interpretation of this text is offered as a selected and ideologically oriented reconstruction of recent events of Athenian history. The commentary (pp. 66-94) discusses the linguistic and rhetorical aspects of this speech, such as, e. g., the use of argumentum e contrario and the reductio ad absurdum, it also addresses legal and historical issues, such as, e. g., the discussed identification of the accusators, the so-called 'sykophants', with little known personalities, mentioned in other sources.

P.Oxy. III 443 is a small fragment of papyrus written in the II/III century AD in a beautiful and calligraphic majuscule. Thanks to a new paleographic exam, it is possible to attribute it to the hand of the scribe A2 Johnson. This specimen contains few lines of a private oration. The author is an attic orator, probably Dinarchus. The identification of P.Oxy. III 443 allows a comparison with the other papyri copied by the same hand for what concerns both the bibliological aspects and the content.

In 346/5 BC, Aeschines prosecuted Timarchus, a well-known Athenian politician, under a procedure known as dokimasia rhētorōn. Timarchus was accused of illegally addressing the Assembly on account of his actions as a male prostitute and squanderer of his patrimony (Aeschin. 1.28-32, 154). In his accusation, Aeschines devoted much attention to the education and morals of Athenian citizens (Aeschin. 1.6-27) and Timarchus’ character and public career (Aeschin. 1.39-70, 106-115), conjuring the evidence of Homer and other poets to discuss homosexual love and the reliability of rumour (Aeschin. 1.125-40). As a result, doubts have been cast on Aeschines’ adherence to the legal issue at hand (Ford 1999; more cautiously Fisher 2001: 127-8), and it has even been suggested that the orator made up the procedure of dokimasia rhētorōn while actually prosecuting Timarchus under a graphē hetairēseōs (Lane Fox 1994: 149-51).

This paper puts these claims under scrutiny and argues that Aeschines’ rhetorical strategy in Against Timarchus was inextricably bound to the nature of the legal procedure. After reconstructing Aeschines’ plaint and the relevant legal allegations (Harris 2013), I shall provide a detailed analysis of his argument. Given the weakness of the legal charges against Timarchus, Aeschines abundantly relies on character evidence and pits the defendant against allegedly Solonian moral legislation. I will show that these evidence was relevant to the legal charges of prostitution and squandering of inheritance. Through a comparison with speeches dealing with other types of dokimasia (Lys. 16; 26; 31), moreover, I will show that Aeschines’ use of character evidence was engrained in the nature of the dokimasia rhētorōn and allowed the orator to prove that Timarchus was unfit for advising the dēmos on matters of public policy.

Hoe kwam Sparta’s koning Agesilaos tot de grootheidswaan dat hij het soevereine Rijk van de Perzische koning wel even omver kon werpen? Met kinderlijke eenvoud zet Artoxerxes de Grieken tegen elkaar op en blijft Athener Xenophon niets dan lof als Lakedaimon verslagen is en zijn dappere vriend 360/359 v.C. sterft.

يحاول هذا البحث إعادة فحص موقف أفلاطون ’العدائي‘ من البلاغة، كما يظهر في محاورتي ‘جورجياس’ و’فيدروس’. ويحاول استكشاف فرضية أن مفهوم البلاغة التي ينتقدها أفلاطون يشير إلى البلاغة السياسية وبعض أشكال البلاغة القضائية فحسب. ومن ثمَ يُحاج البحث بأن نقد أفلاطون للبلاغة هو نقد للخطابات السياسية التي تستهدف السيطرة على الشعوب بواسطة استخدام تقنيات التضليل اللغوية من ناحية ونقد للخطابات القضائية التضليلية من ناحية أخرى. ويحاول البحث الإجابة عن أسئلة محددة هي: ما البلاغة التي ينتقدها أفلاطون؟ ولماذا ينتقدها؟ وما البلاغة البديلة التي يقترحها أفلاطون؟ وهل يمكن تحقيقها؟ ويناقش البحث المشكلات التي ينطوي عليها موقف أفلاطون من البلاغة، وبعض الاستجابات المعرفية لهذا الموقف قديما وحديثا؛ سواء أكانت تنتمي إلى الفلسفة أم البلاغة. وتتضمن الخاتمة عرضًا لأثر نقد أفلاطون للبلاغة في البلاغة العربية.

With the help of a theoretical framework proceeding from the study of the distinction between oral and written discourse in modern languages, this paper approaches some linguistic phenomena present in the Apology of Socrates — anacolutha, discourse markers, repetitions, enumerations, etc. — as traces of spoken language, consciously placed by Plato in his literary recreation of his master’s oration. Thus, the claim made by Socrates at the beginning of the speech, that he has not prepared beforehand his defence, finds support in those stylistic marks, which contribute to enhancing the sense of spontaneity of his words.

V. G. Borukhovich regarded the classics as a complex of different disciplines. In this he followed not only his university teacher S.Ya. Lurie, but also the St. Petersburg school of history and philology as a whole, to which he undoubtedly belonged. As a researcher and creative person, S. Ya. Lurie influenced many aspects of V. G. Borukhovich, namely: on the problems of his works, on his translations of the works of ancient authors into Russian, on the methods and principles of his research. S. Ya. Lurie and V. G. Borukhovich were both historians and philologists. In V. G. Borukhovich’s research activities history and philology formed a close unity and, in many respects, determined not only his specifics as a researcher of the ancient world as a whole, but also his approach to the study of ancient literature. V. G. Borukhovich studied the history of Greek literature during all periods of his life as a researcher: in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) and Saratov. He explored in detail the most important genres of Greek literature: epic, lyric, drama, philosophical and historical prose, oratory and mythography. V. G. Borukhovich investigated development of the literary process like a historian, and in the study of historical problems he widely used the methods of philology.

The first history of acting theory in the West, from antiquity to the eighteenth century when the specific characteristics of the actor’s art were established. An account of the long cultural journey to understanding every aspect behind an actor’s on-stage transformation. 

Summary:

ACTING THEORY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
Divine Possession. Alteration and Contagion. Development of Dramatic Forms. Acting as a Specialized Activity. Emotional Tension and Frenzy. Persistence of “Ion’s” Doctrine. Moderation and Self-Control. The Emergence of the Character. The New Form of Emotional Involvement. The Actor’s Art and the Orator’s. The Use of Emotion. Emotion and Expression. The Techniques of Identification. Control and Perfection of Expression. Possibility of an Anti-Emotional Theory.
FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Theatre as a Source of Irrational Impulses. The Condemnation of Christian Authors. The New Image of Acting. The Humanist Ennobling of Theatre. Humanist Experiments and Court Performances. Professional Actors and the Commedia all’Improvviso. The Revival of Religious Opposition and the Actor’s New Status.
THE EARLY ITALIAN TREATISES AND THE THEORETICAL ACTING MODEL
The Academicians Establish the First Rules of Acting. Giraldi Cintio’s “Discorsi”. Angelo Ingegneri. Stage Characters as Reality Perfected. Leone de’ Sommi’s “Dialoghi” and Theory Based on Stage Experience. The Writings of Pier Maria Cecchini. The Theoretical Model of Acting. Flaminio Scala and the Decline of the Early Treatises.
THE WORLD OF ORATORY. PERRUCCI, GRIMAREST AND GILDON
The Theatre Controversy. The Horizons of Oratory. Recitation: the Mysterious Difference. The New Treatises. Andrea Perrucci, Recitation, Oratory and “Commedia all’Improvviso”. Experience, Rules and the Insufficiency of “Actio”. Grimarest. Gildon.
THE BIRTH OF EMOTIONALISM
The Dramaturgic Function of Recitation. Natural Recitation. The Beginnings of Emotionalism. Luigi Riccoboni. Acting by Improvisation. First Formulation of the Emotionalist Theory. Criticism of Riccoboni. Reform of the Code and Franz Lang’s Treatise. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos.
THE CRITIQUE OF ACTING AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONALISM. D’AIGUEBERRE, CIBBER, AARON HILL AND RÉMOND DE SAINTE-ALBINE
D’Aigueberre and the Founding of the Critique of Acting. Cibber’s Autobiography and Garrick’s and Foote’s Essays. Aaron Hill. Rémond de Sainte-Albine’s Treatise. The Functions of Technique. The Problems of Emotionalism.
ANTIEMOTIONALISM. ANTOINE-FRANÇOIS RICCOBONI, LESSING, DIDEROT
English Versions of “Le Comédien”. Antoine-François Riccoboni’s “L’art du Théâtre”. Lessing’s project. Sticotti and Diderot. Artistic Creation. The “Paradoxe” and Its Reasoning. The Characteristics of Sensibility. Real Life-Theatre Difference. Actors and Characters. The Problems of the “Paradoxe”.
THE END OF CENTURY DEBATE. ENGEL, BOSWELL AND TOURON
The Late Eighteenth Century: a Profusion of Treatises. The Work of the Author, the Creation of the Actor. Performing the Part. Study, Observation and Imitation. The Function of Sentiment. Engel’s Treatise. Boswell and the Levels of Interiority. Touron. Epilogue.

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.

Nei due discorsi raccolti in questo volume, Lisia descrive in maniera vivida le gelosie e le rivalità che animano la vita quotidiana dell'Atene di età classica. Chiamati a discolparsi da accuse di ferimento premeditato, i protagonisti di queste opere si mostrano infastiditi dallo scandalo, presentano la loro versione dei fatti, invocano la clemenza dei giudici dell'Areopago. Con la sua sottile arte di "creatore di caratteri", l'oratore modella personaggi affascinanti, testimoni di una società tanto diversa dalla nostra, eppure in grado di farci riflettere, a distanza di secoli, sulla complessità della natura umana.

The aim is to question the reason for the publication of judicial and demegoric speeches. We study the process of publication of speeches written with a practical purpose and their transformation in literary pieces. The speeches of Antiphon, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, Lysias, Andocides, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines and Hyperides are studied to understand this process.

This essay studies Demosthenes' use of the stereotype of tyranny in his portrayal of Philip II of Macedon. It draws on the Methodology of Discursive Institutionalism and shows how Demosthenes distorted the realities of Philip's rule in Macedonia.

[English Abstract] This is a study of Lysias' representation of the Athenian civil war (405-403 BCE), and in particular of the speaker's argumentation in some speeches (especially 12, 13 and 25 but also, shortly, 2, 16, 18, 26, 30 and 31). Lysias' rhetorical strategies in those speech are carefully reconstructed and analyzed in their legal context and at the same time integrated in the climate of post-war Athens, in which civic reconciliation was a main goal. Therefore Lysias is seen to consciously contribute to the construction of a collective memory of the traumatic past with different strategies, by demonizing the Thirty tirants, by downplaying the entanglement of the Three Thausends who had supported them and by omitting the role of Sparta in the reconciliation. Different methods and disciplines integrated each other throughout these analyses: philology, rhetorics, law and history.
[Italian] Dopo una lacerante guerra civile che ha diviso Atene tra il regime oligarchico appoggiato da Sparta e la resistenza democratica, nel settembre del 403 le due parti siglano i patti di riconciliazione e giurano per l'avvenire di «non rinfacciare il passato». È la prima amnistia politica della storia occidentale, in cui il divieto di ricordare equivale all'obbligo di non vendicarsi per le tante ingiustizie patite nemmeno attraverso rappresaglie giudiziarie. Un obbligo di oblio difficile da rispettare per le vittime dei Trenta tiranni; con esso tuttavia l'oratoria giudiziaria di Lisia, maestro insuperato del genere, deve costantemente confrontarsi. Il libro analizza i diversi racconti lisiani sul terribile biennio 405-403, che ha visto per Atene un rapido susseguirsi di catastrofi (dalla disfatta di Egospotami all'assedio, alla sconfitta nella guerra contro Sparta, all'abolizione della democrazia), anzitutto collocando ogni orazione nel suo originario contesto forense; nel contempo si mette in luce la perizia dell'oratore-logografo nel costruire una narrazione accettabile per la numerosa e variegata giuria popolare, in cui accanto agli ex partigiani democratici potevano sedere anche gli ex sostenitori dell'oligarchia. Lisia, così spesso accusato in passato di opportunismo e cinica manipolazione della verità, si rivela in realtà un interprete straordinariamente abile della necessità collettiva di rielaborare quegli eventi funesti senza riaprire i traumi della guerra civile. Il confronto serrato con le altre fonti disponibili, storiografiche ed oratorie, svela infatti una strategia molto accorta riguardo a cosa ricordare e cosa dimenticare. Contro i fraintendimenti e le semplificazioni che hanno spesso in passato ostacolato la comprensione dell'oratoria da tribunale, il saggio dimostra come essa costituisca uno strumento insostituibile, anche se non privo di ambiguità, per ricostruire la memoria collettiva della restaurata democrazia ateniese.

Around 1960, Giuseppe Schiassi focussed his attention on the corpusculum of the Athenian speeches written for the public ceremony held every year in the Kerameikos in honor of the Athenian soldiers fallen in war. After his 1959 commentary on Hypereides’ Epitaph and an article on Plato’s Menexenos (1962), he published in 1962 a commentary on the Epitaph transmitted as or. II in the corpus Lysiacum. Following in the steps of J. Walz, F. Zucker and F. Buchner, he pleads for the authenticity of the speech, interpreting it as a mature document of Lysias’ loyalty to the traditional ideals of democratic Athens, enriched with new panhellenic ideas. Though sometimes too confident in the possibility to extract personal opinions from the writings of the logographs, the commentary sets in a honest and clear way the arguments in favour of Lysianic authorship and gives an articulated picture of the place of the speech in early fourth-century Athens’ politics. His work still deservers the attention of all scholars interested in Lysias’ oratory.

This is a survey of recent work in Ancient Greek Law and covers several areas such as the unity of Greek Law, law in the Archaic period, literacy and Greek Law, legislation (nomothesia), the sources for Greek Law, homicide law at Athens, law and economy, and law and religion.

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.

Fourth-century Athenian orators of epitaphioi logoi and other Athenian panegyric attempt to portray fifth-century tragedy as fundamentally encomiastic of Athens. This is borne out by the rhetorical reception of two ‘epitaphioi mythoi’, i.e. myths handled by both tragedians and orators: Erechtheus’ repulsion of Eumolpus’ invasion of Athens and Theseus’ efforts to secure the burial of the ‘Seven against Thebes’. The orators’ ‘encomiastic’ view of tragedy marks a new departure in Athenian intellectual history and should be read against the background of other attempts to curate the city’s tragic heritage in the third quarter of the fourth century.

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.

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.

Examines the idea of the embeddedness of ancient Greek religion, suggesting a relational or network model, which focuses on the role of narratives in the shaping and sharing of religious ideas. This is illustrated with a brief examination of the employment of the concept of asebeia in Athenian forensic oratory; the range of meanings and network of concepts in which it was embedded; and, finally, the development of its association with dimensions of individual, civic, and cosmological risks.

'Ancient Greek Religion: "Embedded"... and Embodied' by Esther Eidinow, in C. Taylor and K. Vlassopoulos, eds. Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World, Oxford: OUP, 2015; reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

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”.

The latest issue (32, 2020, 2) is dedicated to Professor Ángel Martínez Fernández and -with its 854 pages and a total of 53 articles and two reviews in up to seven different languages- it is so far the largest and most varied volume in history of the publication.
Given the preferential dedication of Dr. Martínez, the discipline with the greatest number of contributions, with more than a dozen, has been epigraphy, especially in the Greek sphere, but also in the Latin one. Prestigious authors linked to universities and other Hellenic, Belgian, French, Italian or Spanish cultural institutions (del Barrio, Bile, Magnelli, Panayotou, Skordou or Tzanakaki) will surely make this number a reference in the matter. The theme of classical tradition also occupies a relevant place, with almost ten contributions that address various disciplines and approaches: mythology and cinema (Caballero), historical texts (Floristán, López Férez, Salas), music (Pérez Martel), fable (Redondo ), grammar (Sánchez Salor) or critical edition (Rodríguez-Pantoja).
With regard to other fields, textual criticism is the central discipline of articles that address issues such as authorship (Gallé), the Bible (Hernández Muñoz), historiography (Iglesias) or mythography (Torres). In Greek literature, works with a variety of genres are framed: on tragedy (Calero, Kornarou, Méndez Dosuna), proverbs (García Romero), epic (García López, Pòrtulas) or oratory (García Soler). There is also no lack of studies on philosophy, in its political aspect (Hernández Guerra) or on social and anthropological reflection (López Saco). And, of course, there are purely linguistic studies on the Greek language such as those by Lillo, Rodríguez Alfageme and de La Villa (the latter on epigraphic texts).
The richness of this number of Fortunatae is also underlined by contributions that delve into religion, with different orientations, such as its relationship with medicine (Calderón) or with Orphic hymns (Bernabé). Orphism reappears in Suárez de la Torre's article on magic, a theme that has also been a protagonist in Molinos-G's works. Teijeiro, Cravo and Papadaki. Finally, alchemy (Fernández García), astrology (Macías-Macías), agriculture (Ríos), numismatics (Marinakis and Stefanakis-Konstantinidi), intertextuality (Rodríguez Noriega) or orality (Ginestí) complete, among others , this multidisciplinary volume.

"Hellenistic oratory remains an elusive subject as not one Greek speech has survived from the end of the fourth century BC until the beginning of the first century AD. This collection of fourteen interdisciplinary essays offers a wide-ranging study of the different ways in which Hellenistic oratory can be approached.

Written by a team of leading scholars in the field, it examines the different kinds of evidence which shed light on the dynamic character of oratory during the Hellenistic period. All essays stress the pervasive influence of Hellenistic oratory and survey its different manifestations in diverse literary genres and socio-political contexts, especially the dialogue between the Greek oratorical tradition and the developing oratorical practices at Rome.

The volume opens with a detailed introduction, which sets the study of Hellenistic oratory within the context of current trends in Hellenistic history and rhetoric, and closes with an afterword which underlines the vibrancy and sophistication of oratory during this period. It will appeal to all students and scholars of Hellenistic history, society, and the history of rhetoric."