The Rhetoric of the Past in Demosthenes and Aeschines : Oratory, History, and Politics in Classical Athens

In democratic Athens, mass citizen audiences - whether in the lawcourts, or in the political Assembly and Council, or when gathered for formal civic occasions - frequently heard politicians and litigants discussing the city's past, and manipulating it for persuasive ends. The Rhetoric of the Past in Demosthenes and Aeschines explores how these dynamics worked in practice, taking two prominent mid-fourth-century politicians (and bitter adversaries) as focal points. While most recent scholarly treatments of how the Athenians recalled their past concentrate on collective processes, this work looks instead at the rhetorical strategies devised by individual orators, examining what it meant for Demosthenes or Aeschines to present particular 'historical' examples, arguments, and illustrations in particular contexts. It argues that discussing the Athenian past - and therefore discussing a core aspect of Athenian identity itself - offered Demosthenes and Aeschines, among others, an effective and versatile means both of building and highlighting their own credibility, authority, and commitment to the democracy and its values, and of competing with their rivals, whose own versions and handling of the past they could challenge and undermine as a symbolic attack on those rivals' wider competence. Recourse to versions of the past also offered orators a way of reflecting on a troubled contemporary geopolitical landscape in which Athens first confronted the enterprising Philip II of Macedon and then coped with Macedonian hegemony. The work covers the full range of Demosthenes' and Aeschines' surviving public speeches, and the extended opening chapter includes synoptic surveys of key individual topics which feed into the main discussion. Cover The Rhetoric of the Past in Demosthenes and Aeschines: Oratory, History, and Politics in Classical Athens Copyright Acknowledgements Contents List of Editions, Translations, and Abbreviations Editions Translations Abbreviations Introduction: Polyeuctus Imagines a Statue Chapter 1: The Orators and the Athenian Past 1.1. The Past in the Physical City 1.2. Fictions 1.3. Why the Past? 1.4. Using the Past 1.5 Approaches 1.6. An Outline of the Historical Context 1.7 Texts 1.7.1. Revision and Dissemination 1.7.2. Authenticity and Authorship Chapter 2: Demosthenes’ Early Career: Against Leptines and Other Speeches 2.1 Introduction and Overview 2.2. Democracy in Danger? 2.3. Symbolic History 2.4. Conclusion Chapter 3: Demosthenes’ Assembly Speeches 3.1. Introduction and Overview 3.2 Applying the Past 3.2.1. The Past, Rightly Applied 3.2.2. Applying the Right Past 3.3 Three Key Techniques 3.3.1. The Continuum in Peril? 3.3.2. Athens by Others 3.3.3. The Uniqueness of Athens 3.4. Modelling Demosthenes 3.5 Conclusion Chapter 4: Against Meidias and Against Timarchus 4.1. Introduction and Overview 4.2. Demosthenes: Against Meidias 4.2.1. Demosthenes’ Approach 4.2.2. Meidias and Alcibiades 4.2.3. Summary 4.3. Aeschines: Against Timarchus 4.3.1. Aeschines’ Parallel Athens 4.3.2. Casting, Ēthos, and Anticipation Conclusion Chapter 5: The Embassy Trial 5.1. Introduction, Overview, and Text 5.2. Demosthenes and the Prosecution 5.2.1. Aeschines and Solon 5.2.2. Aeschines as Envoy: The Timagoras Parallel 5.3. Aeschines and Defence 5.3.1. Confronting Demosthenes 5.3.2. Aeschines at Pella (2.25–33 and 113–18) 5.3.3. Aeschines’ Fifth Century (2.172–7) 5.4 Conclusion Chapter 6: The Crown Trial 6.1. Introduction, Overview, and Text 6.2. Darkest Hours, Finest Hours: Aeschines, Solon, Demosthenes 6.3. Aeschines Transfigured: The Epilogos of Against Ctesiphon and the Climax of on the Crown 6.4. Aeschines' Monuments and Demosthenes' Epilogos 6.5 Conclusion Conclusion: Athens Transfigured Bibliography Index Locorum General Index In democratic Athens, mass citizen audiences - whether in the lawcourts, or in the political Assembly and Council, or when gathered for formal civic occasions - frequently heard politicians and litigants discussing the city's past, and manipulating it for persuasive ends. The Rhetoric of the Past in Demosthenes and Aeschines explores how these dynamics worked in practice, taking two prominent mid-fourth-century politicians (and bitter adversaries) as focal points. 0While most recent scholarly treatments of how the Athenians recalled their past concentrate on collective processes, this work looks instead at the rhetorical strategies devised by individual orators, examining what it meant for Demosthenes or Aeschines to present particular 'historical' examples, arguments, and illustrations in particular contexts. It argues that discussing the Athenian past - and therefore discussing a core aspect of Athenian identity itself - offered Demosthenes and Aeschines, among others, an effective and versatile means both of building and highlighting their own credibility, authority, and commitment to the democracy and its values, and of competing with their rivals, whose own versions and handling of the past they could challenge and undermine as a symbolic attack on those rivals' wider competence. Recourse to versions of the past also offered orators a way of reflecting on a troubled contemporary geopolitical landscape in which Athens first confronted the enterprising Philip II of Macedon and then coped with Macedonian hegemony. The work covers the full range of Demosthenes' and Aeschines' surviving public speeches, and the extended opening chapter includes synoptic surveys of key individual topics which feed into the main discussion This work examines how politicians in late classical Athens made persuasive use of the city’s past when addressing mass citizen audiences, especially in the law courts and Assembly. It focuses on Demosthenes and Aeschines—both prominent statesmen, and bitter rivals—as its case-study orators. Recent scholarly treatments of how the Athenians remembered their past tend to concentrate on collective processes; to complement these, this work looks at the rhetorical strategies devised by individual orators, examining what it meant for Demosthenes or Aeschines to present particular ‘historical’ examples (or paradigms/paradeigmata), arguments, and illustrations in particular contexts. It argues that discussing the Athenian past—and therefore a core aspect of Athenian identity itself—offered Demosthenes and Aeschines (and others) an effective and versatile means both of building and highlighting their own credibility, authority, and commitment to the democracy and its values, and of competing with their rivals, whose own versions and handling of the past they could challenge and undermine as a symbolic attack on those rivals’ wider competence. Recourse to versions of the past also offered orators a way of reflecting on a troubled contemporary geopolitical landscape where Athens first confronted the enterprising Philip II of Macedon and then coped with Macedonian hegemony. The work, which covers all of Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ surviving public oratory, is constructed round a series of detailed readings of individual speeches and sets of speeches (Chapters 2 to 6), while Chapter 1 offers a series of synoptic surveys of individual topics which inform the main discussion. Offering an incisive analysis of all surviving public speeches of contemporaries and bitter rivals Demosthenes and Aeschines, this volume examines how democratic politicians in classical Athens created versions of the city's past to persuade mass decision-making audiences, cement their own authority, and compete for public endorsement.