Demosthenes, Speeches 1-17

13. ON ORGANIZATION

⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠ introduction The date and authorship of this speech are both disputed. It was accepted as genuine both by Libanius in his Introduction to it and by Didymus, who included it in his commentary on the deliberative speeches of Demosthenes (cols. 13.14–15.10). It is, however , uniquely among the surviving deliberative speeches, not included among the speeches for which Dionysius of Halicarnassus provides dates.¹ This, among other arguments, has prompted some scholars to deny its authenticity.² In my view, the speech is in fact genuine, for the following reasons.³ First, Dionysius’ omission of the speech does not prove that he judged it to be spurious; he may simply have been uncertain about its date and excluded it for that reason.⁴ It is worth noting in this regard both that Didymus was aware of two different dates that had been proposed for the speech and that the author of the ancient commentary on the speech writes that it does not have a¹Dates for Demosthenes’ earlier deliberative speeches are given at First Letter to Ammaeus 4.²See Sealey 1967, 1993: 235–237.³See more fully Trevett 1994; also MacDowell 2009: 226–227. ⁴It is important to appreciate that Dionysius gives the dates of the speeches not for their own sake (in which case the omission of this speech would be significant) but to prove that Aristotle’s Rhetoric was written later than Demosthenes’ deliberative speeches. The omission of a single, relatively early, speech would not materially affect his argument. It is also possible that Dionysius omitted to mention the speech by mistake. 13. ON ORGANIZATION ⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠⣠ 13. on organization 225 clear date, and so evidently its dating was a matter of debate in antiquity (see further below). Other arguments that the speech is spurious are not cogent. For example, there are two lengthy passages towards the end of the speech that are very similar to passages in other speeches (13.21–24 ≈ 23.196–200; 13.25–31 ≈ 3.23–32). This does not in itself show that the speech is spurious, since a similar reuse of material can also be observed in the two genuine speeches Dem. 8 and 10 and elsewhere in Demosthenes’ oratory. It has, however, been argued that differences of detail between the parallel passages indicate that Demosthenes cannot have written both and that therefore Dem. 13 is spurious.⁵ Yet it is hard to see why a forger would have wished to introduce minor changes into passages that he otherwise copied out almost word for word. Demosthenes, by contrast, certainly did have a motive to make changes: to make his historical examples fit his argument. This may strike modern readers as a dubious procedure, but it is not uncommon for Attic orators to rework historical examples in this way.⁶ It has also been found suspicious that only in this speech does Demosthenes refer to himself by name (12).⁷ But there is no compelling reason to see this as a sign of spuriousness, and in any case Demosthenes clearly alludes to his own name in a speech that is certainly genuine (3.21). In addition, technical analysis of the prose rhythm of the speech shows that it is fully consistent with Demosthenic authorship.⁸ The date of the speech was debated even in antiquity. The author of the ancient commentary found it hard to determine and guessed that the speech preceded the “Philippics” (i.e., the se- ⁵See 23n and 24n for the details. ⁶Thus Harding 1987: 34, noting that the audience was unlikely to know (or greatly care) whether such examples were correct, and was in any case unable to check them: “An orator could . . . distort a reference to suit his point, sometimes even invent one altogether. As long as it sounded reasonable , it was likely to be accepted.” ⁷The suggestion is that a forger introduced Demosthenes’ name to make it clear who the supposed author was. ⁸See McCabe 1981. 226 demosthenes quence of speeches dealing with Philip starting with Dem. 4).⁹ Didymus discusses the matter at some length and proposes 349/8, on the basis of the reference at 32 to an Athenian vote to march out against Megara, since he knew of conflict between the two cities in 350/49 (cols. 13.40–14.2). But he wrongly assumes that the speech came after the conflict, whereas it probably preceded it.¹⁰ Insofar as the speech makes no mention...