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ANTIPHON 1. AGAINST THE STEPMOTHER
- University of Texas Press
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ANTIPHON . AGAINST THE STEPMOTHER introduction This speech is delivered by a young man who is prosecuting his stepmother for poisoning his father. She is defended by another son, the speaker’s half-brother. The death occurred when the speaker was a boy (1.30); he must have turned eighteen, the minimum age for bringing a legal case, a few years earlier, because his younger halfbrother must also have turned eighteen. The “facts” are set forth in a vivid narrative (14–20), whose details must have come largely from the speaker’s imagination. There is no real evidence and little argument other than the allegation of an earlier attempt at a similar poisoning. Modern scholars have tended to accept the analysis of a similar (the same?) case in the Aristotelian treatise Magna Moralia (1188b29–38), in which a woman accused of poisoning her husband is acquitted because her intent was to secure his love, not to kill him; but the speaker seems to ignore this consideration, emphasizing instead his own loyalty to his father and his brother’s and stepmother ’s corresponding disloyalty, and drawing parallels with the story of Clytemnestra (17), who treacherously killed her husband Agamemnon and was in turn killed by their son Orestes. The appeal to stereotypical behavior of women as a continual threat to men— plotting, using drugs, concerned primarily with love—may have been more effective with the male jurors than an argument that she acted out of love, since even if the stepmother did not intend to kill, the Lit. “brother from the same father” (homopatrios). This must be the victim’s son from a previous marriage; the speaker’s mother probably died when he was very young (perhaps in childbirth), and his father remarried very soon. against the stepmother 45 jurors may have concluded that her behavior so threatened her husband ’s authority and the stability of the family that she deserved punishment. The case was tried before the court of the Areopagus, which heard cases of intentional homicide. As usual, we do not know the verdict and know nothing of the defense’s arguments beyond what we can surmise from this speech. The date is unknown but is usually placed in the period 420–411. antiphon 1. against the stepmother [1] I am still so young and inexperienced in legal matters, gentlemen , that I face a terrible dilemma in this case: either I fail in my duty to my father, who instructed me to prosecute his murderers, or, if I do prosecute, I am forced to quarrel with people who should least of all be my opponents—my own half-brothers and these brothers’ mother. [2] But fortune and these opponents themselves have forced me to bring this case. It would be more reasonable for them to seek vengeance for the dead man and assist my prosecution, but they did just the opposite: they opposed my suit and are thus murderers themselves , as I and my indictment both state. [3] If I show that their mother murdered our father intentionally and with premeditation, and indeed that she was caught in the act of contriving his death not just once but many times before, then I beg you, gentlemen, take vengeance, first for your laws, which you received from the gods and your ancestors, for you convict people by these laws just as they did; second, avenge the dead man, and at the same time help me who am left all alone. [4] You are now my family while they, who ought to avenge the dead man and help me, have become his murderers and my opponents. Where can one turn for help? Where can one take refuge except with you and with justice? [5] I am amazed at my brother. What is he thinking in opposing my case? Does he think piety consists simply in not forsaking his mother? Well, I think it is much more of a sacrilege to abandon ven- The plea of inexperience may already be a rhetorical topos (“commonplace”), but there is no reason to doubt that the speaker is young (see the Speech Introduction). [18.206.13.112] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:14 GMT) 46 antiphon 1 geance for the dead man, especially since he died as the involuntary victim of a plot, whereas she killed with full intention and foreknowledge . [6] How can he say he is “quite certain” that his mother did not kill our father? When he had the opportunity to...