Speeches from Athenian Law

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Oratory and Law at Athens One of the many intriguing (and unique) aspects of Athenian law is that our information about it comes very largely from speeches composed for delivery in court. These date to the period 420–320 and reflect in part the high value the Greeks in all periods placed on effective speaking. Even Achilles, whose fame rested primarily on his martial superiority, was brought up to be “a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad 9.443). Great Athenian leaders such as Themistocles and Pericles were accomplished public speakers; epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, and history all made frequent use of set speeches. The formal pleadings of the envoys to Achilles in Iliad Book Nine, the messenger speeches in tragedy reporting events like the battle of Salamis in Aeschylus’ Persians, and Pericles’ funeral oration in Thucydides’ History are but a few indications of the Greeks’ never-ending fascination with the spoken word, and with formal public speaking in particular, which reached its height in the public oratory of the fifth and fourth centuries. i. oratory Originally, oratory was not a specialized subject of study but was learned by practice and example. The formal study of oratory as an “art” (technē), which we call rhetoric, began, we are told, in the middle  All dates in this volume are bce unless the contrary is indicated or obvious.  For a good brief introduction to oratory and the orators, see Edwards 1994. Usher 1999 has a brief but useful discussion of each surviving speech. 2 speeches from athenian law of the fifth century in Sicily with Corax and his pupil Tisias. These two are scarcely more than names to us, but another Sicilian, Gorgias of Leontini (ca. 490–390), developed a dazzling new style of speech and argument. Gorgias initiated the practice, which continued into the early fourth century, of composing speeches for mythical or imaginary occasions. This tradition of “intellectual” oratory was continued by the fourth-century educator Isocrates and played a large role in later Greek and Roman education. By contrast, “practical” oratory—speeches delivered on real occasions in public life—had been practiced throughout Greece for centuries . Athenians, in particular, had been delivering speeches in the courts and public assemblies since the days of Draco and Solon (late seventh and early sixth centuries), if not longer, though these speeches were not put in writing and thus not preserved. But as the participation of citizens in political and legal institutions increased during the fifth century, so too did the importance of oratory. The practice of writing down speeches for use in court began with Antiphon, a fifthcentury intellectual sometimes included (with Gorgias) in the group we call the Sophists. Antiphon contributed to the intellectual oratory of the period with his Tetralogies (sets of four fictional speeches each), but he also had a strong practical interest in law. Although he mostly avoided direct involvement in legal or political affairs, he gave advice to others who were engaged in litigation. Probably around 430, Antiphon began writing entire speeches for litigants to memorize and deliver in court. Thus began the practice of “logography”—writing speeches for others—and because these speeches were written, they could be preserved. Logography was a particularly appealing career for those like Lysias who were not Athenian citizens and who were thus barred from active participation in public life, and the practice continued through the fourth century and beyond. Antiphon and others also began to write down speeches they would themselves deliver in court or (occasionally) in the Assembly. One other type of practical oratory was the special tribute delivered  For differing accounts of these two figures, see Kennedy 1963: 26–51; Gagarin 2007.  See Gagarin 2002.  See further Todd 2005. introduction 3 on important public occasions, the best known being the funeral oration. These three types of oratory were later classified by Aristotle (Rhetoric 1.3) as forensic (for the courts), deliberative (for the Assembly ), and epideictic (for display). The speeches in this volume are all forensic. ii. the speeches We know almost nothing about the “publication” of speeches at this time, but there was an active market for books in Athens, and some speeches may have achieved wide circulation. An author may have circulated copies of his own speeches to advertise his talents or in political cases to make his views more widely known. Booksellers may have...