Demosthenes, Speeches 18 and 19

Series Introduction: Greek Oratory

oratory in classical athens From as early as Homer (and undoubtedly much earlier) the Greeks placed a high value on effective speaking. Even Achilles, whose greatness was primarily established on the battlefield, was brought up to be “a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad 9.443); and Athenian leaders of the sixth and fifth centuries,1 such as Solon, Themistocles, and Pericles, were all accomplished orators. Most Greek literary genres —notably epic, tragedy, and history—underscore the importance of oratory by their inclusion of set speeches. The formal pleadings of the envoys to Achilles in the Iliad, the messenger speeches in tragedy reporting events like the battle of Salamis in Aeschylus’ Persians or the gruesome death of Pentheus in Euripides’ Bacchae, and the powerful political oratory of Pericles’ funeral oration in Thucydides are but a few of the most notable examples of the Greeks’ never-ending fascination with formal public speaking, which was to reach its height in the public oratory of the fourth century. In early times, oratory was not a specialized subject of study but was learned by practice and example. The formal study of rhetoric as an “art” (technē) began, we are told, in the middle of the fifth century in Sicily with the work of Corax and his pupil Tisias.2 These two are SERIES INTRODUCTION Greek Oratory By Michael Gagarin 1 All dates in this volume are bc unless the contrary is either indicated or obvious. 2 See Kennedy 1963: 26 –51. Cole 1991 has challenged this traditional picture, arguing that the term “rhetoric” was coined by Plato to designate and denigrate an activity he strongly opposed. Cole’s own reconstruction is not without prob00 -T3098-FM 10/14/04 3:20 PM Page xi scarcely more than names to us, but another famous Sicilian, Gorgias of Leontini (ca. 490–390), developed a new style of argument and is reported to have dazzled the Athenians with a speech delivered when he visited Athens in 427. Gorgias initiated the practice, which continued into the early fourth century, of composing speeches for mythical or imaginary occasions. The surviving examples reveal a lively intellectual climate in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, in which oratory served to display new ideas, new forms of expression, and new methods of argument.3 This tradition of “intellectual” oratory was continued by the fourth-century educator Isocrates and played a large role in later Greek and Roman education. In addition to this intellectual oratory, at about the same time the practice also began of writing speeches for real occasions in public life, which we may designate “practical” oratory. For centuries Athenians had been delivering speeches in public settings (primarily the courts and the Assembly), but these had always been composed and delivered impromptu, without being written down and thus without being preserved . The practice of writing speeches began in the courts and then expanded to include the Assembly and other settings. Athens was one of the leading cities of Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries, and its political and legal systems depended on direct participation by a large number of citizens; all important decisions were made by these large bodies, and the primary means of influencing these decisions was oratory .4 Thus, it is not surprising that oratory flourished in Athens,5 but it may not be immediately obvious why it should be written down. The pivotal figure in this development was Antiphon, one of the fifth-century intellectuals who are often grouped together under the xii demosthenes, speeches 18 and 19 lems, but he does well to remind us how thoroughly the traditional view of rhetoric depends on one of its most ardent opponents. 3 Of these only Antiphon’s Tetralogies are included in this series. Gorgias’ Helen andPalamedes, Alcidamas’ Odysseus, and Antisthenes’Ajax andOdysseus are translated in Gagarin and Woodruff 1995. 4 Yunis 1996 has a good treatment of political oratory from Pericles to Demosthenes. 5 All our evidence for practical oratory comes from Athens, with the exception of Isocrates 19, written for a trial in Aegina. Many speeches were undoubtedly delivered in courts and political forums in other Greek cities, but it may be that such speeches were written down only in Athens. 00-T3098-FM 10/14/04 3:20 PM Page xii name “Sophists.”6 Like some of the other sophists he contributed to the intellectual oratory of...