The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes

2017

This thesis examines Demosthenes’ rhetorical use of Athenian ideology in his deliberative speeches from 351-341 BCE. I argue that during this period of crisis, which is usually narrated in terms of conflict with Macedonia, Demosthenes confronts an internal crisis within the Assembly. While Demosthenes’ deliberative speeches have traditionally been defined as ‘Philippic’, this thesis argues that the speeches do not prioritise an ‘Anti- Macedonian’ agenda, but rather focus on confronting the corruption of the deliberative decision-making process. Due to an attitude of apathy and neglect, Demosthenes’ rhetoric suggests that their external problems are a direct product of this internal crisis, both of which are perpetuated by their failure to recognise how self-sabotaging practices undermine the polis from within. As he asserts in On the Chersonese and the Third Philippic, they cannot hope to deal with their external situation before they deal with their internal crisis. To address this...

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2008.07.49

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 2020

Demosthenes, in criticism of the demos, elaborately evokes an ideal of Athenian past accomplishments and character, as portrayed in the epitaphioi logoi, to shame the Athenians into acting against Philip. This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr Niall Livingstone. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 60 (2020) 544–573 (updated pagination)

Klio 97/1, 2015 (long version); Sehepunkte 13, 2013, nr. 7/8 (short version)

Writing Matters: Presenting and Perceiving Monumental Inscriptions in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 2017

After the Athenians regained their freedom from Demetrios Poliorketes, they voted honorary decrees for a variety of different individuals, including some who received the highest honours which the city could award. One of these men was the orator Demosthenes who had died some forty-one years before. Since Demosthenes had taken no part in the fight against Demetrios Poliorketes, he was not necessarily the most obvious candidate for such awards. In this essay, I ask why the Athenians chose to honour him in this way at this time so many years after his suicide in 322 B.C. As I argue, honouring Demosthenes in 281/0 B.C. created a very particular picture of the honorand as a fighter of Macedonians and a democratic martyr. The composite memorial created by the honorary decree and the figure allowed the city to claim Demosthenes as an exemplary Athenian and the standard against which good citizens should be measured. It also permitted the Athenians to link the current democratic regime with the fourth-century past and to elide the difficult years between 322 and 286, when the city had not always been democratically ruled. The imagery presented in this composite monument, like the events of the past, may now have seemed fixed, but the erection of other structures and subsequent political developments were to demonstrate its mutability and instability. These changing circumstances not only required the past to be rewritten in the present, but they also changed the ways in which different monuments will have been perceived by viewers and readers.

The Hellenistic Reception of Athenian Democracy and Political Thought, 2018

This chapter discusses the afterlife of Demosthenes as a political model in the Hellenistic period, and through his image the afterlife of Athenian democratic values in the Hellenistic world. It shows how political struggles in Athens between the heirs of Demosthenes' 'party' and pro-Macedonian politicians and philosophers shaped the later reception of this figure - the biographical tradition on Demosthenes has its foundation in slanderous assessments of his character and ability by Peripatetic philosophers after his death. Against the scholarly consensus, it argues that this was a minority tradition, and far from ignoring Demosthenes, a flourishing rhetorical and political tradition in the Hellenistic poleis saw Demosthenes as a political and rhetorical model symbolizing the civic virtues of a free city. This tradition is less represented in the works transmitted, but allusions to rhetorical exercises in Polybius and elsewhere and new papyrological finds shed light on its importance and its characters.

Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai) Athenian Democracy in the Making, 2022

Demosthenes is recognized as one of the great orators of antiquity and as a defender of Athenian democracy and freedom, particularly in voicing his concern about the growth of Macedonian power. While the defence of democracy is a recurring theme in his speeches, Demosthenes did not develop a theory of democracy. Rather, he tended to idealize the Athenian democratic experience prior to the Peloponnesian War. Further, in his defence of democracy and the ethos of the democratic citizen, Demosthenes references oligarchy, though again not from a theoretical perspective. The objective of this paper is to analyse Demosthenes's use of the democratic and oligarchical forms of government in his defence of Athens, with a focus on his construction of an antithesis between them and his deployment of the Athenian experiences with oligarchy in 411 and 404 BC in his oratory.

Classical Quarterly, 2015

More information: this article redefines the notion of ekphrasis as any account credited with the ability to bring images before one’s eyes, and shows that ekphrasis, when skillfully deployed as in Demosthenes 18 and 19, is a powerful weapon in the speaker’s arsenal. Citations: (1) G. Westwood, “The Orator and the Ghosts: Performing the Past in Fourth-Century Athens”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim, B. da Vela (eds.). The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Brill 2017, pp. 57, 63). (2) D. Spatharas, “The Mind’s Theatre”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim, B. da Vela (eds.). The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Brill 2017, p. 205). (3) K. Kapparis, “Narrative and Performance in the Speeches of Apollodoros”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim, B. da Vela (eds.). The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Brill 2017, p. 301). (4) A. Serafim, Attic Oratory and Performance (Routledge 2017). (5) M. M. Winkler, Classical Literature on Screen: Affinities of Imagination (Cambridge 2017, p. 22). (6) N. Koopman, Over ekphrasis en het schild van Achilles Ilias18.478-608, Lampas 49 (2016) 195-208. (7) T.-I. Liao, “Demosthenes 18 as both symbouleutic and dicanic speech: an interpersonal analysis”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim, K. Demetriou (eds). The Ancient Art of Persuasion across Genres and Topics (Leiden and Boston 2019) 249-269. (8) M. Neger, “Pliny’s Letters and the Art of Persuasion”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim and K. Demetriou (eds.). The Ancient Art of Persuasion across Genres and Topics (Leiden and Boston 2019) 319-335. (9) N. Siron, Témoigner et convaincre: le dispositif de vérité dans les discours judiciaires de l'Athènes classique (PhD Thesis, Panthéon-Sorbonne University – Paris 1, 2017) 219. (10) M. Galanaki, “Conon’s sons and Meidias; Ethopoiia and Hypokrisis in Against Conon and Against Meidias”, New Classicists 1 (2019) 21-40. (11) A. Serafim, “Thespians in the Law-Court: Sincerity, Community and Persuasion in Attic Forensic Oratory”, in Andreas Markantonatos and Eleni Volonaki (eds.). Poet and Orator: A Symbiotic Relationship in Democratic Athens (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 2019) 347-362. (12) L. Pâquet, “Selfie‐Help: The Multimodal Appeal of Instagram Poetry”, The Journal of Popular Culture 52 (2019) 296-314. (13) N. Siron, “Solon gardait-il la main dans son manteau? Les enjeux de l’appel à la connaissance des juges dans la controverse entre Eschine et Démosthène”, Mètis 16 (2018) 169-189, at p. 186. (14) K. Kapparis, “Women in the Dock: Body and Feminine Attire in Women’s Trials”, in S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim and K. Demetriou (eds.). The Ancient Art of Persuasion across Genres and Topics (Leiden and Boston 2019) 193-208.