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Poet, Patron, Message: Witness-Roles and the Game of Truth in Epinician Eidography

  • Margarita Sotiriou
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Witnesses and Evidence in Ancient Greek Literature
This chapter is in the book Witnesses and Evidence in Ancient Greek Literature

Abstract

This chapter, as well as focusing on selected lyric poems of Pindar and Bacchylides, aims to examine the function of juridical phraseology in epinician poetry, while discussing the intriguing “game of truth” played out between the poet and his audience (his addressee included) as an integral part of the communicative procedure that is characteristic of the victory odes. In this fictive game, the use of juridical terminology is indicative of the poet’s wish to produce an aesthetic and semantic effect and to create a feeling of “pseudospontaneity”, which is indispensable in the “live” performance of the ode as well as in future reperformances.

Abstract

This chapter, as well as focusing on selected lyric poems of Pindar and Bacchylides, aims to examine the function of juridical phraseology in epinician poetry, while discussing the intriguing “game of truth” played out between the poet and his audience (his addressee included) as an integral part of the communicative procedure that is characteristic of the victory odes. In this fictive game, the use of juridical terminology is indicative of the poet’s wish to produce an aesthetic and semantic effect and to create a feeling of “pseudospontaneity”, which is indispensable in the “live” performance of the ode as well as in future reperformances.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Witness and Evidence in Legal, Oratorical and Other Literary Contexts in Antiquity 1
  5. Part I: Written and Oral Evidence
  6. The Role of Written Documents in Athenian Trials 17
  7. Rumour and Hearsay Evidence in the Athenian Law-courts 39
  8. Part II: The Rhetoric of Information-Gathering and Decision- Making
  9. Audience Memory as Evidence in the Trial on the Crown 59
  10. Additional Information in Witness Testimonies in Classical Athens 81
  11. Self-Quotations as Witnesses and Evidence: The Case of Isocrates’ Antidosis 97
  12. Antiphon’s Witnesses: Extending the Earliest Greek Theories of Argumentation 113
  13. Part III: Scripting Witnesses and Evidence: Prose and Verse Texts
  14. The Questions in (Answering the Question about the Historicity of) Plato’s Apology of Socrates 135
  15. Plato’s Apology of Socrates: The Rhetoric of Socrates’ Defence and the Foundation of the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry 155
  16. Witnesses and Evidence in Thucydides: The Institutional and Rhetorical Context of the Digression on the Tyrannicides 185
  17. The Torture of Prometheus 215
  18. Poet, Patron, Message: Witness-Roles and the Game of Truth in Epinician Eidography 229
  19. Part IV: The Cultural Workings of Witnesses and Evidence
  20. Information and Decision in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Medea and Ino 249
  21. Scandals as Evidence in Attic Forensic Oratory: The Case of Aeschines’ Against Timarchus 267
  22. Notes on Editors and Contributors 283
  23. General Index 285
  24. Index Locorum 289
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110751970-012

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Witness and Evidence in Legal, Oratorical and Other Literary Contexts in Antiquity 1
  5. Part I: Written and Oral Evidence
  6. The Role of Written Documents in Athenian Trials 17
  7. Rumour and Hearsay Evidence in the Athenian Law-courts 39
  8. Part II: The Rhetoric of Information-Gathering and Decision- Making
  9. Audience Memory as Evidence in the Trial on the Crown 59
  10. Additional Information in Witness Testimonies in Classical Athens 81
  11. Self-Quotations as Witnesses and Evidence: The Case of Isocrates’ Antidosis 97
  12. Antiphon’s Witnesses: Extending the Earliest Greek Theories of Argumentation 113
  13. Part III: Scripting Witnesses and Evidence: Prose and Verse Texts
  14. The Questions in (Answering the Question about the Historicity of) Plato’s Apology of Socrates 135
  15. Plato’s Apology of Socrates: The Rhetoric of Socrates’ Defence and the Foundation of the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry 155
  16. Witnesses and Evidence in Thucydides: The Institutional and Rhetorical Context of the Digression on the Tyrannicides 185
  17. The Torture of Prometheus 215
  18. Poet, Patron, Message: Witness-Roles and the Game of Truth in Epinician Eidography 229
  19. Part IV: The Cultural Workings of Witnesses and Evidence
  20. Information and Decision in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Medea and Ino 249
  21. Scandals as Evidence in Attic Forensic Oratory: The Case of Aeschines’ Against Timarchus 267
  22. Notes on Editors and Contributors 283
  23. General Index 285
  24. Index Locorum 289
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