Speakers Diffident and Speakers Brash in the Athenian Courts
-
Victor Bers
Abstract
In many of the surviving Athenian law court speeches, litigants and sunēgoroi claim that, as amateurs, they come to trial at a disadvantage. Occasionally, they acknowledge a reputation for wishing to advance themselves by a display of rhetorical abilities. Whatever stance the speaker takes, these maneuvers add to the complex texture of Attic oratory. We find a remarkable variety of approaches, e. g., Antiphon giving a Lesbian-speaking client an ornate acknowledgment in lightly Ionicized Attic of his rhetorical inadequacy; Lysias posing as a forensic novice when he represents himself; Dinarchus mimicking a speaker at a loss for words; Lycurgus warning the jury that the defendant will (mis)represent himself as an amateur under attack by a malicious prosecutor. And the orator who has, however falsely, spoken to his audience of his own sense of formidable rhetorical challenge might thereby be better prepared to improvise his response to his opponents’ speeches. Alcidamas, champion of improvisation, would be sympathetic.
Bibliography
Bers, V. (2009), Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens, Cambridge, MA-London.Search in Google Scholar
Blass, F. (1858), Demosthenes und seine Zeit, Leipzig.Search in Google Scholar
Denniston, J.D. (1950), The Greek Particles, 2nd ed., Oxford.Search in Google Scholar
Dover K.J. (1968), Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum, Berkeley-Los Angeles.10.1525/9780520378049Search in Google Scholar
Gagarin, M. (ed.) (1997), Antiphon, The Speeches, Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar
Gagarin, M. (ed.) (1998–2018), The Oratory of Classical Greece, Austin.Search in Google Scholar
MacDowell, D. (2009), Demosthenes, The Orator, Oxford.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287192.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Usher, S. (1999), Greek Oratory, Oxford.10.1093/oso/9780198150749.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Whitehead, D. (ed.) (2000), Hypereides, The Forensic Speeches, Oxford.10.1093/oso/9780198152187.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- How Style Met the City
- Mind Style, Cognitive Stylistics, and Ēthopoiia in Lysias
- A Civic Style: The Use of μετέχειν Metaphors in Athenian Oratory
- Persuasion by Immersion: The Narratio of Lysias 1, On the Killing of Eratosthenes
- The Mood of Persuasion: Imperatives and Subjunctives in Attic Oratory
- Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes
- Some Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Lysias’ Forensic Orations
- Speakers Diffident and Speakers Brash in the Athenian Courts
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- How Style Met the City
- Mind Style, Cognitive Stylistics, and Ēthopoiia in Lysias
- A Civic Style: The Use of μετέχειν Metaphors in Athenian Oratory
- Persuasion by Immersion: The Narratio of Lysias 1, On the Killing of Eratosthenes
- The Mood of Persuasion: Imperatives and Subjunctives in Attic Oratory
- Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes
- Some Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Lysias’ Forensic Orations
- Speakers Diffident and Speakers Brash in the Athenian Courts
- List of Contributors
