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Aeschines (1), c. 390–c. 322 BCE  

Edward Harris

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law
  2. Greek Literature
Aeschines was an Athenian politician and orator. He came from a respectable family but was not a member of the wealthy elite. He worked as a secretary for the Council and Assembly, then as an actor. He participated in the embassies that negotiated the Peace of Philocrates with Philip II and argued for its ratification. After the Second Embassy to Philip, Demosthenes and Timarchus accused Aeschines of treason. Aeschines convicted Timarchus of being a homosexual prostitute, which discouraged Demosthenes from bringing his accusation to court until 343/342. Aeschines was acquitted by a narrow margin, but lost influence. He defended the Athenians against the charges of the Locrians at a meeting of the Amphictyons in 339. He accused Ctesiphon of proposing an illegal decree of honours for Demosthenes in 336, but he lost the case by a wide margin at Ctesiphon’s trial in 330.Ancient critics consistently included Aeschines in the canon of the ten great Attic orators. Cicero ranked him second only to .

Article

Demosthenes (2), Athenian orator  

Edward Harris

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature

Though he had many detractors, Demosthenes was often ranked in antiquity as the greatest of the Greek orators. Demosthenes lost his father at an early age, and his estate was mismanaged by his guardians, whom he later sued in an attempt to recovery his inheritance. He began his career in the assembly in 354 bce, speaking about public finances and foreign policy, and wrote several speeches for important public cases. Starting in 351 he warned the Athenians about the dangers of Macedonian expansionism. Even though he helped to negotiate the Peace of Philocrates, he later attacked the treaty and contributed to the breakdown in Athenian relations with Philip II which led to the battle of Chaeronea in 338. Despite this defeat, he remained popular and was able to defend his reputation against the attacks of Aeschines at the trial of Ctesiphon in 330. Later convicted of bribery in the Harpalus affair, he went into exile. He subsequently returned but fled abroad again and committed suicide to avoid capture by his Macedonian pursuers.

Article

hubris  

N. R. E. Fisher

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Myth and Religion
  4. Philosophy
Hubris, intentionally dishonouring behaviour, was a powerful term of moral condemnation in ancient Greece; and in Athens, and perhaps elsewhere, it was also treated as a serious crime. The common use of hubris in English to suggest pride, over-confidence, or alternatively any behaviour which offends divine powers, rests, it is now generally held, on misunderstanding of ancient texts, and concomitant and over-simplified views of Greek attitudes to the gods have lent support to many doubtful, and often over-Christianizing, interpretations, above all of Greek tragedy.The best ancient discussion of hubris is found in *Aristotle's Rhetoric: his definition is that hubris is ‘doing and saying things at which the victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve anything other than what is done, but simply to get pleasure from it. For those who act in return for something do not commit hubris, they avenge themselves. The cause of the pleasure for those committing hubris is that by harming people, they think themselves superior; that is why the young and the rich are hubristic, as they think they are superior when they commit hubris’ (Rh.

Article

Hyperides, Athenian orator and politician, 389–322 BCE  

Judson Herrman

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
Hyperides (Ὑπερείδης), son of Glaucippus of the deme Collytus, was one of the ten canonical Attic orators and was esteemed by ancient critics as a versatile speechwriter; as a politician, he was a prominent opponent of Macedon in the period before and after the battle of Chaeronea.Hyperides' biographical details can be gathered from the pseudo-Plutarchan Lives of the Ten Orators ([Plut.] X Orat. 848d–850b), and from references in contemporary speeches and inscriptions.1 Apparently, he was born to a wealthy family, as he is reported to have studied with Plato and Isocrates ([Plut.] X Orat. 848d, Hermippus frr. 67–68 Wehrli).2 He refers (Hyp. Eux. 28–29) to three prosecutions as his first political cases, beginning with actions against Aristophon and Diopeithes of Sphettus, and culminating in an impeachment (see eisangelia) in 343 of Philocrates for his role as leader of the delegation that negotiated the notorious peace treaty with .

Article

papyrology, Greek  

H. Maehler

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
  4. Greek Material Culture
Papyrus, manufactured in Egypt since c.3000 bce from a marsh plant, Cyperus papyrus (see books, greek and roman), was the most widely used writing material in the Graeco-Roman world. The object of papyrology is to study texts written on papyrus (and on ostraca, wooden tablets, etc. in so far as they come from the same find-spots) in Egyptian (hieroglyphs, demotic, Coptic), Hebrew, *Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Pahlavi, and Arabic. Greek papyrology also deals with Greek texts written on parchment (see palaeography, Introduction). The vast majority of Greek papyri have been found in Egypt, preserved in the dry sand; with the exception of some carbonized papyri from *Bubastis and Thmouis, no papyri have survived in the damp soils of the Delta or *Alexandria (1). Outside Egypt, Greek papyri have been found at *Herculaneum, at Dura-*Europus, in Palestine, and one text has come from Greece: the carbonized Orphic commentary found in a burial at Derveni near Salonica; see orphic literature; orphism.

Article

propaganda  

Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law
  2. Greek Literature
Propaganda is not easy to define. It means active manipulation of opinion and some distortion of the truth; it also perhaps aims at exclusive indoctrination of one set of opinions, contrast ideology (a value-system which may admit the possibility of other value-systems) or mentality (values unconsciously subscribed to rather than actively promoted). Propaganda has been divided (Ellul) into agitation propaganda and integration propaganda; the first seeks to change attitudes, the second to reinforce them. This division is helpful (see below) for the understanding of the ancient world.Lacking modern techniques for the dissemination of information, the ancient world was spared some modern manifestations of propaganda; nor were conditions suitable for the emergence of professional governmental ‘propaganda machines’ of a modern sort (*decision-making was amateur and theoretically in the hands of the citizens). There were however ways of making general proclamations. Thus Rome exploited *Delphi to make pronouncements adverse to *Perseus (2) of Macedon, see Syll.

Article

Solon, Athenian politician and poet  

Arnold Wycombe Gomme, Theodore John Cadoux, and P. J. Rhodes

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
Solon, Athenian politician and poet, was of noble descent but, whether or not the tradition that he was of moderate means is correct, came to sympathize with the poor. He was prominent in the war against *Megara for the possession of *Salamis (1), urging the Athenians to renewed effort when they despaired of success (c.600 bce). In 594/3 he was archon (see archontes), and the link between his archonship and his reforms is probably to be accepted, though some have wanted to put the reforms 20 years later. He is said to have spent the 10 years after his reforms in overseas travel, during which his measures were not to be altered: if he continued to travel after that, he may have met *Amasis of Egypt and Philocyprus of Cyprus, but if he died c.560/59 he is unlikely to have met *Croesus of Lydia (though that tradition is as old as Hdt.