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Aristophanes (1), Athenian poet of Old Comedy, 2nd half of 5th cent. BCE  

Mario Telò, Christopher Pelling, and Kenneth Dover

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Aristophanes (1), the best-preserved poet of Old Attic Comedy (see comedy, Greek, Old), was a native of Athens and a member of the Cydathenaeum deme (see demes, dēmoi). He was the son of Philippus and he himself had at least two sons, of whom at least one (Araros) and possibly both were themselves composers of minor comedies. There is a consensus that he was born between 460 and 450bce and died in or shortly after 386. Whatever else we appear to know about Aristophanes’ life is drawn from the fictionalized autobiography he lays out while constructing and deconstructing his comic persona and poetic career through references to feuds with politicians and dramatic rivals (in particular Cratinus and Eupolis). Aristophanes develops a mode of disingenuous presentation of the poetic “I” that is at once self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, an autobiographical “defacement,” to use Paul de Man’s term, that will become paradigmatic for later literature. A slippery relationship between autobiographical referentiality and aesthetics is integral to Aristophanic comedy, along with its manipulation of topical themes. While his plays are full of allusions to events and personalities of the late fifth century, their resonances and meaning cannot be exhausted through the instruments of historicist analysis. Beyond the prevalent historicist approaches, which have been prone to understand comic politics primarily as a reflection of the plays’ Athenian context or even of the playwright’s (circularly reconstructed) ideological positions, there have been important scholarly appreciations of and engagements with irony, polyphony, parody, metatheatre, and poetological self-reflexivity.

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

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 .