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Demosthenes 21 (Against Meidias): democratic abuse1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Peter J. Wilson
Peter J. Wilson
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Extract

The title given to speech number twenty-one of Demosthenes at some time in antiquity, although surely not by Demosthenes himself, is ΚΑΤΑ ΜΕΙΔΙΟΥ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΚΟΝΔΥΛΟΥ –‘Against Meidias, concerning the punch’. This refers of course to the punch on the cheek which Demosthenes received from Meidias in the very orchestra of the theatre of Dionysos at Athens on the day of the competition in the men's dithyramb, in which Demosthenes was chorēgos for his phylē, Pandionis, at the Great Dionysia of 348 B.C. – an act of physical abuse perpetrated under the gaze of ‘more than 30,000 Greeks’ – (that is the Platonic Sokrates' exaggeration, not mine) – in that place and at that time of maximum Athenian self-regard. The act which forms the ostensible basis of Demosthenes' case is thus self-evident: for by the powerful trope of the homogeneity across time and place of the Athenian dēmos, the spectators who were in the theatre on that day are identical to those citizens at the subsequent ekklēsia which met (also in the theatre) to hear complaints arising from the conduct of individuals at the festival, and they are the same men empanelling the court today. They booed and hissed Meidias in the theatre, passed a preliminary motion against him in the ekklēsia and so, today, their course of action is clear.

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Research Article
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Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 37 , 1992 , pp. 164 - 195
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Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

NOTES

2. It appears in Parisians Graecus 2934, ix–x saec. (S). Cf. Canfora, L., Discorsi e lettere di Demostene (1974) 31–3Google Scholar, who notes that the most usual ancient scholarly practice in citing a work is to quote the opening words of the work.

3. Pl. Smp. 175e; see Pickard-Cambridge, A., The dramatic festivals of Athens ed. 2 rev. Gould, J. and Lewis, D. M. (1988) 263Google Scholar.

4. The clearest instance of this equation is in §18 – . ‘And as far as concerns the incidents at the meeting of the dēmos or before the judges in the theatre, you are all my witnesses, dikasts.’ (All translations of Dem. 21 are adapted from MacDowell, D. M., Demosthenes: Against Meidias (Oration 21) (1990).Google Scholar) According to a passage late in the speech – §§193–4 – Meidias contested this equation by claiming its inaccuracy in fact for the particular instance at the probolē, when the meeting of the ekklēsia was allegedly full of those who should have gone out on campaign, those who left the garrison-forts unmanned, (§§193). Such explicit ‘analysis’ of the actual composition of an ekklēsia is extremely rare and Demosthenes can call it (§193) – ‘accusation of the dēmos [and] the ekklēsia …’ This whole question is a subject of current debate between Hansen, Ostwald and Ober; in regard to the relation between dēmos and dikastērion, Hansen adopts a concept of representation, which implies a distinction, not identity – see Hansen, M. H., ‘Demos, ekklesia, and dikasterion. A reply to Martin Ostwald and Josiah Ober’, C&M 40 (1989) 103–4Google Scholar; while Ober has employed the term ‘synecdoche,’ by which the part symbolically stands for the whole – see Ober, J., ‘The nature of Athenian democracy’, CPH 84 (1989) 322–34Google Scholar. From my reading of Dem. 21 I find Ober's the more attractive position, but the way even within this single speech the issue is contested should alert one to the dangers of fixing on too narrow an interpretation of a complex rhetorical trope manipulated to suit different aims: cf. Sinclair, R. K., ‘Lysias' speeches and the debate about participation in Athenian public life’, Antichthon 22 (1988) 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. See esp. §§226–7.

6. Osborne, R., 'Law in action in classical Athens’, JHS 105 (1985) 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar points out that victims of violence had a choice of procedure open to them, as there was considerable overlap between βλάβη and αἰκεία, prosecuted by dikai, and ὕβρις, prosecuted by graphē. Demosthenes himself goes to great length to counter an imagined objection of Meidias that he has brought an inappropriate suit – see esp. §§25–8.; cf. Rhodes, P. J., A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (1981) 659–60Google Scholar.

7. Winkler, J. J., The constraints of desire: the anthropology of sex and gender in ancient Greece (1990) ch. 2Google Scholar; ‘Phallos politikos: representing the body politic in Athens’, Differences 2 (1990) 29–45Google Scholar; Halperin, D. M., One hundred years of homosexuality and other essays on Greek love (1990) ch. 5Google Scholar; MacDowell, D. M., ‘Hybris in Athens’, G&R 23 (1976) 14–31Google Scholar; Fisher, N. R. E., ‘Hybris and dishonour’, G&R 23 (1976) 177–93Google Scholar, 26 (1979) 32–47.

8. Halperin (1990) 96.

9. In my attempt to do this I have benefited from some of the insights of the so-called critical legal studies movement, with its understanding of rhetoric not simply as the neutral codification of forms of argument but as a contribution to the critique of ideology – see esp. White, J. B., Heracles' bow: essays on the rhetoric and poetics of the law (1985)Google Scholar; Unger, R. M., The critical legal studies movement (1986)Google Scholar; Kahn, V., ‘Rhetoric and the law’, Diacritics 19.2 (1989) 21–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kahn (1989) 34 – ‘Precisely because rhetoric teaches argument on both sides of a question, it does not simply codify the ideological assumptions of a given culture but also shows that forms of argument can be unmoored from a given ideology, thus allowing for the articulation of conflicting interests. In the same way, the law is a formal structure that articulates both the dominant ideology and the grounds of contradiction and disagreement in a given society.’

10. Osborne (1985) 50 lists that mentioned in Isaios 8.41 against Diokles and that brought by Apollodoros against Phormio which was ‘adjourned’ – [Dem.] 45.4. Cf. Fisher, N. R. E., ‘The law of hybris in Athens’, ch. 6a of Cartledge, P., Millett, P. and Todd, S. (edd.), Nomos: essays in Athenian law, politics and society (1990) 123–5, 133–4Google Scholar; he considers the fragmentary evidence for other cases.

11. MacDowell (1990) 16, against the dominant view represented e.g. by Harrison, A. R. W., The law of Athens II (1968–1971) 62–3Google Scholar; however that the case was not a graphē hubreōs was recognised long ago by Gernet, L., Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique et morale en Grèce (1917) 193Google Scholar. Fisher (1990) 134 suggests that the introduction of the probolē procedure may imply that some of the difficulties in the operation of the hubris law were recognised.

12. The crucial text is Aischin. 3.52, which speaks of Demosthenes ‘selling’ (ἀπέδετο) the hubris against him and the preliminary vote of the dēmos for 30 mnai; cf. Dover, K. J., Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum (1968) 172Google Scholar; Osborne (1985) 50–1; Canfora (1974) 44–5; Erbse, H., ‘Über die Midiana des Demosthenes’, 412–31 of Ausgewählte Schriften zur klassischen Philologie (1979 [orig. 1956])Google Scholar is the most prominent dissenter, believing that Dem. 21 or something very like it was delivered. Ober, J., Mass and elite in democratic Athens: rhetoric, ideology, and the power of the people (1989) 207Google Scholar n. 28 seems to agree with Erbse, but his lack of clarity and detailed argument precisely at this point are consonant with his evident desire that this prize piece of ‘democratic discourse’ should have reached its ‘proper’ audience. Ober's somewhat idealised image of the workings of Athenian democracy relies heavily on those intensely ‘democratic’ passages in Demosthenes of which Dem. 21 provides some of the best examples. See below.

13. Osborne (1985) 50 writes that a graphē hubreōs would in practice inevitably become an ‘open trial of strength’; cf. Gernet (1917) 292–301; Fisher (1976) 181–2; on the concept of the ‘zero-sum’ competition see Gouldner, A. W., Enter Plato: classical Greece and the origins of social theory (1965) 49–51Google Scholar; Winkler, , Constraints 47Google Scholar.

14. See Mossé, C., ‘Égalité démocratique et inégalités sociales: le débat à Athènes au IVème siècle’, Metis 2 (1987) 165–76, 195–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a good discussion, on the basis of a comparison between Dem. 20 and Dem. 21, of the way in which political equality was coming to seem more and more compromised by social inequalities.

15. See Dover, K. J., Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle (1974) 5–6Google Scholar.

16. Dem. 23.50; Lys. 10.30; see MacDowell, D. M., The law in classical Athens (1978) 126–9Google Scholar.

17. Todd, S., ‘The use and abuse of the Attic orators’, G&R 37 (1990) 172Google Scholar.

18. Todd, S. and Millett, P., ‘Law, society and Athens’, ch. 1 of Cartledge, Millett, Todd (1990) 14Google Scholar, referring in particular to the pioneering work of Gernet, L., Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne (1955 (orig. 1937)) 67Google Scholar and Paoli, U. E., Studi sul processo attico (1933) 66–72Google Scholar; cf. Osborne (1985).

19. Humphreys, S., ‘Social relations on stage: witnesses in classical Athens’, History and Anthropology 1 (1985) 313–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. See MacDowell (1990) 263–8; cf. Humphreys, S., ‘The evolution of legal process in ancient Attica’, 229–56Google Scholar of Gabba, E. (ed.), Tria Corda: Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano (1983) 239Google Scholar.

21. Cf. among dozens of passages, the opening sentence of the speech; and §§137, 138, 157, 195–6, 217. See also Isok. 20.7–8.

22. See Osborne (1985) esp. 52, who uses the expression in particular of the wide choice of procedure available.

23. Fisher (1976). His work owes much in this respect to Gernet (1917). See esp. 185–6.

24. In the two cases cited by Osborne (above n. 10) the men who bring them ‘are not simply men who happen to volunteer, they are men with a very distinct interest in the outcome of the cases’: Osborne (1985) 50.

25. Murray, O., ‘The Solonian law of hubris’, ch. 6b of Cartledge, Millet, Todd (1990)Google Scholar.

26. When Murray writes – Murray (1990) 144 – that the activity of the violent kōmos ‘provides a historical background to the deliberately “hybristic” pattern of behaviour which Demosthenes attributes to Meidias’ it is not entirely clear who we are to imagine as perceiving this pattern of behaviour, and what that might imply. Was Demosthenes activating an anti-aristocratic bias, or is the ‘historical background’ visible only to the historian?

27. Dover (1974) 67.

28. See MacDowell (1990) 288–9 for a discussion of some of the difficulties in this passage.

29. MacDowell (1990) 288.

30. Note that in §73 Euaion and Boiotos are described as γνώριμοι, as are those at their dinner-party. The word has a marked social register, suggesting ‘notable’ as well as ‘known (to one-another)’. Cf. Dem. 19. 259.

31. Cf. his attempts to head this off elsewhere in the speech – e.g. §§126, 128–37. These arguments are sufficiently extended and overwrought to suggest that they are being put forward with the likelihood that the opposite position is more likely to have been regarded as normative.

32. The conflict between Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller in Aristoph. Knights often deploys metaphors from wrestling – e.g. 262ff., 490ff., 711.

33. See esp. Xenophanes 2 (West); Poliakoff, M. B., Combat sports in the ancient world: competition, violence, and culture (1987) 92–4, 99–107Google Scholar.

34. Cf. here the fundamental work of Gernet (1917) 1–31, 183–9, 389–424.

35. See Taylor, M. W., The tyrant slayers: the heroic image in fifth-century B.C. Athenian art and politics (1981)Google Scholar.

36. MacDowell (1978) 129.

37. [And.] 4. 20–1. See below.

38. By the date of Aischin. 3 (330 B.C.), χορηγεîν may have already developed its common later sense of simply ‘provide for’, and I believe there may be a play on this sense in this passage. Taillardat, J., Les images d' Aristophane: études de langue et de style (1965) 146Google Scholar cites Aristophanes fr. 564 (K.-A.), of c.411, as the first extant example of such a use.

39. Humphreys (1983) 248 writes of the way the speech-writer, ‘like a playwright or a post-classical novelist, constructs a social milieu in which the audience can believe … an artistic representation of the community before an audience of city jurors’. Cf. also Humphreys (1985); Ober, J. and Strauss, B., ‘Drama, political rhetoric, and the discourse of Athenian democracy“, 237–70Google Scholar of Winkler, J. J. and Zeitlin, F. I. (edd.), Nothing to do with Dionysos?: Athenian drama in its social context (1990)Google Scholar.

40. Used of Persephone – Eur. fr. 63 (Nauck); cf. Hel. 1307; I.G. 3.713. Cf. Burkert, W., Greek religion (1985 (orig. 1977)) 161, 276, 455Google Scholar n. 3; Scarpi, P., ‘The eloquence of silence. Aspects of a power without words’, 19–40Google Scholar of Ciani, M. G. (ed.), The regions of silence: studies on the difficulty of communicating (1987)Google Scholar.

41. See Todd's good reassessment of the evidence, Todd, S. C., ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Attic orators: the social composition of the Athenian jury’, JHS 110 (1990) 146–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Sinclair (1988).

42. Cf. §219 – . ‘If you were not all struck and not all treated outrageously in service as chorēgoi, you know of course that neither were you all chorēgoi at once, and no one could ever abuse you all with a single hand.’

43. Ober, , Mass and elite 224–6Google Scholar discusses the ‘dramatic fiction, which was based upon flattering the members of the audience by treating them if [sic] they were all well off and hence confronted by the problems associated with meeting financial obligations to the state’.

44. Cf. MacDowell (1990) 89 – ‘The people acted in the right and proper way: they were all so angry and incensed …’

45. Ober, , ‘Athenian democracy’ 329–32Google Scholar.

46. The deeply ideological and rhetorical activities of constructing what is central to the civic gaze should not be overlooked. The orchestra of the theatre of Dionysos no doubt was the privileged focus of civic attention during the days of the city's premier festival, but there is still an important elision between a recognition of this fact and a statement such as that with which Demosthenes opens his speech: , – ‘The bullying, dikasts, and the hubris, with which Meidias constantly treats everyone, are known to all of you and to the rest of the citizens, I suppose.’ The image of Attic society as a whole as a ‘face-to-face’ society is, as Osborne and others have noted, indeed a myth, but it is a myth propagated in the first instance by the Athenians themselves in certain contexts. See Osborne, R., Demos: the discovery of classical Attika (1985) 64–5Google Scholar; Ober, , Mass and elite 31–3Google Scholar.

47. παρέρχομαι is a word used in the various civic contexts of the individuals who come forward to speak before mass audiences, including in the theatre – cf. §7 and see e.g. Plut. Nik. 3.4; Aristoph. Th. 443; Slater, W. J., ‘The epiphany of Demosthenes’, Phoenix 42 (1988) 127–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n. 7 points to the importance of the word in statements of epiphany – see esp. Eur. Ba. 5.

48. See Slater's interesting article (1988), dealing with Dem. 18 (On the crown) one of the few to discuss the dramatic qualities of Demosthenean narrative. Slater (1988) 126: ‘The soteriology of the dramatic self-presentation is contrasted with Aeschines' efforts at heroic appearance on the stage; the stage of life is contrasted with the theatre; the allegedly comic Demosthenes triumphs over the ineptly heroic Aeschines. Throughout runs the motif of heroic epiphany.’ I would argue that a similar motif of heroic intervention, if not quite epiphany, runs through Demosthenes' account here in Dem. 21.

49. Cf. Petre, Z., ‘Quelques problèmes concernant l'élaboration de la pensée démocratique athénienne entre 510 et 460 av. N.E.’, StudClas 11 (1969) 44Google Scholar: ‘… les aristocrates athéniens semblent s'être accommodés des nouveaux cadres de la cité qui, s'ils ne reconnaissaient plus leur domination comme groupe, offraient un terrain beacoup plus vaste aux exploits et aux ambitions d'une gloire individuelle’. Ober, , Mass and elite 155Google Scholar.

50. θαûμα and cognates have a predominantly visual reference, denoting the effect of amazement, awe, wonder produced in the viewer. Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque II (1968) 424–5Google Scholar accepts its relation to the θεά-group.

51. The climax of this sentence, – ‘he thought his life would not be worth living’, has something of a tragic ring to it, perhaps a particularly Euripidean one, given the use of ἀβίωτος in Ion 670 and Alk. 242, and the typically Euripidean polyptoton in ἀβίωτον… βίον, with which cf. the passage from Alk. The rare ἀβίωτος is confined mainly to drama and Plato. See below on other tragic colour in Demosthenes' representation of Meidias.

52. Note the way in which Demosthenes manages to convert Meidias' offer to be elected ἐπιμελητής, or superintendent for the Dionysia (§15), to abuse. Although of lower public profile than the chorēgia, this was an important office involving great expense for, among other things, the organisation of the procession – πομπή. As MacDowell (1990) 238 remarks with characteristic dryness, ‘Although D. disparages it, it may have been no more selfish than D.'s own offer to be a khoregos’; cf. Pickard-Cambridge, , Dramatic festivals 91Google Scholar and n. 7; ‘Suidas’ s.v. . ‘Superintendents of the choroi were elected, so that the choreutai were not disorderly in the theatres.’ This suggests that they had some duties concerning the discipline of choroi in the theatre, a position Meidias may have exploited.

53. Aischines is of course the most famous example, but certainly not the only one; cf. Ghiron-Bistagne, P., Recherches sur les acteurs dans la Grèce ancienne (1976) esp. 154–61Google Scholar: Xanthakis-Karamanos, G., Studies in fourth-century tragedy (1980) 14Google Scholar; Ober, , Mass and elite 154–5Google Scholar; Oberand Strauss (1990).

54. See Pickard-Cambridge, , Dramatic festivals 212–1Google Scholar; Ghiron-Bistagne, , Recherches 160Google Scholar; for εἴσειμι of choros or actors coming on stage see Pl. Lg. 664c; cf. Dem. 19.247; for συρίττω of ‘hiss’ an actor, see esp. Dem. 18.265, Pl. Lg. 700c; in combination with the very rare κλώζω see Alkiphr. 3.71; for another theatrical use cf. Thphr. Char. 11.3; for ἐκπίπτω of actors see Dem. 18.265; of unsuccessful tragedies Arist. Poet. 1459b31; of orators Pl. Gorg. 517a; cf. Phlb. 13d.

55. MacDowell (1990) 290.

56. See Lucas, D. W., Aristotle: Poetics (1968) 66–7Google Scholar; cf. Halliwell, S., Aristotle's Poetics (1986) 254Google Scholar. My thanks to Richard Hunter for making this point at the seminar.

57. I owe these two latter references to the article of Walbank, F. W., ‘History and tragedy’, 224–41 of Selected papers: studies in Greek and Roman history and historiography (1985 [orig. 1960]) 238–9Google Scholar.

58. This clause – – is rather unusual. Given that the sense seems to be ‘if they are not used to being abused’, one might ask who is used to being abused. It implies at least that Demosthenes feels not everyone will be equally sensitive to such abuse.

59. For a discussion of this and its possible relation to Gorgias' ἀπατή, see Rosenmeyer, T. G., ‘Gorgias, Aeschylus, and Apate’ AJPh 76 (1955) esp. 225–42Google Scholar; Halliwell (1986) 64 and n. 24, 189; at 341 Halliwell notes that at Poetics 1450b16 Aristotle acknowledges the emotional potency of ὄψις and uses the term ψυχαγωγία of it.

60. See esp. Dem. 18. 114–20; Aischin. 3. Cf. Limentani, I. C., ‘Due caratteristiche dell' onore della corona in Atene’, 29–36 of Istituto di storia antica: studi di antichità in memoria di Clementia Gatti (1987)Google Scholar.

61. See Goldhill, S. D., ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, 97–129Google Scholar of Winkler and Zeitlin (1990 [orig. 1987]) esp. 104–6.

62. See esp. Aischin. 3.41; Plut. Nikias 3.4; inscriptional evidence in Mette, H. J., Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Griechenland (1977) 94–102Google Scholar.

63. See Plut. Sol. 21.1; Dem. 20.104, 40.49. It should be noted that ‘Solonic’ in this context may indicate precisely a legitimising fourth-century invention; cf. Loraux, , Invention 354Google Scholar n. 68.

64. See MacDowell (1990) 226–7.

65. Note the use of the term ἀντιχορηγός in this passage and elsewhere (it is used in §62 of Dem. 21), a linguistic reflection of the deeply institutionalised form of competition in the chorēgia.

66. Cf. esp. Mor. 817c, 844d.

67. For the importance of in Poetics see esp. 1450a esp. 3–5; 15–25 and cf. Halliwell, S., The Poetics of Aristotle: translation and commentary (1987) 148Google Scholar.

68. See the endings of Med., Alk., Andr., Hei, Ba.

69. Lucas (1968) 182 on Poetics 1455b24, where the expression is τὰ μὲν ἔξωθεν.

70. For a similar usage in this speech cf. §45. The expression may also draw on the phrase used mainly in relation to cases before the Areopagos where there was some requirement for relevance enforced against ; however, I do not think this sense is much to the fore here, if at all. For examples, see Lys. 3.46; Lykourg. 1.12–13; Arist. Rh. 1354a; cf. Sabry, R., ‘La digression dans la rhetorique antique’, Poétique 79 (1989) 263–8Google Scholar; Bearzot, C., ‘Sul significato del divieto di ΕΞΩ ΤΟΥΠΡΑГΜΑΤΟΣ ΛΕГΕΙΝ in sede Areopagitica’, Aevum 64 (1990) 47–55Google Scholar and her further bibliography.

71. See Ober, , Mass and elite 210–11Google Scholar for a discussion of this passage.

72. See Markle, M. M., ‘Jury pay and assembly pay at Athens’, 265–97Google Scholar of Cartledge, P. and Harvey, F. (edd.), Crux: Essays in Greek history presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th birthday (1985) 267–71Google Scholar, developing Vidal-Naquet, P. and Austin, M. M., Economic and social history of Greece: an introduction (1977 (orig. 1972)) 16Google Scholar; de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., The class struggle in the ancient Greek world (1981) 431Google Scholar. Ober, , Mass and elite 210Google Scholar translates as ‘a labouring man’.

73. Markle (1985) 287–8 n. 40 thinks Demosthenes wants to stress that Straton had formerly had sufficient property to serve as a hoplite, before he became an enemy of Meidias.

74. MacDowell (1990) 304.

75. This is in keeping with the way Demosthenes uses a public/private opposition throughout to characterise his activities and attitudes in contrast to Meidias'; cf. e.g. §§17, 25, 35, 61.

76. See Thouc. 2.40.2; Loraux, , Invention 178–9Google Scholar.

77. Todd, ‘Social composition’; see above.

78. Cf. Dover (1974) 34–5. See §218: Demosthenes says that if they convict Meidias the jurors will be regarded as , another appropriation of aristocratic terminology.

79. See MacDowell (1990) 318–19.

80. M. H. Hansen, Apagoge, endeixis and ephegesis against kakourgoi, atimoi and pheugontes (1976) 62.

81. §95; cf. §90:

82. From §§99–100 it might almost seem as if Meidias were on trial for committing hubris to Straton.

83. Nouhaud, M., L'Utilisation de l'histoire par les orateurs attiques (1982) 296Google Scholar.

84. See esp. [And.] 4. 20–1; Ostwald, M., From popular sovereignty to the sovereignty of law: law, society, and politics in fifth-century Athens (1986) 120–1Google Scholar discusses some of the problems in this passage. See above.

85. However, as Dover (1974) 12 and MacDowell (1990) point out, Alkibiades' alleged involvement in the mutilation of the hermai is ‘a piece of popular tradition’ (Dover) and he seems not even to have been accused of it in 415 B.C.; cf. also Tuplin, C., ‘Imperial tyranny: some reflections on a classical Greek political metaphor’, 348–75Google Scholar of Cartledge, and Harvey, (edd.), Crux (1985) 368Google Scholar; Nouhaud (1982) 296 writes of ‘l'aspect étrange et excessif de la comparaison’.

86. On hubris in this passage see Fisher (1979) 41–2. Fisher's article offers a good corrective to ‘the frequent assumption that hubris is a moral term that particularly suggests “tragedy”, an explanation of men's falls in terms of divine punishment for human offences that arouse the appropriate “tragic” emotions’: Fisher (1979) 45.

87. On which see most recently and conveniently Bennett, L. J. and Tyrrell, W. B., ‘Making sense of Aristophanes' Knights’, Arethusa 23 (1990) 235–54Google Scholar. See also Vernant, J.-P. in Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Myth and tragedy in ancient Greece (1988 (orig. 1972)) 128–35Google Scholar. This model was used in political rhetoric by [Lysias] against Andokides: 6.53. Its usefulness for eliding political conflict and disorder is clear – cf. Loraux, N., ‘L'oubli dans la cité’, Le temps de la réflexion 1 (1980) 223Google Scholar; The invention of Athens: the funeral oration in the classical city (1986 (orig. 1981)) 198; ‘Repolitiser la cité’, L'homme 26 (1986) 239–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88. Cf. Isok. 20.9–11.

89. See Aristoph., Wasps 486–507Google Scholar; Lanza, D., Il tiranno e il suo pubblico (1977)Google Scholar; Easterling, P. E., ‘Kings in Greek tragedy’, 33–45Google Scholar of Coy, J. and de Hoz, J. (edd.), Estudios sobre los géneros literarios II (1984)Google Scholar; Loraux, , Invention 208–9, 215–16Google Scholar discusses a certain association in political rhetoric between oligarchiā and tyrannis. Demosthenes can, for example, represent the struggle with Philip as one of free city-state against a tyrant. See Leopold, J. W., ‘Demosthenes on distrust of tyrants’, GRBS 22 (1981) 227–46Google Scholar; Levy, E., Athènes devant la défaite de 404: histoire d'une crise idéologique (1976) 137–42Google Scholar.

90. However, cf. Hall, E., Inventing the barbarian: Greek self-definition through tragedy (1989) esp. 13–17Google Scholar.

91. See Tuplin (1985) 368–9; Lévy (1976) 142–4.

92. MacDowell (1990) 406; see also above.

93. Cf. §§100, 106.

94. Cf. also the opening description of Meidias in §2 as . See MacDowell (1990) 156 on as ‘out of control’.

95. Cf. the Phyrgian in Eur. Or. 1507: and cf. Hall (1989) 156 with further references.

96. Cf. Hartog, F., The mirror of Herodotus: the representation of the other in the writing of history (1988 (orig. 1980)) 142–3Google Scholar; Hall (1989) 158.

97. See MacDowell (1990) 355.

98. Cf. Davies, J. K., ‘Athenian citizenship: the descent group and the alternatives’, CJ 73 (1978) 111–14Google Scholar; MacDowell (1990) 365 cites as a parallel Andok. 1.129, referring to the matrimonial affairs of his opponent Kallias: ; another ‘tragic’ topos of abuse in civic rhetoric is seen in the attacks on Aischines as τριταγωνιστής, player of slaverôles and so on. The point of such attacks, as Ghiron-Bistagne has well noted – Recherches 160 – is not that he played ‘bit parts’, but that the parts of the τριταγωνιστής were generally the extremely antipathetic roles of tyrants and the like. There is an interesting parallel between these attacks made in the fourth century and those of the fifth directed against the likes of Kleon, Hyperbolos and Kleophon. Cf. Ostwald (1986) 214–29. It is particularly striking that Kleon's alleged maltreatment of and antagonism towards the hippeis find a close parallel in Meidias' alleged activities in §§132–5.

99. Todd, , ‘Social composition’ 164Google Scholar. cf. Loraux, N., Les enfants d'Athéna: idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes (1981) 35–73Google Scholar; 36: ‘Au regard du narcissisme officiel, il n'est en effet de citoyen qu' autochthone.’

100. An expression of Vidal-Naquet, P., The black hunter, forms of thought and forms of society in the Greek world (1986 (orig. 1981)) 5Google Scholar and Loraux, , Invention 24Google Scholar.

101. Cf. Dover (1974) 32; Winkler, , Constraints 46Google Scholar

102. Cf. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet (1988 (1972)) ch. 5.

103. Davies (1978) 112.

104. On the issue of the non-delivery of Dem. 21 see above n. 12.

105. Cf. e.g. §130. With this rehearsed spontaneity goes too Demosthenes' attempt to attach any opprobrium involved in the idea and activity of writing up a speech to Meidias, by claiming a transparent identity between Meidias' ἔργα and his own λόγοι – §§191–2. It may be possible to detect here a general, ‘popular’ attitude of ambivalence or suspicion towards the written speech in contrast to the attitude of the élite (of wealth, social standing and education) who were presumably the recipients of Dem. 21. See Harris, W. V., Ancient literacy (1989) 104Google Scholar. His general conclusion at 115 is that literacy ‘becomes at least in Athens, a mark in theory of a proper citizen and in practice of the urban citizen with property’.

106. See e.g. §§3, 40, 151–2, 215–16.

107. See the excellent article of Loraux, N., ‘Thucydide n'est pas un collègue’, QS 12 (1980) 55–81Google Scholar.

108. Cf. Svenbro, J., Phrasikleia: anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne (1988)Google Scholar.

109. Cf. here Vernant, J.-P., L'individu, la mort, l'amour. soi-même et l'autre en Grèce ancienne (1989)Google Scholar, ch. 10 ‘L'individu dans la cité’ esp. 224–7.