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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2017
The deliberative speech known by us as On Organization (Περὶ συντάξεως) focusses on financial organization and political economy more than any other speech in the Demosthenic corpus. The assembly is to decide the fate of an unspecified sum of money (1). The speaker, who later identifies himself as Demosthenes (12), proposes that, instead of distributing the money as theoric subsidies, all citizens can instead be satisfied by embarking upon a scheme of τοῦ συνταχθῆναι καὶ παρασκευασθῆναι τὰ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ‘organization and equipment for war’ (3). This scheme will distribute revenues amongst all as pay for useful service (1–5, 9). The speaker urges that this must be done if the city is once again to act as the arbiter of Greek affairs, and if the Athenian dēmos itself is to break the power of self-interested orators and resume its proper control of the polis (13–36).
My thanks to all those who read earlier drafts and CQ’s readers for their helpful comments.
1 On Didymus' work on Demosthenes, see Gibson, C.A., Interpreting a Classic: Demosthenes and his Ancient Commentators (Berkeley, 2002), 77–136, 131–6 on speech 13Google Scholar; Harding, P., Didymos: On Demosthenes (Oxford, 2006), 242–55Google Scholar.
2 Schaefer, A., Demosthenes und seine Zeit 3.2 (Leipzig, 1887 2), 89–94 Google Scholar; Weil, H., Les harangues de Démosthène (Paris, 1881), 436–8Google Scholar; Blass, F., Die Attische Beredsamkeit 3.1 (Leipzig, 1893 2), 401–3Google Scholar; Sealey, R., ‘Pseudo-Demosthenes XIII and XXV’, REG 80 (1976), 250–5, at 250–3Google Scholar; id., Demosthenes & his Time: A Study in Defeat (New York, 1993), 235–7Google Scholar; Badian, E., ‘The road to prominence’, in Worthington, I. (ed.), Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator (London, 2000), 9–44, at 44 n. 70Google Scholar; Milns, R.D., ‘The public speeches of Demosthenes’, in Worthington, I. (ed.), Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator (London, 2000), 205–23, at 205Google Scholar; Karvounis, C., Demosthenes: Studien zu den Demegorien orr. XIV, XVI, XV, IV, I, II, III (Tübingen, 2002), 11 Google Scholar; Rhodes, P.J. and Osborne, R., Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford, 2004), 278 Google Scholar. Jaeger, W., Demosthenes (New York, 1963), 135 n. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hunt, P., War, Peace, and Alliance in Demosthenes’ Athens (Cambridge, 2010), 274 are undecidedCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 J. Trevett, ‘Demosthenes’ speech On Organization (Dem. 13)’, GRBS 35 (1994), 179–93Google Scholar; A.A. Aidonis, ‘Demosthenes: orations XIII and XIV (On the Syntaxis, On the Symmories). Introduction and commentary’ (Diss., University of Glasgow, 1995), 27–32; Usher, S., Greek Oratory: Tradition and Originality (Oxford, 1999), 215–17Google Scholar believes that speech 13 contains some Demosthenic material; Burke, E.M., ‘The early political speeches of Demosthenes: elite bias in the response to economic crisis’, ClAnt 21 (2002), 165–93, at 181–2Google Scholar; Harding, P., Didymos: On Demosthenes (Oxford, 2006), 244, at 248Google Scholar attributes the speech's problems to its ‘immature’ nature; MacDowell, D.M., Demosthenes the Orator (Oxford, 2009), 223–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Worthington, I., Demosthenes of Athens and the Fall of Classical Greece (Oxford, 2013), 129–32Google Scholar. Earlier opinions in favour of authenticity include Foucart, P., Étude sur Didymos d'après un papyrus de Berlin (Paris, 1906), 95–108 Google Scholar; Croiset, M., Harangues Démosthène 1 (Paris, 1924), 70–3Google Scholar; Cloché, P., Démosthènes et la fin de la démocratie athénienne (Paris, 1937), 74–5Google Scholar; Cawkwell, G.L., ‘Eubulus’, JHS 83 (1963), 47–69, at 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Athemocritus and the Megarians and the Decree of Charinus’, REG 82 (1969), 327–35, at 328 n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearson, L., The Art of Demosthenes (Meisenheim am Glan, 1976), 122 Google Scholar; Hansen, M.H., ‘The theoric fund and the graphē paranomōn against Apollodorus’, GRBS 17 (1976), 235–46, at 241Google Scholar; Vervaecke, G., ‘Une lecture de Démosthène, Περὶ συντάξεως (Or. 13)’, LEC 57 (1989), 341–54, at 351–2Google Scholar; Carlier, P., Démosthène (Paris, 1990), 120–1Google Scholar; K.T. Osborne, ‘The Peri Demosthenous of Didymos Grammatikos’ (Diss., University of Washington, 1990), 211–19.
4 See Trevett (n. 3), 186–8 with literature cited; Usher (n. 3), 216. See McCabe, D.F., The Prose-Rhythm of Demosthenes (New York, 1981), 69–74 Google Scholar for stylistic analysis of speech 13. The tribrach is avoided as much as possible (‘Blass's Law’), on which see Sealey (n. 2 [1993]), 230–2. Usher (n. 3), 215 notes, however, the exceptional number of words and expressions found in speech 13 that do not appear in any genuine speech.
5 28% of the lines in the OCT of On Organization are wholly or largely found elsewhere, bettered only by On the Chersonese (Dem. 8, 31%) and by the Fourth Philippic (Dem. 10, 34%): 8.38–51 = 10.11–27, 8.52–67 = 10.55–70, 10.12–13 = 6.17–18. However, Dem. 10 is generally, and I believe correctly, regarded as an unfinished version of the material eventually delivered as Dem. 8; see Daitz, G., ‘The relationship of the De Chersoneso and the Philippica Quarta of Demosthenes’, CPh 52 (1957), 145–62Google Scholar; Hajdú, I., Kommentar zur 4. Philippischen Rede des Demosthenes (Berlin, 2002), 44–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The passages of speech 13 found elsewhere are as follows: 13.20 = 2.29; 13.21 = 23.196, 3.23; 13.22–4 = 23.198–200; 13.25 = 3.32; 13.26 = 3.24, 15.35; 13.27 = 3.28; 13.28–9 = 3.25–6, 23.207; 13.28 = 3.29; 13.30 = 3.29, 23.208, 19.275; 13.31 = 3.30–1. Other sections bear a resemblance to passages in other speeches: 13.3–5, 13.9 ≈ 3.34–6 (cf. 1.19–20); 13.19–20 ≈ 23.210. Moreover, the contrast between rich and poor regarding the fund (13.1–2) is reminiscent of the longer discussion in 10.35–46. The description of the treatment of the allies and the behaviour of Athenian generals (13.7) might owe something to Isocrates (8.42–6, 50, 115, 134; cf. 15.116–24 on Timotheus' positive behaviour). See also Schaefer's list of correspondences (n. 2), 92 n. 2.
6 See below, pp. 109–112.
7 Croiset (n. 3), 73 suggests that Demosthenes did write the speech but put it to one side, embellishing it with successful passages over time but never actually delivering it. One wonders if the speech without the borrowed passages was really worth saving and what the good of borrowing so much would have been.
8 Translations modified from the Loeb edition by Vince. The Greek is that of the OCT edition.
9 See the comments of Schaefer (n. 2), 91 to this effect.
10 Trevett (n. 3), 183–5 tries to show that the lack of detail at 13.27 is not problematic because ἐρημίας ἐπειλημμένοι there (and perhaps at 3.27 as well) does not mean ‘have a clear field’, as the Loeb has it, but ‘we who have reached such a state of destitution’. However, ἐρημίας at 3.27 can more easily be translated to carry some sense of ‘isolation’ in light of the explanation that Sparta and Thebes are preoccupied and that no other state has the necessary power; see MacDowell (n. 3), 227 n. 64. Moreover, to declare that Athens is ‘destitute’ rather preempts the answer to the question being posed at 13.27 of whether the city has successfully emulated its ancestors. The other arguments used against speech 13, which point to changes made in borrowed passages, should be abandoned. The argument of Schaefer (n. 2), 93–4, namely that speech 13 is spurious because its historical details are inventions based on genuine references in other speeches, begs the question. I see no reason why Demosthenes could not have made the historically incorrect alteration of ‘citizenship’ to ‘immunity’ (13.24; cf. 23.200) or added Cimon as one of those great men who had a modest home (13.29; cf. 23.209), even though Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F89) tells us that Cimon was able to hold large dinners at home for his fellow citizens. The former change was necessary because the contrast in Dem. 23 between a grant of inviolability and the mere grant of citizenship would not make sense in speech 13 and so was replaced with the distinction between citizenship and mere immunity.
11 Trevett (n. 3), 190–2. Our writer may have invented a pretext that allowed him to discuss the theoric fund in a deliberative context.
12 According to the plausible reconstruction of theoric funding by Hansen (n. 3), 240–6, there was one νόμος for its annual allocation in the μερισμός, the repeal of which was punishable by death (Lib. Hyp. Dem. 1), and a νόμος directing the annual surplus to the fund in peacetime ([Dem.] 59.4).
13 Didymus (Dem.), using Philochorus (FGrHist 328 F155 = Dem. 13.40–58) and Androtion (FGrHist 324 F30 = Dem. 14.35–49), dates speech 13 to after 349/8 b.c., overlooking the fact that Demosthenes complains of action having not yet been taken—meaning that the speech ought to date to 350/49 b.c. or before. The two Atthidographers show the resolutions of IG II2 204 being put into practice. For Rhodes and Osborne (n. 2), 277–9, the lag between decision and action which Demosthenes criticizes at 13.32–3 (if a genuine chronological marker at all) is to be placed after the passage of IG II2 204 and may be attributed to extended deliberation by the commission or a subsequent decision to involve the Megarians. This produced a delay, albeit not a great one, which Demosthenes exaggerates. If we instead suppose, like R. Lane Fox, ‘Demosthenes, Dionysius, and the dating of six early speeches', C&M 48 (1997), 167–203, at 191–5 that Demosthenes is referring to other non-extant decrees, then our range of dates for the beginning of the Megarian dispute may go back to 353/2 b.c. or forward to 351/0 b.c. It is certainly difficult to see IG II2 204 as expressing ἀπέχθεια ‘hostility’ towards the Megarians, as Demosthenes characterizes the decrees he talks of, when it does not mention the Megarians at all. However, while hostile decrees may well have preceded or even succeeded IG II2 204, the absence of hostility in 204 may be a poor basis for thinking that it is not one of those decrees mentioned in speech 13 if Demosthenes has misrepresented the tenor of recent legislation concerning Megara in order to back up his argument that the Athenians do not follow hostile declarations with military action. The decree does not decisively date the speech to 352/1 b.c. or after, but it makes it more likely. It is tempting to agree with Fossey, J.M., ‘A Demosthenic doublet (XIII, 22–24 and XXIII, 198–200)’, LCM 11 (1986), 77–80, at 78Google Scholar that the absence of καὶ λυσιτελούντως αὑτοῖς ἐδίδοσαν (23.199) from 13.23 is due to haplography on the part of the writer of speech 13 (here by skipping to the immediately succeeding καί), and is therefore additional evidence that speech 13 was written after Against Aristocrates was delivered in 352/1 b.c. (Dion. Hal. Ad Amm. 1.4).
14 The overthrow of the Rhodian democracy, which probably occurred during the Social War, is also mentioned ([Dem.] 13.8; cf. 15.3–4, 19); see Hornblower, S., Mausolus (Oxford, 1982), 127 Google Scholar. Undatable references are also made to the exile of the Phliasians (32) and to a burglary of the Opisthodomos, which occurred ‘a day or two ago’ (14) and which I do not associate with the Opisthodomos arson referred to at Dem. 24.136.
15 The ἐξετασταί were auditors or inspectors of troops; see Aeschin. 1.113, 2.177.
16 It cannot, as such, be used as it is by Cawkwell (n. 3 [1963]), 48 n. 9 to provide a date by which the law directing surplus revenues into the theoric fund was in operation, based on the wider activities of the board being referenced at 13.30. Nor can the speech be treated as a genuine piece of fourth-century Athenian oratory written by someone other than Demosthenes.
17 The idea of an earlier non-extant speech may have come from the First Olynthiac (1.20), since Demosthenes summarizes his proposals in a way that suggests the audience is already familiar with their substance: ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ ἡγοῦμαι στρατιώτας δεῖν κατασκευασθῆναι καὶ {ταῦτ᾽} εἶναι στρατιωτικὰ καὶ μίαν σύνταξιν εἶναι τὴν αὐτὴν τοῦ τε λαμβάνειν καὶ τοῦ ποιεῖν τὰ δέοντα, ὑμεῖς δ᾽ οὕτω πως ἄνευ πραγμάτων λαμβάνειν εἰς τὰς ἑορτάς ‘it is my opinion that we must provide soldiers, military funds, and that there must be one uniform system of pay in return for service, whereas you somehow think that you should, without any trouble, just take the money for your festivals.’
18 See n. 14 above.
19 Didym. Dem. 13.17–25; schol. [Dem]. 13.1; Lib. Hyp. [Dem.] 13. It would appear that earlier writers had come to refer to the deliberative speeches (Dem. 1–11) as ‘Philippics’; see above, p. 106.
20 Dem. 19.84; Diod. Sic. 16.38.2; Just. Epit. 8.2.8–12.
21 On the date of the First Philippic, see the comprehensive treatment of Karvounis (n. 2), 223–32. The traditional date of early summer 351 seems the likeliest.
22 Thus Cawkwell (n. 3 [1963]), 48 n. 9. It would seem that in these early years Demosthenes did not fully appreciate the threat of Philip; see Ryder, T.T.B., ‘Demosthenes and Philip II’, in Worthington, I. (ed.), Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator (London, 2000), 58–72, at 45–9Google Scholar.
23 See pp. 109–110.
24 See pp. 110–111.
25 Plut. Dem. 30.5; [Plut.] Mor. 847d; Paus. 1.8.2. [Plut.] Mor. 850f–51c preserves the text of the decree (technically the petition, αἴτησις, but apparently passed as proposed). In addition to the inscription of the decree, Demosthenes received the highest honours of a statue in the agora, σίτησις and προεδρία.
26 Cicero described it as written non tam historico quam oratorio genere (Brut. 286); see Marasco, G., Democare di Leuconoe (Florence, 1984), 87–109 Google Scholar; Billows, R.A., Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State (Berkeley, 1990), 336–9Google Scholar; Cooper, C., ‘(Re)making Demosthenes: Demochares and Demetrius of Phalerum on Demosthenes’, in Wheatley, P. and Hannah, R. (edd.), Alexander and his Successors: Essays from the Antipodes (Claremont, CA, 2009), 310–22, at 318–21Google Scholar.
27 Goldstein, J.A., The Letters of Demosthenes (New York, 1968), 6–25, 82–3Google Scholar. Speeches 1–11, 13, 18–24, the exordia and letters 1–5 all share the same indicators used by scribes to count the number of lines in their manuscript: marginal stoichometrics marking off each hundredth line with the letters alpha to omega, and then a total in acrophonic numerals at the end. Further, they all share a fifteen-syllable στοῖχος. Goldstein ([this note], 21–2) suggests that the speeches in this collection were chosen because they fulfilled at least one of three functions: to attest to Demosthenes' great struggle against Macedon and his advocacy of sound domestic policies and high moral standards, to provide evidence of his services, and to provide material for defence against later attacks. It is for the second reason that speech 13 was included with the Philippics over the more similar speeches 14–16.
28 Goldstein (n. 27), 24.
29 It appears that foreign embassies were meant not only to keep Athens supplied but also to prepare for the retaking of the Piraeus and the retaliatory siege of Athens that would inevitably follow (cf. Philippides Decree, IG II2 657.33–6). See Shear, T.L. Jr., Kallias of Sphettos and the Revolt of Athens in 286 B.C. (Princeton, 1978), 26–9Google Scholar; Marasco (n. 26), 69–78; Habicht, C., Athens from Alexander to Antony (Cambridge, 1997), 124–9, 135–41, at 139Google Scholar sees the decision to honour Demosthenes as ‘tantamount to a declaration of war against Macedonia’. The Piraeus may in fact have been retaken in 281/0 b.c.; see Dreyer, B., Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des spätklassischen Athen (Stuttgart, 1999), 265–73Google Scholar.
30 Described in the honorary decree for Demochares proposed by his son, [Plut.] Mor. 851d–9; cf. Kallias Decree (Agora I 7295, lines 43–54). See Shear (n. 29), 79–86.
31 Most if not all of Demosthenes' extant speeches are likely to have been in circulation during his lifetime. Trevett, J., ‘Did Demosthenes publish his deliberative speeches?’, Hermes 124 (1996), 425–44, at 433–6Google Scholar is right to point out that publication was a poor way to influence popular opinion, but here Demosthenes was surely more interested in his standing among his fellow ῥήτορες and the wider elite. Making copies of his speeches available to these readers was probably a novel strategy, chiefly used in the early part of his career to promote his rhetorical and political gifts: see Yunis, H., Taming Democracy (Ithaca, NY, 1996), 242–3Google Scholar. On Organization would therefore not have been overshadowed by a general release of Demosthenes' speeches after his death.
32 The speech may then form part of the phenomenon attested in the fourth and third centuries of ‘recreating’ or ‘editing’ earlier historical documents to serve as παραδείγματα for the present. The most famous examples are the oath of Plataea (Lycurg. Leoc. 81; Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F153–4) and the Troizen Decree of Themistocles (Dem. 19.303); see Habicht, C., ‘Falsche Urkunden zur Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter der Perserkriege’, Hermes 89 (1961), 1–35, at 11–31Google Scholar. There is also some evidence for a parallel scholarly interest in writing historical speeches concerned with Demosthenes as early as the third century, see Kremmydas, C., ‘ P.Berol. 9781 and the early reception of Demosthenes 20’, BICS 50 (2007), 19–48 Google Scholar.