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Structure and Strategy in Lysias XXIV

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Christopher Carey
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Extract

In the brief introduction to this speech in his recent commentary, S. Usher observes: ‘Little logical order can be discerned, though the speech has a clearly-defined prooemium in which the main ingredients of the speech are already present.’ There is an element of overstatement in this assessment. The organization of the speech as a whole follows the habitual practice of Lysias, who favours a neat division between sections. Thus we have prooemium (§§1–3), prothesis (§§4–5), proofs (§§5–20; τὴν μὲν οὖν in §5 should begin a new paragraph, since there is a clear break as the speaker moves from a summary of the factual case against him to the first point in his refutation), epilogos (§§21–27). There is naturally no narrative section, since the hearing is concerned with status, not events. Within the proof section the speaker tackles each of the allegations against him separately, wealth (§§5ff.), health (§§10ff.), and bad character (§§15ff.).2 Nonetheless, Usher's description of the speech is true to the extent that the progress of thought in the proof section is. often rambling and disjointed. However, a closer examination of the speech shows that this seemingly undisciplined and unstructured movement is the product of a logical ordering principle, which has its origin in the nature of the speaker's case. To appreciate the rationale behind this structure it will be necessary to preface our discussion with an assessment of the strength of the case.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , April 1990 , pp. 44 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

Notes

1. Edwards, M. and Usher, S., Greek orators I: Antiphon and Lysias (Warminster, 1985), p. 263Google Scholar.

2. For the structure of the speech see Albini, U., RhM xcv (1952), 331Google Scholar. For Lysias' preference for neat division see Dionysios, of Halikarnassos, Lys. 15Google Scholar.

3. The speech offers no basis for precise dating. §25 indicates a date after the restoration of the democracy. But the detail is not helpful, since it is unlikely that Lysias' career as a logographer began before the fall of the Thirty.

4. §§13,26.

5. IG i2 373–4.

6. §§7,22,26.

7. Adams, C. D., Lysias: selected speeches (New York, 1905), pp. 236f.Google Scholar, mistakenly sees here ‘an absurd travesty’ of the allegation; the objector offers the horse-riding as evidence of affluence, while the speaker treats it as though it were offered as evidence of fitness. More to the point, Morgan, M. H., Eight orations of Lysias (Boston, 1897), p. 117Google Scholar observes: ‘he could… even ride, and that too in the days before stirrups and saddles with trees were known.’ For riding in ancient Greece strong thighs were essential; yet our speaker is supposedly disabled in his legs (§12).

8. Usher, p. 263. Albini 332 speaks of ‘una mescolanza brillante di serio e di faceto’. Blass, F., Die attische Beredsamkeit2 (Leipzig, 1887), i. 637fGoogle Scholar., sees the whole speech as a parody of pathetic speeches from defendants. But there is nothing amusing about the appeal to the hearers' pity in §§2, 7–8, 21–27.

9. Adams, p. 236.

10. Cf. 7.39f., Ant. 6.48–49, Isok. 15.5, Hyp. i.2.

11. See e.g. 7.20, 39, 14.1.

12. See Rhodes, P. J., The Athenian Boule (Oxford, 1972), pp. 5fGoogle Scholar.

13. The strictures of Reeve, M. D. in CR 18 (1968), 235fGoogle Scholar. on these chapters arise from a failure to appreciate the structural use of digression in the speech.

14. Usher, pp. 263f.

15. Cf. 16.3ff., 25.1–2, 26.5, 9f., 16ff.

16. I have ignored the whole issue of characterization, since this has been dealt with by others; see especially Usher, S., Eranos 63 (1965), 111fGoogle Scholar.

17. R. 1415a 36–38. For humour in Greek rhetorical theory see further Arist. R. 1419b 4–5 (Gorgias); for the practical use of humour by defendants to ingratiate themselves and make light of the issue see , Ar.Vesp. 566f.Google Scholar, Dem. 54.13, 20, 23.206.

18. For a similar, though less pronounced, blend of humour and emotion cf. Lys. 3, which through the proem and the vivid narrative invites indignation at the behaviour of the opponent, but at the same time by introducing a comic element (§8, where a stone thrown at the speaker by Simon misses and hits one of Simon's friends, §12 where the boy Theodotos takes to his heels clad only in his chiton, §18 where a ridiculous battle ensues in which all participants get hurt) the speaker implies that the whole affair is unworthy of the serious attention of the Areopagos; again as in Lys. 24 this implicit suggestion is made explicit towards the close (§§ 40ff.).

19. I am assuming that the speech was written for delivery at a hearing before the Boule. It has been suggested that it is merely a rhetorical exercise, not a practical attempt to persuade. So Boeckh, A., Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener3 (Berlin, 1886), i. 309CrossRefGoogle Scholar, because of the comic tone of much of the speech; so also Bruns, I., Das literatische Portrdt bei den Griechen (Berlin, 1896), pp. 462fGoogle Scholar., who further doubts that anyone could address the Athenian Boule in this way. Blass i. 637, rightly objects that we lack the evidence to make confident judgements about the tone which could be adopted and the arguments which could be advanced by a speaker addressing the Boule. Moreover, the example of other rhetorical exercises of the period, such as Antiphon's Tetralogies, the Helen of Gorgias, and Isokrates' Helen and Bousiris, would lead one to expect sustained argumentation rather than the systematic evasion of our speech. And although the invalid's case is weak, our awareness of this weakness results from the unsatisfactory arguments advanced in the speech, unlike the eulogies of a Helen or a Bousiris or of trivial or unwholesome subjects (cf. , Plat.Symp. 177bGoogle Scholar, Isok. 10.12, Arist. R. 1366a30, 1401b15), where the choice of subject is calculatedly and self-evidently paradoxical, so that the skill of the writer is displayed by the effectiveness with which he presents an unpromising case.