The deliberative speech known by us asOn 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 Atheniandēmositself is to break the power of self-interested orators and resume its proper control of thepolis(13–36). (shrink)

Jacoby's influential opinion that the Atthidographers were part of the political discourse of the fourth century has been the subject of revision in recent years. His critics have argued that the genre of Atthidography is primarily antiquarian and that to look for partisan political attitudes in the Atthides is a mistake. An examination of the work of Kleidemos, however, reveals a coherent presentation of the Athenian past designed to vindicate the democratic constitution and to demonstrate the close connection between the (...) democracy and Athens' naval power. This emerges most clearly in Kleidemos's treatment of three important democratic heroes: Theseus, Kleisthenes, and Themistokles. By the fourth century, Theseus had already emerged as the most popular Athenian hero. His accomplishments were modeled in part on the deeds of Herakles and were recorded in vase painting and relief sculpture, and on the walls of the Stoa Poikile. Kleidemos presented a distinctive account of Theseus, emphasizing his role in founding the Athenian navy in preparation for the expedition to Krete. Kleidemos portrayed him as a leader capable of defending Athens and making peace with Athens' enemies, first the Kretans and later the Amazons. This is a king in the tradition of Euripides' Theseus in the Suppliants, the ruler of a free and democratic city. The connection between democratic leadership, Athenian might, and the naval power of Athens is also underscored in Kleidemos's handling of Kleisthenes. Again, the information provided by Kleidemos is distinctive, inasmuch as he reports that it was Kleisthenes who was responsible for the system of naukrariai, which he likens to the symmories of the fourth century. Unlike the version of the Ath. Pol., which imagines the Kleisthenic demes replacing the Solonian naukrariai, Kleidemos saw the demes and naukrariai as complementary divisions, the former organizing the state's resources for the upkeep of the navy, and the latter establishing the political basis for the democracy. Themistokles is also given unique treatment. Kleidemos records the anecdote according to which Themistokles was responsible for the Battle of Salamis because he found sufficient money to man the ships when the generals had run out of funds and had ordered the abandonment of the city. He used the disappearance of the gorgoneion of the statue of Athena as an excuse to ransack the baggage of the Athenians and collect enough wealth to pay the fleet. The story is as tendentious as the account in the Ath. Pol., which gives the credit to the Areopagos. Both versions demonstrate how Athens' past had become a battleground in the political debates of the mid-fourth century. Unlike the epitaphios logos with its emphasis on the eternal and unchanging glory of Athens, the "Atthis" of Kleidemos attempted to prove that the greatness of Athens rested historically on three foundations: the heroes of the democracy, the democratic constitution, and the navy. (shrink)

Summary This essay is divided into three parts. The first examines the documents about Antiphon in the “Lives of the Ten Orators”, which have been attributed to the collection of Craterus, and shows that they must be forgeries because the information contained in them is inconsistent with reliable sources about Athenian laws and legal procedure and with the language and formulas of the preserved decrees of the fifth century and contains other serious mistakes. The second section examines the fragments of (...) the work of Craterus and shows that all are Athenian decrees, most of which relate to imperial administration or to famous personalities and are dated to the period between roughly 480 and 410. None of the fragments of this work can be dated earlier or later than this period. The third section reviews the documents inserted into the texts of the speeches of Andocides, Aeschines and Demosthenes and shows that in the majority of cases the editors who inserted these documents into the text could not have used the work of Craterus either for the texts of the genuine documents or for the information contained in the forged documents. In the other cases there is no evidence indicating that these editors consulted his work, and it appears that those who composed these documents used other sources. (shrink)

This article attempts to gather the evidence for panhellenism in the fifth century B.C. and to trace its development both as a political program and as a popular ideology. Panhellenism is here defined as the idea that the various Greek city-states could solve their political disputes and simultaneously enrich themselves by uniting in common cause and conquering all or part of the Persian empire. An attempt is made to trace the evidence for panhellenism throughout the fifth century by combining different (...) kinds of evidence: that is, both poetic and historical texts, as well as the testimonia for monuments which are no longer extant. Any thought of a panhellenic crusade was impossible before the Persian invasions, but such an expedition, under the dual leadership of Athens and Sparta, was espoused by Cimon. After his death it remained an item of popular talk for the rest of the century and this talk intensified during the second half of the Peloponnesian War. The paper has six parts: the first finds hints of panhellenist ideology in the fragments of Simonides' Plataea elegy and in Aeschylus' Persians. The second part attempts to explain several puzzling passages in Herodotus in terms of his reflecting contemporary panhellenist discourse, especially in his account of Aristagoras of Miletus at Sparta. Part three reconstructs Cimon' s belief in dual hegemony and his plans for a joint Athenian-Spartan expedition against the Persian empire. Part four connects an anecdote about Miltiades with the Cimonian monuments and argues that the artistic program of the Stoa Poikile was intended to support Cimon's panhellenist aspirations. Part five discusses panhellenist sentiments in late fifth-century Greek poetry, and dates the Olympic Oration and Funeral Oration of Gorgias to the period 408-405 B.C., Finally, part six relates the panhellenist writings of Isocrates to earlier developments. (shrink)

Following the idea first expressed by Heinrich Swoboda, there is a general perception that the meaning of ἀτιμία in Athens eventually evolved from the original ‘outlawry’, when an ἄτιμος was liable to being deprived of his property and slayed with impunity if he returned to the land from which he had been banished, into a certain limitation on civic status, which has often been rendered as a ‘disfranchisement’. Specific outcomes of this later form of ἀτιμία varied depending on the dating (...) and circumstances of individual cases, thereby giving rise to theories of a so-called full – or ‘total’ – and partial ἀτιμία. Still, whether it was viewed as ‘full’ or ‘partial’, this ἀτιμία did not inflict the death penalty. The precise dating of the transformation of ἀτιμία has also been debated, with opinions ranging from pre-Solonian times (L'Homme-Wéry) to the late sixth (Swoboda, Hansen, Manville) or the late fifth century (Scafuro). While the exact dating is unknown, this transformation was definitely over in the fifth century, when inscriptions and literary texts mentioned punishment by ἀτιμία alongside the death penalty and the confiscation of property. Thus, according to Raphael Sealey, ἀτιμία evolved ‘from a more severe to a milder sense’, and Alick R.W. Harrison pointed to the evidence that, by the fourth century, any willing Athenian could seize an ἄτιμος who happened to be in Athenian territory and surrender him to the θεσμοθέται, instead of killing him. (shrink)

The ¿scrutiny of all the laws¿ that Andocides invokes in his defence On the Mysteries is usually interpreted as a recodification with the aim of barring prosecution for the crimes of civil conflict. This article advances four theses against that traditional reading: (1) In Andocides¿ argument the Scrutiny was designed for a more practicable purpose, not to pardon crimes unpunished but to quash any further action against former atimoi, those penalized under the old regime but restored to rights in 403. (...) In context, coming close upon the summary of Patrocleides¿ decree, ¿all the laws¿ means all laws affecting atimoi. (2) The other evidence from inscriptions and literary testimony, for the Athenian Amnesty and similar agreements, supports this reading: the oath that closed the covenants, mê mnêsikakein, functions as a rule of estoppel or ¿no reprise¿; it was not in itself a pledge of ¿political forgiveness¿. In regard to the Scrutiny, as in Patrocleides¿ decree, the oath means that old penalties, now cancelled, can never again be enforced. (3) The Scrutiny itself was a reauthorization of the old laws for summary arrest and other standard remedies against atimoi who trespass or violate their restrictions. As a corollary to this re-enactment, the statute of limitations was introduced, ¿to apply the laws from Eucleides¿: the rules punishing the disfranchised cannot be used against those whose liabilities were incurred before 403. (4) Teisamenus¿ decree for new legislation was prior to this revision; it is not the decree that Andocides read to the court as a document of the Scrutiny. An ancient editor simply inserted the wrong document. Teisamenus envisioned no alteration of the ¿Solonian Code¿; the decree for Scrutiny was an unforeseen but necessary correction. These measures were successive reforms sorting out the new hierarchy of rules, a process whose complexity is attested in Diocles¿ law. (shrink)