The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes

As a speechwriter, orator, and politician, Demosthenes captured, embodied, and shaped his time. He was a key player in Athens in the twilight of the city's independence, and is today a primary source for its history and society during that period. The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes sets out to explore the many facets of his life, work, and time, giving particular weight to elucidating the settings and contexts of his activities, as well as some of the key themes dealt with in his speeches, and thereby illustrating the interplay and mutual influence between his rhetoric and the environment from which it emerged. The volume's thirty-five chapters are authored by experts in the field and offer both comprehensive coverage and an up-to-date reference point for the issues and problems encountered when approaching the speeches in particular: they not only showcase how Demosthenes' rhetoric was profoundly influenced by Athenian reality, but also explore its reception from Demosthenes' own day right up until the present and how his presentation of his world has subsequently shaped our view of it. The wide range of expertise and the different scholarly traditions represented are a vivid demonstration of the richness and diversity of current Demosthenic studies and the contribution the volume makes to enriching our knowledge of the life and work of one of the most prominent figures of ancient Greece will be of significance to a wide readership interested in Athenian history, society, rhetoric, politics, and law.

Gunther Martin is SNSF-Professor at the University of Zurich; educated at the universities of Munich and Oxford, he has previously held posts at Oxford, Nottingham, and Berne. He is the author of books on Demosthenes, Euripides, and the historian Dexippus, and his work focuses on textual scholarship, the study of communication, and the relationship between historical reality and its representation in literary texts.

- Frontmatter - Abbreviations and Conventions - List of Contributors - Tables - 0: Gunther Martin: Introduction - Part I. General Matters - 1: Thomas Paulsen: Demosthenic Scholarship - 2: Gottfried Mader: Literary Readings of Oratory - 3: Adele C. Scafuro: Historical Readings of Oratory - 4: Katharina Wojciech: The Place of Oratory in Fourth-Century Politics and Culture - Part II. The Institutional Context of Oratory - 5: Karen Piepenbrink: Public Opinion and the Arenas of Debate - 6: Mirko Canevaro: Law and Justice - 7: Michael Gagarin: Court Procedures and Arbitration - 8: Susan Lape: Political Elites - 9: Peter Hunt: Diplomacy - Part III. The Political Context - 10: P. J. Rhodes: Athenian Foreign Policy - 11: Edmund M. Burke: Athenian State Finances - 12: Leonhard Burckhardt: Military - 13: Robert J. Nichols: Corruption - 14: Guy Westwood: Views on the Past - 15: Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner: Visions of Attica - Part IV. The Social and Cultural Context - 16: Sitta von Reden: Trade and Credit - 17: Kostas Kapparis: The Social and Legal Position of Metics, Foreigners, and Slaves - 18: Joseph Roisman: The Rhetoric of Social and Political Values - 19: Winfried Schmitz: Local Communities, Neighbourhoods - 20: S. C. Humphreys: Kinship - 21: Hannah Willey: Religion - 22: Robin Osborne: City and Countryside - Part V. Demosthenes' Life - 23: Brad L. Cook: The Biographic Tradition - 24: Iris Samotta: Family, Formation, Extra-Political Activities - 25: Christos Karvounis: Political Career - 26: Noriko Sawada: Allies and Foes (I): Aeschines, Hyperides, Lycurgus - 27: Luigi Gallo: Allies and Foes (II): Politicians without Transmitted Speeches - Part VI. The Corpus Demosthenicum - 28: Edward M. Harris: Speeches to the Assembly and in Public Prosecutions (Dem. 1 24) - 29: Pietro Cobetto Ghiggia: Speeches in Private Prosecutions - 30: Ian Worthington: The Epitaphios, Erotikos, Prooimia, and Letters - 31: Cecil W. Wooten: Rhetorical Technique - 32: Jeremy Trevett: Authenticity, Composition, Publication - 33: Luciano Canfora: Afterlife (Antiquity and Byzantine Era) - 34: Alastair Blanshard: Afterlife (Modern Era) - 35: Gunther Martin: Transmission of the Corpus Demosthenicum - Endmatter - Index