Papyrus of Antiphon Tetralogy 2 |
Attic OratorsInstructor: K. Kapparis
Office 115A Dauer Hall
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Demosthenes |
Course Objectives
We are fortunate to have a substantial number of speeches from classical Athens (over 100 in total), composed and delivered by a number of different orators for various public occasions, political meetings, and law-courts. These texts preserve for us many details concerning the public and private life, politics, social structures, religion, ideology and culture of Athens in the late fifth and fourth century BC. Considering that the primary purpose of a speech was to persuade the listeners, what the orator said ought to sound truthful, even if it was not. The Attic Orators offer accounts of a wide variety of settings and situations, with attention to the detail, and presented in such a manner that the ordinary Athenian of that time would find at least plausible. This is why these texts are particularly valuable to modern day social and political historians. Moreover it is intriguing to see how the early masters of the art of speaking succeeded in persuading the audience in a political meeting, winning over a jury, or moving the crowds attending state funerals, public festivals and celebrations. When we compare their skills to those of charismatic public speakers of the present, we may often find that they possessed a deep knowledge of the mechanisms of persuasion, and that they were in the position to manipulate these mechanisms very effectively. Their works were used for many centuries as manuals for the study of the Greek language, and as models in the instruction of students of rhetoric. Nowadays they are still valuable to us as language manuals, highly authoritative historical sources, and prototypes for the study of rhetoric and speech-writing. The present course will offer students a representative selection of authors, texts and themes from the political, epideictic and judicial oratory of classical Athens. |
Isocrates
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Schedule:
W1: Introduction.
Forensic Oratory: Sexuality and social conduct
W5-8: Apollodoros,
Against Neaira [D.59] W9: Midterm Test W10-11: Hypereides,
Against Athenogenes Political Oratory: The Defence of the City
State
W14: Study Time; Thanksgiving (No Classes) Epideictic Oratory: The Panhellenic
Dream
W16: Final Test |
| Class Handouts | |
| Suggested Readings:
D.M. MacDowell: The Law in Classical Athens
See also the following online bibliography (the section about the primary
sourses is too basic, but the secondary resources are useful):
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| Links
http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/plu10or/index.htm
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