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Antiphon: Works

The Tetralogies.

SIXTY speeches ascribed to Antiphon were known ¹ in the reign of Augustus; but of these Caecilius pronounced twenty-five spurious². Fifteen, including the twelve speeches of the Tetralogies, are now extant. All these relate to causes of homicide. The titles of lost speeches prove that Antiphon's activity was not confined to this province; but it was in this province that he excelled; and as the orations of Isaeos are now represented by one class only, the κληρικοί, so the orations of Antiphon are represented by one class only, the φονικοί.

The Tetralogies have this special interest, that they represent rhetoric in its transition from the technical to the practical stage, from the schools to the law-courts and the ekklesia. Antiphon stood between the sophists who preceded and the orators who followed him as the first Athenian who was at once a theorist of rhetoric and a master of practical eloquence. The Tetralogies hold a corresponding place between merely ornamental exercises and real orations. Each of them forms a set of four speeches, supposed to be spoken in a trial for homicide. The accuser states his charge, and the defendant replies; the accuser then speaks again, and the defendant follows with a second reply. The imaginary case is in each instance sketched as lightly as possible; details are dispensed with; only the essential framework for discussion is supplied. Hence, in these skeleton-speeches, the structure and anatomy of the argument stand forth in naked clearness, stripped of everything accidental, and showing in bold relief the organic lines of a rhetorical pleader's thought. It was the essence of the technical rhetoric that it taught a man to be equally ready to defend either side of a question. Here we have the same man— Antiphon himself—arguing both sides, with tolerably well-balanced force; and it must be allowed that much of the reasoning—especially in the Second Tetralogy—is, in the modern sense, sophistical. In reference, however, to this general characteristic one thing ought to be borne in mind. The Athenian law of homicide was precise, but it was not scientific. The distinctions which it drew between various degrees of guilt in various sets of circumstances depended rather on minute tradition than on clear principle. A captious or even frivolous style of argument was invited by a code which employed vague conceptions in the elaborate classification of accidental details. Thus far the Tetralogies bear the necessary mark of the age which produced them. But in all else they are distinguished as widely as possible from the essays of a merely artificial rhetoric; not less from the ‘displays’ of the elder sophists than from the ‘declamations’ of the Augustan age³. They are not only thoroughly real and practical, but they show Antiphon, in one sense, at his best. He argues in them with more than the subtlety of the speeches which he composed for others, for here he has no less an antagonist than himself: he speaks with more than the elevation of his ordinary style,—for in the privacy of the school he owed less concession to an altered public taste.

First Tetralogy.

The First Tetralogy supposes the following case. A citizen, coming home at night from a dinner-party, has been murdered. His slave, found mortally wounded on the same spot, deposes that he recognised one of the assassins. This was an old enemy of his master, against whom the latter was about to bring a lawsuit which might be ruinous. The accused denies the charge: the case comes before the court of the Areiopagos. The speeches of accuser and defendant comprise a number of separate arguments, each of which is carefully, though very briefly, stated, but which are not systematised or woven into a whole. An enumeration of the points raised on either side in this case will give a fair general idea of the scope of the Tetralogies generally. ⁴

I. First Speech of Accuser.

1. §§ 1—3. ( Proem.) The accused is so crafty that even an imperfect proof against him ought to be accepted: a proof complete in all its parts is hardly to be looked for.—It is not to be supposed that the accuser would have deliberately incurred the guilt of prosecuting an innocent person.

[Here a narrative of the facts would naturally follow; but as this is a mere practice-speech, it is left out, and the speaker comes at once to the proofs—first, those derived from argument on the circumstances themselves (the ἔντεχνοι πίστεις)—then, the testimony of the slave (which represents the ἄτεχνοι.)]

2. § 4. The deceased cannot have been murdered by robbers; for he was not plundered.

3. Nor in a drunken brawl; for the time and place are against it.

4. Nor by mistake for some one else; for, in that case the slave would not have been attacked too.

5. §§ 5—8. It was therefore a premeditated crime and this must have been prompted by a motive of reveng or fear.

6. Now the accused had both motives. He had lost much property in actions brought by the deceased, and was threatened with the loss of more. The murder was the only means by which he could evade the lawsuit hanging over him. [Here follows a curious argument in a circle.] And he must have felt that he was going to lose the lawsuit, or he would not have braved a trial for murder.

7. § 9. The slave identifies him.

8. §§ 9—11. ( Epilogue.) If such proofs do not suffice no murderer can ever be brought to justice, and the State will be left to bear the wrath of the gods for an unexpiated pollution.

II. First Speech of the Defendant.

1. §§ 1—4. (Proem.) The accuser deserves the pity of the judge, for he is the most unlucky of men. In death, as in life, his enemy hurts him still. It is not enough if he can prove his own innocence; he is expected to point out the real culprit. The accuser credits him with craft. If he was so crafty, is it likely that he would have exposed himself to such obvious suspicion?

2. §§ 5—6. The deceased may have been murdered by robbers, who were scared off by people coming up before they had stripped him.

3. Or he may have been murdered because he had been witness of some crime.

4. Or by some other of his numerous enemies; who would have felt safe, knowing that the suspicion was sure to fall on the accused, his great enemy.

5. § 7. The testimony of the slave is untrustworthy, since, in the terror of the moment, he may have been mistaken; or he may have been ordered by his present masters to speak against the accused. Generally, the evidence of slaves is held untrustworthy; else they would not be racked.

6. § 8. Even if mere probabilities are to decide the case, it is more probable that the accused should have employed some one else to do the murder, than that the slave should, at such a time, have been accurate in his recognition.

7. § 9. The danger of losing money in the impending lawsuit could not have seemed more serious to the accused than the danger, which he runs in the present trial, of losing his life.

8. §§ 10—13. ( Epilogue.) Though he be deemed the probable murderer, he ought not to be condemned unless he is proved to be the actual murderer.—It is his adversary who, by accusing the innocent, is really answerable for the consequences of a crime remaining unexpiated.—The whole life and character of the accused are in his favour, as much as those of the accuser are against him.—The judges must succour the ill fortune of a slandered man.

III. Second Speech of the Accuser.

1. § 1. (Proem.) The defendant has no right to speak of his ‘misfortune:’ it is his fault. The first speech for the prosecutor proved his guilt; this shall overthrow his defence.

2. § 2. Had the robbers been scared off by people coming up, these persons would have questioned the slave about the assassins, and given information which would have exculpated the accused.

3. Had the deceased been murdered because he had been witness of a crime, this crime itself would have been heard of.

4. § 3. His other enemies, being in less danger from him than the accused was, had so much less motive for the crime.

5. § 4. It is contended that the slave's testimony is untrustworthy because it was wrung from him by the rack. But, in such cases as these, the rack is not used at all. [Nothing is said about the hypothesis that the slave may have been suborned by his masters.]

6. § 5. The accused is not likely to have got the deed done by other hands, since he would have been suspected all the same, and could not have been so sure of the work being done thoroughly.

7. § 6. The lawsuit hanging over him—a certainty— would have seemed more formidable to him than the doubtful chance of a trial for murder.

8. §§ 7—8. (Notice of a few topics touched on by the defendant at the beginning and end of his speech.)—The fear of discovery is not likely to have deterred such a man from crime: whereas the prospect of losing his wealth—the instrument of his boasted services to the State—is very likely to have driven him to it.—When the certain murderer cannot be found, the presumptive must be punished.

9. §§ 9—11. ( Epilogue.) The judges must not acquit the accused—condemned alike by probabilities and by proofs—and thereby bring bloodguiltiness on themselves. By punishing him, they can take the stain of murder off the State.

IV. Second Speech of the Defendant.

1. §§ 1—3. (Proem.) He is the victim of cruel malignity. Though bound only to clear himself, it is demanded of him that he shall account for the crime.

2. §§ 4—5. Suppose that robbers did the murder, but were scared, before they had taken their booty, by people coming up. Would these persons, as it is contended, have remained to make inquiries? Coming on a bloody corpse and a dying man at dead of night, would they not rather have fled in terror from the spot?

3. § 6. Suppose that the deceased was slain because he had been witness of a crime:—the fact of such crime not having been heard of, does not prove that it did not take place.

4. § 7. The slave, with death from his wounds close at hand, had nothing to fear if he bore false testimony.

5. § 8. But the accused can prove a distinct alibi. All his own slaves can testify that on the night in question— the night of the Diïpolia—he did not leave his own house.

[The assertion of the alibi has been reserved till this point, because now the prosecutor cannot reply.]

6. § 9. It is suggested that he may have committed the crime to protect his wealth. But desperate deeds, such as this, are not done by prosperous men. They are more natural to men who have nothing to lose.

7. § 10. Even if he were the presumptive murderer, he would not have been proved the actual: but, as it is, the probabilities also are for him. On all grounds, therefore, he must be acquitted, or there is no more safety for any accused man.

8. §§ 11—12. ( Epilogue.) The judges are entreated not to condemn him wrongfully, and so leave the murder unatoned for, while they bring a new stain of bloodguiltiness on the State.

A tolerably full analysis of this First Tetralogy has been given, because it is curious as showing the general line of argument which a clever Athenian reasoner, accustomed to writing for the courts, thought most likely to succeed on either side of such a case. It will be seen that, though other kinds of evidence come into discussion, the contest turns largely on general probabilities ( εἰκότα)—a province for which Antiphon had the relish of a trained rhetorician, and on which he enlarges in the speech On the Murder of Herodes⁵. As regards style, in this as in the other Tetralogies the language is noble throughout, rising, in parts of the speeches of the accused, to an austere pathos⁶; it is always concise without baldness, but somewhat over-stiff and antique. There is also too little of oratorical life; at which, however, in short speeches written for practice, the author perhaps did not aim.

Second Tetralogy.

The subject of the Second Tetralogy is the death of a boy accidentally struck by a javelin while watching a youth practising at the gymnasium. The boy's father accuses the youth—whose father defends him—of accidental homicide; and the case comes before the court of the Palladion. In order to understand the issues raised, it is necessary to keep in mind the Greek view of accidental homicide. This view was mainly a religious one. The death was a pollution. Some person, or thing, must be answerable for that pollution, and must be banished from the State, which would else remain defiled⁷. In a case like the supposed one, three hypotheses were possible:—that the cause of the impurity had been the thrower, the person struck, or the missile. Perikles and Protagoras spent a whole day in discussing a similar question. Epitimos, an athlete, had chanced to hit and kill a certain Pharsalian: did the guilt lie, they inquired, with Epitimos, with the man killed, or with the javelin⁸? There was a special court—that held at the Prutaneion—for the trial of inanimate things which had caused death. Here, however, the question is only of living agents. The judges have nothing whatever to do with the question as to how far either was morally to blame. The question is simply which of them is to be considered as, in fact, the author or cause of the death.

The accused, in his first speech, assumes that the case ⁹ admits of no doubt; states it briefly; and concludes with an appeal to the judges (A. §§ 1—2). The father of the accused, after bespeaking patience for an apparently strange defence (B. §§ 1—2)—argues that the error, the ἁμαρτία, was all on the boy's side (§§ 3—5). The thrower was standing in his appointed place; the boy was not obliged to place himself where he did. The thrower knew what he was about; the boy did not—he chose the wrong moment for running across. He was struck; and so punished himself for his own fault (§§ 6—8).—The accuser answers in the tone of a plain man bewildered by the shamelessness of the defence, ( Γ. §§ 1—4). It is absured, he says, to pretend that the boy killed himself with a weapon which he had not touched. On the showing of the defence itself, the blame is divided: if the boy ran, the youth threw: neither was passive (§§ 5— 10).—The youth's father answers that his meaning has been perverted (A. §§ 1—2): he did not mean, of course, that the boy pierced himself, but that he became the first cause of his own death (§§ 3—5). The youth did no more than the other throwers, who did not hit the boy only because he did not cross their aim (§§ 6—8). Involuntary homicide is, doubtless, punishable by law; but, in this instance, the involuntary slayer—the deceased himself—has been punished already. To condemn the accused would be only to incur a new pollution (§§ 9—10).

The striking point of the whole Tetralogy is the ingenuity with which the defender inverts the natural view of the case. The guilt of blood is, he says, with the deceased alone, who has taken satisfaction for it from himself. ‘Destroyed by his own errors, he was punished by himself in the same instant that he sinned.’ ( Δ. § 8.)

Third Tetralogy.

Another peculiarity of the Athenian law of homicide is illustrated by the third and last Tetralogy. An elderly man had been beaten by a younger man so severely that in a few days he died. The young man is tried for murder before the Areiopagos.¹⁰

The accuser, in a short speech, appeals chiefly to the indignation of the judges, dwelling, in a striking passage on the sin of robbing a fellow-mortal of the god's gift (A. §§ 1—4).—The defendant argues in reply that, if the homicide is to be regarded as accidental, then it rests with the surgeon, under whose unskilful treatment the man died; but, if it is to be regarded as deliberate, then the murderer is the deceased himself, since he struck the first blow, which set the train of events in motion (B. §§ 3—5).— The accuser answers that the elder man is not likely to have first struck the younger ( Γ. § 2); and that to blame the surgeon is idle; it would not be more absurd to inculpate the persons who called in his aid (§ 5).—[Here the second speech of the accused could naturally follow. But the accused has, in the meantime, taken advantage of the Athenian law by withdrawing into voluntary exile. The judges have no longer any power to punish him. A friend, however, who was a bystander of the quarrel, comes forward to defend the innocence of the accused.] The guilt, he maintains, lies with the old man; he, as can be proved, gave the first blow ( Δ. §§ 2—5); he is at once the murdered and the murderer (§ 8).

The line thus taken by the defence is remarkable. It relies chiefly on the provocation alleged to have been given by the deceased. But it does not insist upon this provocation as mitigating the guilt of the accused. It insists upon it as transferring the whole guilt from the accused to the dead man. Athenian law recognised only two kinds of homicide; that which was purely accidental, and that which resulted from some deliberate act. In the latter case, whether there had been an intent to kill or not, some one must be a murderer. Thus, here, it would not have been enough for the defence to show that the accused had, without intent to kill, and under provocation, done a fatal injury. It is necessary to go on to argue that the deceased was guilty of his own murder.

The literary form of the Third Tetralogy deserves notice in two respects; for the solemnity and majesty of the language in the accuser's first address; and for the vivacity lent by rhetorical question and answer to part of the first speech of the defendant¹¹—a vivacity which distinguishes it, as regards style, from everything else in these studies.

Speech On the Murder of Herodes.

Of extant speeches written by Antiphon for real causes, by far the most important is that On the Murder of Herodes. The facts of the case were as follows. Herodes, an Athenian citizen, had settled at Mytilene in 427 B.C. after the revolt and reduction of that town. He was one of the kleruchs among whom its territory was apportioned, but not otherwise wealthy¹². Having occasion to make a voyage to Aenos on the coast of Thrace, to receive the ransom of some Thracian captives who were in his hands, he sailed from Mytilene with the accused,—a young man whose father, a citizen of Mytilene, lived chiefly at Aenos¹³. Herodes and his companion were driven by a storm to put in at Methymna on the north-west coast of Lesbos; and there, as the weather was wet, exchanged their open vessel for another which was decked. After they had been drinking on board together, Herodes went ashore at night, and was never seen again. The accused, after making every inquiry for him, went on to Aenos in the open vessel; while the decked vessel, into which they had moved at Methymna, returned to Mytilene¹⁴. On reaching the latter place again, the defendant was charged by the relatives of Herodes with having murdered him at the instigation of Lykînos, an Athenian¹⁵ living at Mytilene, who had been on bad terms with the deceased. They rested their charge principally on three grounds. First, that the sole companion of the missing man must naturally be considered accountable for his disappearance. Secondly, that a slave had confessed under torture to having assisted the defendant in the murder. Thirdly, that on board the vessel which returned from Methymna had been found a letter in which the defendant announced to Lykînos the accomplishment of the murder.

It was necessary that the trial should take place ¹⁶ at Athens, whither all subject-allies were compelled to bring their criminal causes. The ordinary course would have been to have laid an indictment for murder ( γραφὴ φόνου) before the Areiopagos. Instead, however, of doing this the relatives of Herodes laid an information against the accused as a ‘malefactor’¹⁷. He was accordingly to be tried by an ordinary dikastery under the presidency of the Eleven. ‘Malefactor,’ at Athens, ordinarily meant a thief, a housebreaker, a kidnapper, or criminal of the like class; but the term was, of course, applicable to murder, especially if accompanied by robbery. Instances of persons accused of murder being proceeded against, not by an indictment, but by an information, and being summarily arrested without previous inquiry, occur only a few years later than the probable date of this speech¹⁸. When, therefore, the accused contends that the form of the procedure was unprecedented and illegal, this is probably to be understood as an exaggeration of the fact that it was unusual. In two ways it must have been distasteful to the prisoner; first, as an indignity; secondly, as a positive disadvantage. Trial before the Areiopagos left to the prisoner the option of withdrawing from the country before sentences; and imposed upon the accuser a peculiarly solemn oath¹⁹. In this case, moreover, the unusual (though not illegal) procedure was accompanied by unjust rigours. When the accused arrived in Athens, although he offered the three sureties required by law, his bail was refused; he was imprisoned. This treatment, of which he reasonably complains²⁰, may have been due in part to the unpopularity of Mytileneans at Athens, and to the fact that Herodes had been an Athenian citizen.²¹

The date of the speech must lie between the capture of Mytilene in 427²² B. C. and the revolt of Lesbos in 412 B. C. The accused says that in 427 B.C. he was too young²³ to understand the events which were passing, and that he knows them only by hearsay. On the other hand, he can hardly have been less than twenty at the time of the trial. Kirchner²⁴ and Blass are inclined to place the speech about 421 B. C.; it would perhaps be better to put it three or four years later, about 417 or 416 B. C. On the other hand, a slight indication—which seems to have escaped notice—appears to show that it was at least earlier than the spring of 415 B. C. The accused brings together several instances in which great crimes had never been explained²⁵. If the mutilation of the Hermae had then taken place, he could scarcely have failed to notice so striking an example.

The speech opens with a proem in which the defendant ²⁶ pleads his youth and inexperience (§§ 1—7); and which is followed by a preliminary argument ( προκατασκευή) on the informality of the procedure (§§ 8—18). The defendant then gives a narrative of the facts up to his arrival at Aenos (§§ 19—24); and shows that the probabilities, as depending upon the facts thus far stated, are against the story of the prosecutors (§§ 25—28). The second part of the narrative describes how the vessel into which Herodes and the defendant had moved at Methymna returned to Mytilene; how the slave was tortured, and under torture accused the defendant of murder (§§ 29—30).

The defendant now concentrates his force upon proving the testimony of the slave to be worthless (§§ 31—51). He next discusses the statement of the prosecutors that a letter, in which he announced the murder to Lykînos, had been found on board the returning vessel (§§ 52—56). He shows that he could have had no motive for the murder (§§ 57—63). He maintains that he cannot justly be required to suggest a solution of the mystery. It is enough if he establishes his own innocence. Many crimes have finally baffled investigation (§§ 64—73). He notices the reproaches brought against his father as having taken part in the revolt of Mytilene and having been generally disloyal to Athens (§§ 74—80).

Besides all the other proofs, the innocence of the prisoner is vindicated by the absence of signs of the divine anger. Voyages and sacrifices in which he has taken part have always been prosperous (§§ 81—84). In a concluding appeal the judges are reminded that, in any case, justice cannot be frustrated by his acquittal, since it will still be possible to bring him before the Areiopagos (§§ 85—95).²⁷

In reviewing the whole speech as an argument, the first thing which strikes us is the notable contrast between the line of defence taken here and that traced for a case essentially similar in the modelspeeches of the First Tetralogy. There, the defendant employs all his ingenuity in suggesting explanations of the mysterious crime which shall make the hypothesis of his own guilt unnecessary. Here, the defendant pointedly refuses to do any thing of the kind. It is enough if he can show that he was not the murderer; it is not his business to show who was or might have been. On this broad, plain ground the defence takes a firm stand. The arguments are presented in a natural order, as they arise out of the facts narrated, and are drawn out at a length proportionate to their consequence,—by far the greatest stress being laid on the worthlessness of the slave's evidence; in discussing which, indeed, the speaker is not very consistent²⁸. One apparent omission is curious. The prisoner incidentally says that he never left the vessel on the night when Herodes went on shore and disappeared²⁹; but he does not dwell upon, or attempt to prove, this allessential alibi. If the numerous commonplaces and general sentiments seem to us a source of weakness rather than strength, allowance must be made for the taste and fashion of the time; and every one must recognise the effectiveness of the appeal to divine signs in which the argument finds its rhetorical climax.

As a composition, the speech has great merits. The êthos, indeed, is not artistic; a style so dignified and so sententious is scarcely suitable to a speaker who is continually apologising for his youth and inexperience. Nor, except in the passage which touches on the ruin of Mytilene³⁰, is there even an attempt at pathos. But there is variety and versatility; the opening passage is artistically elaborate, the concluding, impressive in a higher way; while the purely argumentative part of the speech is not encumbered with any stiff dignity, but is clear, simple, and sufficiently animated. Altogether the style has less sustained elevation, but shows more flexibility, greater maturity and mastery, than that of the Tetralogies.

Speech On the Choreutes.

The speech On the Choreutes relates to the death of Diodotos, a boy who was in training as member of a chorus to be produced at the Thargelia, and who was poisoned by a draught given to him to improve his voice³¹. The accused is the choregus, an Athenian citizen, who discharged that office for his own and another tribe, and at whose house the chorus received their lessons. The accuser, Philokrates, brother of the deceased Diodotos, laid an information for poisoning before the Archon Basileus; and after some delay, the case came before the Areiopagos³². It was not contended that the accused had intended to murder the boy, but only that he had ordered to be administered to him the draught which caused his death. According to Athenian law this was, however, a capital offence. The present speech is the second made by the defendant, and the last, therefore, of the trial. Its date may probably be placed soon after the Sicilian disaster³³.

In a long proem, the accused dwells on the advantage ³⁴ of a good conscience—on the excellence of the court of the Areiopagos—and on the weight of a judicial decision in such a case (§§ 1—6). He goes on to complain of the manner in which the adversaries have mixed up irrelevant charges with the true issue; he will address himself to the latter, and then refute the former (§§ 7—10). A narrative of the facts is then begun; but he breaks it off with the remark that it would be easy to expose the falsehoods contained in the adversary's second speech, and that he will now bring proofs (§§ 11—15). The testimony of witnesses is adduced and commented upon (§§ 16—19). The defendant goes on to contrast his own conduct in the matter with that of the accuser; dwells on the refusal of his challenge to an examination of slaves; and urges the strength in all points of his case (§§ 20—32). The evidence closed, he digresses into a full review of the adversaries' conduct from the first, in order to illustrate their malice and dishonesty. ‘What judges,’ he asks in conclusion, ‘would they not deceive, if they have dared to trifle with the awful oath under which they came before this court?’ (§§ 33—51.)³⁵

It seems probable that the end of the speech has been lost. Standing last in the MSS. of Antiphon, it would thus be the more liable to mutilation; and in the concluding speech of a trial the orator would scarcely have broken the rule, which he observes in every other instance, of finishing with an appeal to the judges. The fact that a rhetorical promise made in the speech³⁶ is not literally fulfilled need not be insisted upon to strengthen this view.

In the speech On the Murder of Herodes, Antiphon had to rely mainly on his skill in argument; here, witnesses were available, the case against the accusers was strong, and little was needed but a judicious marshalling of proofs. This is ably managed; but, as a display of power, the speech is necessarily of inferior interest. The Mytilenean defendant in the Herodes case and the choregus here speak in the same general tone—with a certain directness and earnestness; but the common êthos is more strongly marked here, as the personality of the speaker comes more decidedly forward. In other points of style there is a striking contrast between the earlier and the later oration. The proem here is, indeed, as measured and as elaborate as any thing in the earlier work. But it stands alone; in the rest of the speech there is no stiffness. The language is that of ordinary life; the sentences are more flowing, if not always clear; the style is enlivened by question and exclamation, instead of being ornamented with antitheses and parallelisms; and already the beginning of a transition to the easier, more practical style of the later eloquence is well-marked.

Speech Against a Stepmother.

The short speech entitled ‘Against a Step-mother, on a Charge of Poisoning,’ treats of a case which, like the preceding, belonged to the jurisdiction of the Areiopagos. The speaker, a young man, is the son of the deceased. He charges his step-mother with having poisoned his father several years before³⁷, by the instrumentality of a woman who was her dupe. The deceased and a friend, Philoneos, the woman's lover, had been dining together; and she was persuaded to administer a philtre to both, in hope of recovering her lover's affection. Both the men died; and the woman—a slave—was put to death forthwith. The accuser now asks that the real criminal, —the true Klytaemnestra³⁸ of this tragedy,—shall suffer punishment.

After deprecating in a proem (§§ 1—4) the odium to ³⁹ which his position exposes him, and commenting on the refusal of the adversaries to give up their slaves for examination (§§ 5—13), the speaker states the facts of the case. (§§ 14—20.) He goes on to contrast his own part as his father's avenger with that of his brother, the champion of the murderess (§§ 21—25); appeals for sympathy and retribution (§§ 26—27); denies that his brother's oath to the innocence of the accused can have any good ground, whereas his own oath to the justice of his cause is supported by his father's dying declaration (§§ 28—30); and concludes by saying that he has discharged his solemn duty, and that it now remains for the judges to do theirs. (§ 31.)⁴⁰

Two questions have been raised in connexion with this speech; whether it was written merely for practice; and whether it was the work of Antiphon. I. It has been urged that stories of this kind were often chosen as subjects by the rhetoricians of the schools; that the designation of the accused as Klytaemnestra is melodramatic; that the name Philoneos ( Φιλόνεως) seems fictitious; that the address to the Areiopagites as ὦ δικάζοντες in § 7 is strange; and that the speech stands in the mss. before the Tetralogies⁴¹. The last objection alone requires notice. The place of the speech in the mss. is, as Blass observes, due to the fact that it is the only accusatory speech; the Tetralogies comprise both accusation and defence; then come the defensive orations⁴². On the other hand the prominence of narrative and the entire absence of argument in this speech—in direct contrast to the Tetralogies, which are all argument and no narrative—and the unfitness of the subject for practising the ingenuity of an advocate, seem conclusive against the view that this was a mere exercise. II. The question of authenticity is more difficult. As regards matter, nothing can be weaker than the speech. There is no argument. An unsupported assertion that the accused had attempted the same crime before; the belief of the deceased that his wife was guilty; the refusal of the adversaries to give up their slaves; these are the only proofs. As regards style, there is much clumsy verbiage⁴³. On the other hand, the narrative (§§ 14—20) shows real tragic power, especially in the contrast drawn between the unconsciousness of the miserable dupe and the craft of the instigator; throughout there is a pathos of the same kind as that of the Tetralogies, but higher; and lastly there is a strong resemblance to a particular passage in the speech On the Choreutes⁴⁴. The conclusion to which Blass comes appears sensible⁴⁵. Our knowledge of Antiphon's style is not so complete as to justify this rejection of the speech; but it must in any case be assigned to a period when both his argumentative skill and his power as a composer were still in a rude stage of their development.

Lost works.

Besides the extant compositions, twenty-four others, bearing the name of Antiphon, are known by their titles. Among these three deserve especial notice, because their titles have occasioned different inferences as to their contents, and because it is now tolerably certain that they belong, not to Antiphon ⁴⁶ the orator, but to Antiphon the sophist⁴⁷. These are the ‘speeches’ (or rather essays) On Truth, On Concord, On Statesmanship⁴⁸. As regards the first of these, indeed, the testimony of Hermogenes⁴⁹ that it was the work of the Sophist has scarcely been questioned. But the treatise On Concord has often been given to the orator on the assumption that it was a speech, enforcing the importance of harmony, which he delivered in some political crisis, perhaps at the moment when the Four Hundred were threatened with ruin by internal dissensions⁵⁰. The treatise on Statesmanship, again, might, as far as the title witnesses, have been a practical exposition of oligarchical principles by the eloquent colleague of Peisandros. An examination of the fragments leads, however, to the almost certain conclusion that all these three works must be ascribed to the Sophist. The essay On Truth was a physical treatise, in which cosmic phenomena were explained mechanically in the fashion of the Ionic School⁵¹. The essay On Concord was an ethical treatise, exhorting all men to live in harmony and friendship, instead of embittering their short lives by strife⁵². The essay on Statesmanship was no party-pamphlet, but a discussion of the training required to produce a capable citizen⁵³. Besides the speeches known to the ancients, a work on the Art ⁵⁴ of Rhetoric⁵⁵, and a collection of Proems and Epilogues⁵⁶, were current under Antiphon's name. ⁵⁷ Sauppe and Spengel⁵⁸ believe the Tetralogies to be examples taken from the Rhetoric; the latter, however, is expressly condemned as spurious by Pollux⁵⁹. The collection of Proems and Epilogues may, as Blass⁶⁰ suggests, have furnished the opening and concluding passages of the Speech On the Murder of Herodes, and the opening passage of that On the Choreutes. In the latter case the difference of style between the proem and all that follows it is certainly striking.

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. 1876.

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Current edition Perseus

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos (English) (The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, author. London: Macmillan, 1876.)

Notes on the current edition

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos

1. The φονικοὶ λόγοι alone extant.

2. [Plut.] Vitt. X. Oratt.

3. ‘Antiphon is a sophist,’ (says Reiske ( Orat. Att. VII. p. 849)— ‘nay, in a manner the father of that pedantic (umbratici), hairplitting, empty, affected kind of speaking with which the schools of the ancients were rife.’ The very phrase ‘scholae veterum’ shows the vagueness of this assertion. Precisely that which distinguished Antiphon from the earlier sophists was his practical bent. No man could be less fairly called ‘umbraticus.’

4. Analysis.

5. See esp. de caed. Herod. §§ 57—63.

6. Esp. B. §§ 1—4: Δ §§ 1—3.

7. This feeling about homicide comes out strongly in the custom of trying cases of φόνος in the open air: ἵνα τοῦτο μὲν οἱ δικασταὶ μὴ ἴωσιν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ τοῖς μὴ καθαροῖς τὰς χεῖρας, τοῦτο δὲ ὁ διώκων τὴν δίκην τοῦ φόνου ἵνα μὴ ὁμωρόφιος γένηται τῷ αὐθέντῃ. Cf. supra, p. 40, note 2; and Dem. Aristocr. §§ 65—79.

8. Plut. Perikl. 36.

9. Analysis.

10. Analysis.

11. Tetral. III. B. §§ 2, 3.

12. § 58.

13. § 78.

14. Compare § 28 with § 23.

15. See § 61; and also § 62, ἀπεστέρει μὲν ἐμὲ τῆς πατρίδος, ἀπεστέρει δὲ αὑτὸν ἱερῶν, which implies, as Blass points out, that Lesbos was not the πατρίς of Lykînos, as it was of the defendant.

16. Mode of legal procedure.

17. ἔνδειξις κακουργίας: cf. § 9 κακοῦργος ἐνδεδειγμένος. When the accused arrived in Athens, he was, on the strength of the ἔνδειξις, arrested by the Eleven: § 85 ἀπήχθην. Hence in § 9 he speaks of ταύτην τὴν ἀπαγωγήν. The terms ἔνδειξις κακουργίας and ἀπαγωγὴ κακουργιας do not denote two different processes, but two parts of the same process. Ἔνδειξις was the laying of information against a person not yet apprehended: ἀπαγωγή was the act of apprehending him.

18. The two murderers of Phrynichos in 411 were ‘seized and put in prison’ by his friends ( ληφθέντων καὶ ἐς τὸ δεσμωτήριον ἀποτεθέντων), —that is, were proceeded against by ἀπαγωγή: Lykurgos in Leokr. § 12. The procedure in the case of Agoratos (391 B.C.), again, was by an ἔνδειξις, not by a γραφὴ φόνου, and there was an ἀπαγωγή of the accused (Lys. in Agorat. § 85). Strictly speaking the ἔνδειξις and ἀπαγωγή were applicable only to those cases in which the accused was taken ἐπ’ αὐτοφώρῳ: that is, in which no further proof of his guilt was required. Thus Pollux defines ἔνδειξις as ὁμολογουμένου ἀδικήματος μήνυσις, οὐ κρίσεως ἀλλὰ τιμωρίας δεομένου. Agoratos appears to have raised this very point: Lys. in Agor. § 85. But, since the procedure of the Areiopagos was so highly favourable to the accused, a prosecutor would generally prefer the procedure by ἔνδειξις if there was any decent pretence for it. And the condition of manifest guilt does not seem to have been rigorously insisted upon by the authorities. There was, probably, a feeling that the forms of the Areiopagos would be in a manner profaned by application to criminals of the vilest class.

19. De caed. Herod. § 12, δέον σε διομόσασθαι ὅρκον τὸν μέγιστον καὶ ἰσχυρότατον, ἐξώλειαν αὐτῷ καὶ γέvει καὶ οἰκίᾳ τῇ σῇ ἐπαρώμενον.

20. § 17.

21. Date of the speech.

22. § 76.

23. § 75.

24. Kirchner De temporibus orationum Antiphont. pp. 2 ff., quoted by Blass, Attisch. Bereds. p. 166.

25. §§ 67—70.

26. Analysis.

27. Remarks.

28. In § 39 it is contended that the slave cannot have represented himself as taking part in the murder, but only as helping to dispose of the corpse. In § 54, on the contrary, it is assumed that the slave represented himself as the actual murderer. Lastly, in § 68, the view taken in § 39 is not only reasserted, but is ascribed to the adversaries as their own.

29. § 26 λέγουσι δὲ ὡς ἐν μὲν τῇ γῇ ἀπέθανεν ὁ ἀνήρ, κἀγὼ λίθον ἐπέβαλον αὐτῷ εἰς τὴν κεφαλήν, ὃς οὐκ ἐξέβην τὸ παράπαν ἐκ τοῦ πλοίου.

30. § 79: ‘For all Mytileneans, the memory of their past error has been made indelible; they exchanged great prosperity for great misery; they beheld their country made desolate.’

31. The object with which the draught was given is not stated in the speech itself: but the argument says εὐφωνίας χάριν ἔπιε φάρμακον καὶ πιὼν τέθνηκεν. Compare the passage in which Plutarch speaks of the pains taken to train the voices of the chorus ( De glor. Athen. c. 6): οἱ δὲ χορηγοὶ τοῖς χορευταῖς ἐγχέλια καὶ θριδάκια καὶ σκελλίδας καὶ μυελὸν παρατιθέντες εὐώχουν ἐπὶ πολὺν χρόνον φωνασκουμένους καὶ τρυφῶντας .

32. That the Areiopagos was the court which tried the case appears certain (1) because that court alone had jurisdiction in γραφαὶ φαρμάκων: (2) because the special compliment to the court as ‘the most conscientious and upright in Greece’ (§ 51) points to the Areiopagos Some have supposed that this case came before court at the Palladion, because, in § 16, the accused is spoken of as βουλεύσας τὸν θάνατον, and, according to Harpokration, cases of βούλευσις were tried at the Palladion by the Ephetae. But the βούλευσις of Harpokration is a technical term,= ἐπιβούλευσις, and denotes the intent to kill in cases in which death had not actually followed. On the other hand, the accused here is said βουλεῦσαι τὸν θάνατον merely in the sense that it was by his order that the draught was given to the boy, though he did not hand the cup to him. No intent to murder was imputed to him: see § 19 οἱ κατήγοροι ὁμολογοῦσι μὴ ἐκ προνοίας μηδ’ ἐκ παρασκουῆς γενέσθαι τὸν θάνατον.

33. In §§ 12, 21, 55 the choregus speaks of having brought an action for embezzlement of public monies against Philînos and two other persons. Now Antiphon wrote a speech κατὰ Φιλίνου,—very probably, as Sauppe conjectures, against this same Philînos when prosecuted by the choregus: and from the speech κατὰ Φιλίνου are quoted the words, τούς τε θῆτας ἅπαντας ὁπλίτας ποιῆσαι. Sauppe thinks this points to a time just after the Sicilian disaster: ‘in illis enim rerum angustiis videntur A thenienses thetes ad arma vocasse.’ ( Or. Att. vol. II. p. 144.) This is quite possible: but Sauppe's other argument that the fact of the choregus representing two tribes (§ 11) points to a contraction of public expenses in a time of distress, is not worth much, since we do not know that this may not have been the usual custom at the Thargelia. At any rate the decidedly modern character of the speech as compared with the De caed. Herodis warrants us in placing it some years after the latter, which (as has been said above) was probably spoken between 421 and 416 B. C.

34. Analysis

35. Remarks.

36. In § 8 the speaker says that he will first deal with the matter at issue, and then meet certain other charges which the adversaries have brought against him, but which he feels sure that he can turn to their own discomfiture. The promise, however, is conditional— ἐὰν ὑμῖν ἡδομένοις ᾖ: and is, in effect, if not literally, fulfilled by the digression (§§ 33—51) in which he brings out the malicious character of their whole conduct towards him.

37. § 30.

38. § 7.

39. Analysis.

40. Remarks.

41. Spengel rejects the speech, but without assigning reasons ( συν. τεχνῶν, p. 118). The special objections mentioned above were advanced by Maetzner, an editor of Antiphon, and are examined by Dr. P. G. Ottsen in a tract De rerum inventione ac dispositione quae est in Lysiae atque Antiphontis orationibus (Flensburg, 1847). If the speech was written as a mere exercise, then it certainly is not the work of Antiphon, who would have treated the subject as he treats the subjects of the Tetralogics—in outline merely, without needless details of name or place. But there is no good ground for assuming that the speech was not spoken in a real cause. The story has some melodramatic features, but contains nothing which might not have occurred in ordinary Greek life. With the designation of the accused as Klytaemnestra, compare Andok. de Myst. § 129, τίς ἂν εἴη οὗτος; Οἰδίπους ἢ Αἴγισθος; ἢ τί χρὴ αὐτὸν ὀνομόσαι; Isaeos mentions Διοκλέα τὸν Φλυέα, τὸν Ὀρέστην ἐπικαλούμενον: de Cirrh. hered. (Or. VIII.) § 3. Maetzner derived the name Φιλόνεως from φίλος and ναῦς, and thought it suspicious that such a name should be given to a resident in the Peiraeus. Ottsen accepts the etymology, but does not share the suspicion. Even if Φιλόνεως could be equivalent to Φιλόναυς (cf. λιπόναυς, μυριόναυς, &c.), the fact of a person so called living at a seaport would be about as strange as the fact of a person called Philip living at Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον. Lastly, as to the ὦ δικάζοντες in § 7, the great variety of forms used by Greek orators in addressing the judges would forbid us to pronounce this one inadmissible because it is unusual. But the genuineness of the words is not above suspicion. Blass, in his edition of Antiphon, brackets as spurious the words in § 7, πῶς οὖν περὶ τούτων, ὦ δικάζοντες—οὐκ εἴληφε. One good ms. omits them; and they seem like a scholium on what immediately precedes.

42. Attisch. Bereds. p. 180.

43. e. g. § 21 τῷ τεθνεῶτι ὑμᾶς κελεύω καὶ τῷ ἠδ ικημένῳ . . τιμωροὺς γενέσθαι...ἄξιος καὶ ἐλέου καὶ βοηθείας καὶ τιμωρίας παρ’ ὑμῶν τυχεῖν...§ 22 ἀθέμιτα καὶ ἀτέλεστα καὶ ἀνήκουστα...§ 23 δικασταὶ ἐγένεσθε καὶ ἐκλήθητε.

44. Compare § 1 with de Choreuta § 27.

45. Att. Bereds. p. 184.

46. Authorship of the treatises On Truth, On Concord, On Statesmanship.

47. See p. 2, note 3.

48. ἀληθείας λόγοι B:— περὶ ὁμονοίας:— πολιτικός. The fragments are given in Sauppe's Fragm. Oratt. Att. pp. 145 ff. printed in Baiter and Sauppe's Oratores Attici, and in the edition of Antiphon by Blass, pp. 124—143 (Teubner, 1871).

49. Hermog. περὶ ἰδεῶν. II. c. 11. p. 414. There were two Antiphons, he says, ὧν εἷς μέν ἐστιν ὁ ῥήτωρ, οὗπερ οἱ φονικοὶ φέρονται λόγοι καὶ δημηγορικοὶ καὶ ὅσοι τούτοις ὅμοιοι. ἕτερος δὲ ὁ καὶ τερατοσκόπος καὶ ὀνειροκρίτης λεγόμενος γενέσθαι, οὗπερ οἵ τε περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας λέγονται λόγοι καὶ ὁ περὶ ὁμονοίας καὶ οἱ δημηγορικοὶ καὶ ὁ πολιτικός. Spengel proposed to detach the words καὶ ὁ περὶ ὁμονοίας καὶ οἱ δημηγορικοὶ καὶ ὁ πολιτικός from the last clause, and to insert them in the first clause after φέρονται λόγοι, (omitting, of course, the καὶ δημηγ. which already stands there, and the τε in οἵ τε περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας). He would thus make Hermogenes ascribe the περὶ ὁμονοίας and the πολιτικός to Antiphon the orator, and the ἀληθείας λόγοι only to Antiphon the sophist. But this is an arbitrary and violent treatment of the text. Sauppe is no doubt right in thinking that its only corruption is the recurrence of οἱ δημηγορικοί in the second clause. The article had been accidentally left out where the word first occurs, and a corrector wrote οἱ δημηγορικοί at full length in the margin, whence it crept into the text a second time.

50. In reference to the meeting of the Four Hundred on the day after the mutiny of the hoplites in the Peiraeus (Thuc. VIII. 92, 93), Mr Grote says—‘It may probably have been in this meeting of the Four Hundred that Antiphon delivered his oration strongly recommending concord.’ ( Hist. Gr. c. 62, vol. VIII. p. 94 n.) ‘In hoc autem libro,’ (says Blass, Antiphon p. 130) ‘sicut fragmenta docent, de moribus sophista disserebat deque vitae brevitate et aerumnis: rempublicam vero civiumque concordiam nusquam attigit.’

51. Protagoras called his Treatise of Natural Philosophy ἀλήθεια, ἢ περὶ τοῦ ὄντος. The most suggestive fragment of the ἀληθείας λόγοι is no. 13 in Sauppe's list ( fragm. Or. Graec. p. 149). Galen ap. Hippokr. epidem. I. 3. vol. 17, 1. p. 681 (Kühn) says:— οὕτω δὲ καὶ παρ’ Ἀντιφῶντι κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον τῆς Ἀληθείας ἔστιν εὑρεῖν γεγραμμένην τὴν προσηγορίαν ἐν τῇδε τῇ ῥήσει· ὅταν οὖν γένωνται ἐν τῷ ἀέρι ὄμβροι τε καὶ πνεύματα ὑπενάντια ἀλλήλοις, τότε συστρέφεται τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ πυκνοῦται κατὰ πολλά, κ.τ. λ.

52. See, for instance, fragments 1 and 4 of the περὶ ὁμονοίας in Sauppe:— ἀναθέσθαι δὲ ὥσπερ πεττὸν τὸν βίον οὐκ ἔστιν...πολλοὶ δ’ ἔχοντες φίλους οὐ γιγνώσκουσιν, ἀλλ’ ἑταίρους ποιοῦνται θῶπας, πλούτου καὶ τύχης κόλακας.

53. For instance, in fragment 2 of the πολιτικός we have a precept on the value of a character for steady business habits— μήτε φιλοπότην κληθῆναι καὶ δοκεῖν τὰ πράγματα καταμελεῖν ὑπ’ οἴνου ἡσσώμενον.

54. The Rhetoric.

55. ῥητορικαὶ τέχναι.

56. προοίμια καὶ ἐπίλογοι.

57. The collectwn of Proems and Epilogues.

58. Sauppe, Fragm. Oratt. Gr. p. 145

59. Pollux (VI. 143) quotes a word as used by Antiphon ἐν ταῖς ῥητορικαῖς τέχναις: but adds— δοκοῦσι δ’ οὐ γνήσιαι.

60. Attisch. Bereds. p. 103, where he quotes (note 7) Cic. Brut. 47 for the statement of Aristotle—

huic (Gorgiae) Antiphontem Rhamnusium similia quaedam habuisse conscripta:

— where conscripta seems to mean a collection of communes loci stored up to be used as they might be wanted.

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 1.3