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Greek Political Oratory
Anthology of the most memorable Greek oratory at the time of the rise of Sophistry and decline of the Greek city-state.
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First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 29, 2021
This volume could round out a trilogy with similar Pre-Socratic and Sophist anthologies; we would see both an intellectual and historical progression there, from metaphysical ritual society to a very intelligible political society. Any reader primed with Thucydides' or Plato's skepticism about the genuineness of Athenian politics will take these writers for what they are, falling variously between demagoguery and ignorance. Included are Pericles' funeral oration (ie Thucydides), legal speeches by Andocides and Lysias, a few written pamphlets by Isocrates, and a lengthy collection of Demosthenes speeches on the topic of Philip and the Macedonian threat.
The Pericles oration is always good but naturally is quite misleading taken out of the context of Thucydides' history, where the exact tension between the Athenian liberalism and the harsher realities is made much more clear. Andocides and Lysias give speeches more interesting for their exposition of historical situations (Alcibiades and the Thirty, respectively) than for their generally vacant logical content, being essentially easy legal defenses against fairly conspicuous prosecutors; they are also interesting for expanding on Platonic nuances, illustrating political situations that Plato riffs on, especially with Lysias who is mentioned often in Phaedrus and who also is brother to Cephalus of Republic. Isocrates, Plato's great rival, appears here as if to confirm all the stereotypes about the generation trained by Gorgias and Protagoras: His speeches abound with fluffy assertions about Athens' greatness, dubious invocation of mythology, and misaligned arguments that provide no actual logical impetus.
Demosthenes is a more interesting figure; he appears the generation after Plato/Xenophon/Isocrates, and is perhaps the last notable Athenian figure before the rise of Alexander the Great. His speeches are much more hard-minded and direct than any of his predecessors, and he perhaps seems right in comparing himself to Nicias and Pericles- each of his speeches present, essentially, what we would now call a 'Realist' approach to international relations, and in speech after speech he very sensibly begins by outlining the reality of the situation, combined with evidence both external and logical, and then concretely demands practical action. Apparently the nervous and pusillanimous epoch in Athens refused mostly to listen to his imperatives, despite his very typical liberal-savior Athens rhetoric, and put very few of his suggestions into action; hence leading to the downfall of Athens & indeed all Greece. Given that his voice and oratorical strategies are a very perennial form of political sensibility in times of urgency, he comes off like a Cassandra figure, which, like Thucydides' depictions of sensible voices being ignored, makes for entertaining and semi-upsetting political reading
The Pericles oration is always good but naturally is quite misleading taken out of the context of Thucydides' history, where the exact tension between the Athenian liberalism and the harsher realities is made much more clear. Andocides and Lysias give speeches more interesting for their exposition of historical situations (Alcibiades and the Thirty, respectively) than for their generally vacant logical content, being essentially easy legal defenses against fairly conspicuous prosecutors; they are also interesting for expanding on Platonic nuances, illustrating political situations that Plato riffs on, especially with Lysias who is mentioned often in Phaedrus and who also is brother to Cephalus of Republic. Isocrates, Plato's great rival, appears here as if to confirm all the stereotypes about the generation trained by Gorgias and Protagoras: His speeches abound with fluffy assertions about Athens' greatness, dubious invocation of mythology, and misaligned arguments that provide no actual logical impetus.
Demosthenes is a more interesting figure; he appears the generation after Plato/Xenophon/Isocrates, and is perhaps the last notable Athenian figure before the rise of Alexander the Great. His speeches are much more hard-minded and direct than any of his predecessors, and he perhaps seems right in comparing himself to Nicias and Pericles- each of his speeches present, essentially, what we would now call a 'Realist' approach to international relations, and in speech after speech he very sensibly begins by outlining the reality of the situation, combined with evidence both external and logical, and then concretely demands practical action. Apparently the nervous and pusillanimous epoch in Athens refused mostly to listen to his imperatives, despite his very typical liberal-savior Athens rhetoric, and put very few of his suggestions into action; hence leading to the downfall of Athens & indeed all Greece. Given that his voice and oratorical strategies are a very perennial form of political sensibility in times of urgency, he comes off like a Cassandra figure, which, like Thucydides' depictions of sensible voices being ignored, makes for entertaining and semi-upsetting political reading
January 23, 2008
had me at ho
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews