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Development, Discontinuity, and the Hallmarks of Lysianic Persuasion in Lysias 1, 3, 7 and 10

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Development, Discontinuity, and the Hallmarks of Lysianic Persuasion in Lysias 1, 3, 7 and 10 CHANGING MINDS: DEVELOPMENT, DISCONTINUITY, AND THE HALLMARKS OF LYSIANIC PERSUASION IN LYSIAS 1, 3, 7 AND 10 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Samuel Marius Kurland May 2014 © 2014 Samuel Marius Kurland Changing Minds: Development, Discontinuity and the Hallmarks of Lysianic Persuasion in Lysias 1, 3, 7 and 10 Samuel Marius Kurland, Ph. D. Cornell University 2014 My dissertation closely reads four forensic speeches attributed to Lysias and argues that the speaker of each contradicts himself in ways that support his rhetorical goals, changing his own mind in the process of, and as a means of, inducing corresponding changes in the mind of the listener. The similar ways in which the four speeches do this are the title’s “hallmarks of Lysianic persuasion:” discrepancies between the opening of a speech and its close; the strategic distribution of arguments and disclosures; delaying tactics; and changes in characterization. Lysias 1 transforms its speaker from a gullible cuckold into a clever, serious civic authority, and this transformation drives a larger shift in the speech’s handling of law, whereby the roles of juror and defendant are eventually reversed from what they were at the speech’s opening. Lysias 3 initially describes the speaker’s dispute with Simon as a romantic rivalry; this characterization of their dispute is later rejected as the roles of those involved are redefined. Lysias 7 initially presents its speaker as a retiring figure fearful of the public eye; later he is seen to be an enthusiastic public servant, a change closely linked to his redefinition of the crime of which he is accused. Lysias 10 at first treats the speaker’s dispute with Theodotus as an isolated instance of slander; by the speech’s close the trial has become primarily an opportunity for the jury to overturn the outcomes of three earlier trials. Previous commentators have assumed, often implicitly, that a Lysianic speaker’s objectives and means of achieving them are, or are intended to be, the same from the start of his speech to its close. My close readings show that that although the speechwriter does work toward an overarching goal, the parts of a speech are fashioned also with a view to the speaker’s momentary, evolving rhetorical needs, and that as those needs change, altered by the speech’s own words, so change its tactics and objectives. iii VITA The author, Samuel Marius Kurland, son of Dr. Jeffrey A. Kurland and Mrs. Roberta F. J. Kurland, was born June 21 1983, in State College, Pennsylvania, where he attended elementary school, secondary school and college. From fall 2001 to summer 2006, he studied Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in August 2006. His undergraduate honors thesis examined the relationship between speech, writing and political systems in Herodotus’ Histories. He attended the Graduate School of Cornell University from August 2007 until December 2013. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My father was once told by his dissertation advisor, Irven Devore, that one never finishes a piece of writing; one only abandon it. It is with no small amount of trepidation but deep gratefulness that I abandon this one. In the course of its development I have accrued debts exceeding my ability to enumerate them. I wish to express here my thanks especially to my committee chair, Professor Jeffrey Rusten, who suggested that I pursue the small observation on Lysias 1 that became the kernel of the dissertation, and without whom the project would never have reached completion. Thanks are in order also to the rest of my committee, Frederick Ahl, Pietro Pucci and Hayden Pelliccia; it has been a privilege to work with all of them, and I am honored to call myself their student. It is hoped that the final dissertation has in some way justified the time, energy and insight that all four members of the committee unstintingly offered. Thanks are owed also to my family – Jeffrey A. Kurland, Roberta F. J. Kurland, and Jessica E. Buckland – for everything. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Lysias 1, “On the Murder of Eratosthenes” ............................................................. 31 Chapter 3: Lysias 3, “Against Simon” ...................................................................................... 87 Chapter 4: Lysias 7, “Concerning the Sēkos” .......................................................................... 117 Chapter 5: Lysias 10, “Against Theomnestus” ....................................................................... 144 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 164 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 170 vi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Outlining the scholarship The bulk of modern scholarship that draws on the speeches of Lysias does not actually study the speeches themselves; Lysias’ usefulness as a historical source merely ensures that he will be at least footnoted in discussions of, e.g., Athenian culture, politics and law in the Classical period. Out of the scholarship that examines Lysias or his work in itself,1 the majority is again some variety of historical scholarship. The next largest body of work on Lysias, but a small share overall, is that which treats the rhetorical strategies of particular speeches; these studies, which almost always focus on a single passage or argument, are in some cases joined to textual criticism. Far less numerous even than the rhetorical studies are what we might call the literary studies of Lysias’ work. These are so scarce and so disparate in their concerns that one can hardly speak of “literary scholarship” on Lysias (or oratory as a whole for that matter), as there is no field or sub-field to which literary work on the speeches naturally belongs. The (arguably) literary studies of Lysias include Usher (1965) on individual characterization in Lysias; Gagarin (2003) on the importance of storytelling in Athenian law (although this is less a study of Lysias than a study that makes use of him); Porter (2007 [1997]) on comic diēgēsis in Lysias 1 and the features of the speech that, in his view, make the text more likely to be a rhetorical exercise than a speech written for an actual suit; and Wohl (2010) on juridical discourse in Classical Attic forensic oratory. The general outline of ‘Lysianic studies,’ then, may be traced as follows: historical work is in the majority by a wide margin; work on rhetorical strategies comprises a small minority; and literary work, as a grouping, is essentially non-existent. The present dissertation is best described as a rhetorical-literary study,2 a close reading of four of Lysias’ forensic speeches with a view to their common patterns of arrangement and approaches to persuasion. The central argument of the following pages is that Lysias’ rhetorical strategies unfold partly through moments of discontinuity and self-contradiction: Lysias’ speakers contradict themselves in ways 1 Weissenberger’s 2003 annotated bibliography lists some 503 works appearing between 1905 and 2000 that treat some aspect of Lysias’ life or work. 2 What I mean by “rhetorical” and “literary” I discuss later in this chapter. 2 that support their rhetorical goals, changing their own minds in the process of, and as a means of, inducing similar changes in the mind of the listener. Because of the aforementioned dearth of literary work and paucity of rhetorical studies, there exists little scholarship with which mine can converse or argue, with the exception of a few recent commentaries. This is not to say that the dissertation does not contribute to ongoing scholarly debates. It is to say, rather, that there has been almost no debate on the central issues of the dissertation, namely the interpretation of Lysias’ speeches, their rhetorical strategies and the artistic and persuasive techniques of their author. The ongoing debate to which the dissertation, as a whole, most directly contributes is a methodological one, namely that concerned with how classicists read and use Classical Attic oratory. The following pages represent an initial effort to fill a gap in the secondary literature and thereby show the need for study in an area where historically there has been almost none. Previous commentators have implicitly assumed that a Lysianic speaker’s objectives and means of achieving them are, or intended to be, the same from the start of his speech to its close; I argue that although the speechwriter does work toward an overarching goal, the parts of a speech are fashioned with a view to the speaker’s momentary, evolving rhetorical needs, and that as those needs change, altered by the speech’s own words, so change its tactics and objectives. Previous commentators have, moreover, tended to explain Lysianic rhetorical strategies in terms of either characterization or arguments and proofs; like Wohl (2010), however, I see the rhetoric of a speech also in the themes, motifs and lines of thought that develop without ever being acknowledged. In order to situate my work, it will be helpful to begin by discussing its wider scholarly context: Lysias’
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