'HE IS a LIAR, a BOUNDER, and a CAD' the Arousal of Hostile
‘HE IS A LIAR, A BOUNDER, AND A CAD’ The Arousal of Hostile Emotions in Attic Forensic Oratory Ed Sanders 1 INTRODUCTION1 In the Classical Athenian political/legal system of direct democracy (c. 479–322 BCE), the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government were fused, all male citizens (collectively known as the dêmos) having the right, and indeed duty, to take part in assemblies and to sit on juries. In the lawcourt the same indi- viduals were judges and jury.2 Greek rhetoric traditionally refers to three branches of oratory – ‘forensic’ (i.e. delivered in a court of law), ‘deliberative’ (i.e. delivered to the Assembly or other body), and ‘epideictic’ (i.e. display speeches, e.g. orations over the war dead)3 – though in fact other types exist (e.g. envoy speeches, addresses to an army, messenger speeches). Some 165 literary works survive from Athens in this period that are collectively known as the ‘Attic oratorical corpus’ – though a quarter of these are not in fact speeches, but tracts (written to be published, rather than delivered to a mass audience), rhetorical exercises, or letters (some pseudo- 1 I should like to thank Lene Rubinstein for her very detailed comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. For the names of all ten Attic orators I am using the Latinised spelling, consistent with the Oxford Classical Dictionary, (i.e. Andocides not Andokides). The quote in the title is taken from Blackadder the Third, episode 3 ‘Nob and Nobility’. 2 Juries comprised 201 or 401 male citizens in private suits ([Aristotle], Athenaion Politeia 53.3), depending on the monetary amount at stake, and 501, 1001, or 1501 in public suits (Athenaion Politeia 68.1 – or 1000 or 1500, the text is incomplete) – see Harrison 1971, 47, 239–241; MacDowell 1978, 36–40; Rhodes 1981, 728f.; Todd 1993, 83; Rubinstein 2009, 507.
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