Alan J. Ross
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198784951
- eISBN:
- 9780191827174
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book presents a re-examination of Ammianus Marcellinus’ agenda and methods in narrating the reign of the emperor Julian (355–63). Ammianus’ Res Gestae provides the fullest extant narrative of ...
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This book presents a re-examination of Ammianus Marcellinus’ agenda and methods in narrating the reign of the emperor Julian (355–63). Ammianus’ Res Gestae provides the fullest extant narrative of Julian, and holds a prominent position in modern studies of the last ‘pagan’ emperor. This book suggests that the Res Gestae presents a Latin-speaking, western audience with an idiosyncratic and ‘Romanized’ depiction of the philhellene emperor. Consciously exploiting his position as a Greek writing in Latin, and as a contemporary of Julian, Ammianus wished the Res Gestae to be considered a culminating and definitive account of Julian. The volume examines several key episodes from Books 14–25—Gallus and Silvanus, Julian’s appointment as Caesar, the battle of Strasbourg, his acclamation as Augustus, and the Persian campaign of 363. Building on recent advances in literary approaches to historical texts, it evaluates Ammianus’ presentation of Julian in each episode by considering the Res Gestae within three interrelated contexts: as a work of Latin historiography, which sets itself within a classical and classicizing tradition; in a more immediate literary and political context, as the final contribution by a member of an ‘eyewitness’ generation to a quarter century of intense debate over Julian’s legacy by several authors who had lived through the reign and had been in varying degrees of proximity to Julian; and as a narrative text, in which narratorial authority is closely associated with the persona of the narrator, both as an external narrating agent and an occasional participant in the text.Less
This book presents a re-examination of Ammianus Marcellinus’ agenda and methods in narrating the reign of the emperor Julian (355–63). Ammianus’ Res Gestae provides the fullest extant narrative of Julian, and holds a prominent position in modern studies of the last ‘pagan’ emperor. This book suggests that the Res Gestae presents a Latin-speaking, western audience with an idiosyncratic and ‘Romanized’ depiction of the philhellene emperor. Consciously exploiting his position as a Greek writing in Latin, and as a contemporary of Julian, Ammianus wished the Res Gestae to be considered a culminating and definitive account of Julian. The volume examines several key episodes from Books 14–25—Gallus and Silvanus, Julian’s appointment as Caesar, the battle of Strasbourg, his acclamation as Augustus, and the Persian campaign of 363. Building on recent advances in literary approaches to historical texts, it evaluates Ammianus’ presentation of Julian in each episode by considering the Res Gestae within three interrelated contexts: as a work of Latin historiography, which sets itself within a classical and classicizing tradition; in a more immediate literary and political context, as the final contribution by a member of an ‘eyewitness’ generation to a quarter century of intense debate over Julian’s legacy by several authors who had lived through the reign and had been in varying degrees of proximity to Julian; and as a narrative text, in which narratorial authority is closely associated with the persona of the narrator, both as an external narrating agent and an occasional participant in the text.
Tobias Reinhardt, Michael Lapidge, and J. N. Adams (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263327
- eISBN:
- 9780191734168
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263327.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Twenty chapters from two often-dissociated areas of Latin studies, classical and medieval Latin, examine continuities and developments in the language of Latin prose from its emergence to the twelfth ...
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Twenty chapters from two often-dissociated areas of Latin studies, classical and medieval Latin, examine continuities and developments in the language of Latin prose from its emergence to the twelfth century. Language is not understood in a narrowly philological or linguistic sense, but as encompassing the literary exploitation of linguistic effects and the influence of formal rhetoric on prose. Key themes explored throughout this book are the use of poetic diction in prose, archaism, sentence structure, and bilingualism. Chapters cover a comprehensive range of material including studies of individual works, groups of authors such as the Republican historians, prose genres such as the ancient novel or medieval biography, and linguistic topics such as the use of connectives in archaic Latin or prose rhythm in medieval Latin.Less
Twenty chapters from two often-dissociated areas of Latin studies, classical and medieval Latin, examine continuities and developments in the language of Latin prose from its emergence to the twelfth century. Language is not understood in a narrowly philological or linguistic sense, but as encompassing the literary exploitation of linguistic effects and the influence of formal rhetoric on prose. Key themes explored throughout this book are the use of poetic diction in prose, archaism, sentence structure, and bilingualism. Chapters cover a comprehensive range of material including studies of individual works, groups of authors such as the Republican historians, prose genres such as the ancient novel or medieval biography, and linguistic topics such as the use of connectives in archaic Latin or prose rhythm in medieval Latin.
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199263196
- eISBN:
- 9780191718878
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Aulus Gellius originated the modern use of ‘classical’ and ‘humanities’. His Attic Nights, so named because they began as the intellectual pastime of winter evenings spent in a villa outside Athens, ...
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Aulus Gellius originated the modern use of ‘classical’ and ‘humanities’. His Attic Nights, so named because they began as the intellectual pastime of winter evenings spent in a villa outside Athens, are a mine of information on many aspects of antiquity and a repository of much early Latin literature that would otherwise be lost; he took a particular interest in questions of grammar and literary style. The whole work is interspersed with interesting personal observations and vignettes of second-century life that throw light on the Antonine world. This study, the most comprehensive of Gellius in any language, examines his life, his circle of acquaintances, his style, his reading, his scholarly interests, and his place in literary tradition parentage; reference is made to his reception in later antiquity and beyond. It covers many subject areas such as language, literature, law, rhetoric, and medicine; it also examines Gellius's attitudes to women and the relation considered between the literary trends of Latin (the so-called archaizing movement) and Greek (Atticism) in the second century AD. The text, sense, and content of numerous individual passages are considered, and light shed on a wide range of problems in Greek as well as Latin authors.Less
Aulus Gellius originated the modern use of ‘classical’ and ‘humanities’. His Attic Nights, so named because they began as the intellectual pastime of winter evenings spent in a villa outside Athens, are a mine of information on many aspects of antiquity and a repository of much early Latin literature that would otherwise be lost; he took a particular interest in questions of grammar and literary style. The whole work is interspersed with interesting personal observations and vignettes of second-century life that throw light on the Antonine world. This study, the most comprehensive of Gellius in any language, examines his life, his circle of acquaintances, his style, his reading, his scholarly interests, and his place in literary tradition parentage; reference is made to his reception in later antiquity and beyond. It covers many subject areas such as language, literature, law, rhetoric, and medicine; it also examines Gellius's attitudes to women and the relation considered between the literary trends of Latin (the so-called archaizing movement) and Greek (Atticism) in the second century AD. The text, sense, and content of numerous individual passages are considered, and light shed on a wide range of problems in Greek as well as Latin authors.
Sheila Murnaghan and Deborah H. Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199583478
- eISBN:
- 9780191747472
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199583478.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book explores the childhood reception of classical antiquity in Britain and the United States over a century-long period beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, with a focus on two genres of ...
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This book explores the childhood reception of classical antiquity in Britain and the United States over a century-long period beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, with a focus on two genres of children’s literature– the myth collection and the historical novel—and on adults’ literary responses to their own childhood encounters with antiquity. The book recognizes the fundamental role in writing for children of adults’ ideas about what children want or need, but also attends to the ways in which child readers make such works their own. The authors first trace the tradition of myths retold as children’s stories (and as especially suited to children) from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Kingsley to Roger Lancelyn Green and Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, treating both writers and illustrators. They then turn to historical fiction, particularly to the roles of nationality and of gender in the construction of the ancient world for modern children. They conclude with an investigation of the connections between childhood and antiquity made by writers for adults, including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Naomi Mitchison, and H.D., and with a reading of H.D.’s novella The Hedgehog as a text on the border between children’s and adult literature that thematizes both the child’s special relation to myth and the adult’s stake in children’s relationship to the classics. An epilogue offers a brief overview of recent trends, which reflect both growing uncertainty about the appeal of antiquity to modern children and an ongoing conviction that the classical past is of perennial interest.Less
This book explores the childhood reception of classical antiquity in Britain and the United States over a century-long period beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, with a focus on two genres of children’s literature– the myth collection and the historical novel—and on adults’ literary responses to their own childhood encounters with antiquity. The book recognizes the fundamental role in writing for children of adults’ ideas about what children want or need, but also attends to the ways in which child readers make such works their own. The authors first trace the tradition of myths retold as children’s stories (and as especially suited to children) from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Kingsley to Roger Lancelyn Green and Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, treating both writers and illustrators. They then turn to historical fiction, particularly to the roles of nationality and of gender in the construction of the ancient world for modern children. They conclude with an investigation of the connections between childhood and antiquity made by writers for adults, including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Naomi Mitchison, and H.D., and with a reading of H.D.’s novella The Hedgehog as a text on the border between children’s and adult literature that thematizes both the child’s special relation to myth and the adult’s stake in children’s relationship to the classics. An epilogue offers a brief overview of recent trends, which reflect both growing uncertainty about the appeal of antiquity to modern children and an ongoing conviction that the classical past is of perennial interest.
Jonathan Powell and Jeremy Paterson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198152804
- eISBN:
- 9780191715143
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198152804.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book considers Cicero's forensic speeches as acts of advocacy, that is, designed to ensure that the person he represents is acquitted or that the person he is prosecuting is found guilty. It ...
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This book considers Cicero's forensic speeches as acts of advocacy, that is, designed to ensure that the person he represents is acquitted or that the person he is prosecuting is found guilty. It sets the speeches within the context of the court system of the Late Roman Republic and explores the strategies available to Roman advocates to win the votes of jurors. The book deals with issues concerning the general nature of advocacy, the court system in ancient Rome as compared with other ancient and modern systems, the Roman ‘profession’ of advocacy and its etiquette, the place of advocacy in Cicero's career, the ancient theory of rhetoric and argument as applied to courtroom advocacy, and the relationship between the published texts of the speeches as we have them and the speeches actually delivered in court. Other topics covered by the book include legal procedure in Cicero's time, Cicero's Italian clients, Cicero's methods of setting out or alluding to the facts of a case, his use of legal arguments, arguments from character, invective, self-reference, and emotional appeal. Some particular speeches are discussed as case studies covering the period of the height of Cicero's career, from 70 BC, when he became acknowledged as the leading Roman advocate, to 49 BC when Julius Caesar's dictatorship required Cicero to adapt his well-tried forensic techniques to drastically new circumstances. Those speeches contain arguments on a wide range of subject matter, including provincial maladministration, usurpation of citizenship rights, violent dispossession, the religious law relating to the consecration of property, poisoning, bribery, and political offences.Less
This book considers Cicero's forensic speeches as acts of advocacy, that is, designed to ensure that the person he represents is acquitted or that the person he is prosecuting is found guilty. It sets the speeches within the context of the court system of the Late Roman Republic and explores the strategies available to Roman advocates to win the votes of jurors. The book deals with issues concerning the general nature of advocacy, the court system in ancient Rome as compared with other ancient and modern systems, the Roman ‘profession’ of advocacy and its etiquette, the place of advocacy in Cicero's career, the ancient theory of rhetoric and argument as applied to courtroom advocacy, and the relationship between the published texts of the speeches as we have them and the speeches actually delivered in court. Other topics covered by the book include legal procedure in Cicero's time, Cicero's Italian clients, Cicero's methods of setting out or alluding to the facts of a case, his use of legal arguments, arguments from character, invective, self-reference, and emotional appeal. Some particular speeches are discussed as case studies covering the period of the height of Cicero's career, from 70 BC, when he became acknowledged as the leading Roman advocate, to 49 BC when Julius Caesar's dictatorship required Cicero to adapt his well-tried forensic techniques to drastically new circumstances. Those speeches contain arguments on a wide range of subject matter, including provincial maladministration, usurpation of citizenship rights, violent dispossession, the religious law relating to the consecration of property, poisoning, bribery, and political offences.
Christina S. Kraus and Christopher Stray (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199688982
- eISBN:
- 9780191768088
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199688982.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book consists of twenty-six chapters on classical commentaries which deal with commentaries from the ancient world to the twentieth century. The book contributes to the interface between two ...
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This book consists of twenty-six chapters on classical commentaries which deal with commentaries from the ancient world to the twentieth century. The book contributes to the interface between two emerging fields of study: the history of scholarship and the history of the book. It builds on earlier work on this area by paying particular attention to: (1) specific editions, whether those regarded as classics in their own right, or those that seem representative of important trends or orientations in scholarship; (2) traditions of commentary on specific classical authors; and (3) the processes of publishing and printing as they have related to the production of editions. The book takes account of the material form of commentaries and of their role in education: the chapters deal both with academic books and also with books written for schools, and pay particular attention to the role of commentaries in the reception of classical texts.Less
This book consists of twenty-six chapters on classical commentaries which deal with commentaries from the ancient world to the twentieth century. The book contributes to the interface between two emerging fields of study: the history of scholarship and the history of the book. It builds on earlier work on this area by paying particular attention to: (1) specific editions, whether those regarded as classics in their own right, or those that seem representative of important trends or orientations in scholarship; (2) traditions of commentary on specific classical authors; and (3) the processes of publishing and printing as they have related to the production of editions. The book takes account of the material form of commentaries and of their role in education: the chapters deal both with academic books and also with books written for schools, and pay particular attention to the role of commentaries in the reception of classical texts.
Susan A. Stephens and Phiroze Vasunia (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199212989
- eISBN:
- 9780191594205
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212989.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Numerous nations have in one way or another engaged with the cultures of classical Greece and Rome. What impact does the classical past have on ideas of the nation, nationhood, nationality, and what ...
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Numerous nations have in one way or another engaged with the cultures of classical Greece and Rome. What impact does the classical past have on ideas of the nation, nationhood, nationality, and what effect does the national space have on classical culture? How has classical culture been imagined in various national traditions, what importance has it had within them, and for whom? This collection of essays by an international team of experts tackles the vexed relationship between Classics and national cultures, presenting essays on many regions, including China, India, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa, as well as Germany, Greece, and Italy. It poses new questions for the study of antiquity and for the history of nations and nationalisms.Less
Numerous nations have in one way or another engaged with the cultures of classical Greece and Rome. What impact does the classical past have on ideas of the nation, nationhood, nationality, and what effect does the national space have on classical culture? How has classical culture been imagined in various national traditions, what importance has it had within them, and for whom? This collection of essays by an international team of experts tackles the vexed relationship between Classics and national cultures, presenting essays on many regions, including China, India, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa, as well as Germany, Greece, and Italy. It poses new questions for the study of antiquity and for the history of nations and nationalisms.
Koen De Temmerman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199686148
- eISBN:
- 9780191766381
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199686148.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Despite the resurgence of interest in representations of character in literary studies generally and Classical studies in particular, and despite the goldrush towards ancient fiction in the last two ...
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Despite the resurgence of interest in representations of character in literary studies generally and Classical studies in particular, and despite the goldrush towards ancient fiction in the last two decades, no volume has yet been devoted to exploring character and characterization in ancient Greek novels. This award-winning study analyses the characterization of the protagonists in the five extant, so-called ‘ideal’ Greek novels (i.e. those of Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, and Heliodorus). The book offers close readings of techniques of characterization in each novel individually and thereby combines modern (mainly, but not exclusively, structuralist) narratology and ancient rhetoric, the latter of which was the predominant literary theory in the heydays of the Greek novels. The book argues that three conceptual couples central to ancient theory of character—typification/individuation, idealistic/realistic characterization, and static/dynamic character—construct character in these narratives more ambiguously, more elusively and in more complex ways than has been realized so far. The book explores to what extent and how the novelists construct individuating characteristics for their characters alongside typification; it also suggests that ‘ideal’ is probably not the most felicitous label to refer to these novels, as the abilities of their protagonists to acquire and develop rhetorical control over others thematizes psychologically realistic issues rather than idealistic ones; and it challenges the widely-held view of static character in these novels by tracing character development in a number of protagonists. It also makes clear how intimately presentations of character are intertwined with self-portrayal and performance of the self.Less
Despite the resurgence of interest in representations of character in literary studies generally and Classical studies in particular, and despite the goldrush towards ancient fiction in the last two decades, no volume has yet been devoted to exploring character and characterization in ancient Greek novels. This award-winning study analyses the characterization of the protagonists in the five extant, so-called ‘ideal’ Greek novels (i.e. those of Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, and Heliodorus). The book offers close readings of techniques of characterization in each novel individually and thereby combines modern (mainly, but not exclusively, structuralist) narratology and ancient rhetoric, the latter of which was the predominant literary theory in the heydays of the Greek novels. The book argues that three conceptual couples central to ancient theory of character—typification/individuation, idealistic/realistic characterization, and static/dynamic character—construct character in these narratives more ambiguously, more elusively and in more complex ways than has been realized so far. The book explores to what extent and how the novelists construct individuating characteristics for their characters alongside typification; it also suggests that ‘ideal’ is probably not the most felicitous label to refer to these novels, as the abilities of their protagonists to acquire and develop rhetorical control over others thematizes psychologically realistic issues rather than idealistic ones; and it challenges the widely-held view of static character in these novels by tracing character development in a number of protagonists. It also makes clear how intimately presentations of character are intertwined with self-portrayal and performance of the self.
Ingo Gildenhard
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199291557
- eISBN:
- 9780191594885
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291557.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book argues that a distinctive hallmark of Cicero's oratory is a conceptual creativity that one may loosely characterize as philosophical. A range of case studies show how this creativity ...
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This book argues that a distinctive hallmark of Cicero's oratory is a conceptual creativity that one may loosely characterize as philosophical. A range of case studies show how this creativity manifests itself in striking and original views on human beings and being human, politics, society, and culture, and the sphere of the supernatural. After an introduction that defines the outlook of Cicero's philosophical oratory and addresses methodological issues, the volume contains three parts with four chapters each, devoted, respectively, to the anthropology, the sociology, and the theology contained within his speeches. Each of the three parts begins with a substantial introduction that situates Cicero's thought within its wider historical and intellectual context, not least by identifying where and how he departed from the established habits of thought in the late‐republican field of power. The nature of the argument requires close philological study of key terms or concepts including natura, humanitas, tyrannus, and conscientia as well as attention to larger figures of thought, such as agency and accountability, the ethics of happiness, laws vs. justice, the enemy within, civilization vs. barbarity, the problem of theodicy, and life after death. Examples are drawn from the entire corpus of Ciceronian oratory, from the pro Quinctio to the Philippics, with in‐depth analysis of a representative cross‐section of particularly relevant speeches. Overall, the book offers a fundamental reappraisal of a canonical body of texts and should appeal not just to scholars of Cicero and Latin literature, but also Roman historians, and students of the history of rhetoric.Less
This book argues that a distinctive hallmark of Cicero's oratory is a conceptual creativity that one may loosely characterize as philosophical. A range of case studies show how this creativity manifests itself in striking and original views on human beings and being human, politics, society, and culture, and the sphere of the supernatural. After an introduction that defines the outlook of Cicero's philosophical oratory and addresses methodological issues, the volume contains three parts with four chapters each, devoted, respectively, to the anthropology, the sociology, and the theology contained within his speeches. Each of the three parts begins with a substantial introduction that situates Cicero's thought within its wider historical and intellectual context, not least by identifying where and how he departed from the established habits of thought in the late‐republican field of power. The nature of the argument requires close philological study of key terms or concepts including natura, humanitas, tyrannus, and conscientia as well as attention to larger figures of thought, such as agency and accountability, the ethics of happiness, laws vs. justice, the enemy within, civilization vs. barbarity, the problem of theodicy, and life after death. Examples are drawn from the entire corpus of Ciceronian oratory, from the pro Quinctio to the Philippics, with in‐depth analysis of a representative cross‐section of particularly relevant speeches. Overall, the book offers a fundamental reappraisal of a canonical body of texts and should appeal not just to scholars of Cicero and Latin literature, but also Roman historians, and students of the history of rhetoric.
Ian Worthington
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199931958
- eISBN:
- 9780199980628
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931958.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Demosthenes' resolute and courageous defiance of Philip II of Macedonia earned for him a reputation as one of history's outstanding patriots. He also enjoyed a brilliant and lucrative career as a ...
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Demosthenes' resolute and courageous defiance of Philip II of Macedonia earned for him a reputation as one of history's outstanding patriots. He also enjoyed a brilliant and lucrative career as a speechwriter, and is regarded as Greece's greatest orator, as proved by the rhetorical style of his surviving speeches. Yet he was a sickly child who suffered from several physical and speech impediments, had an interrupted education, and was swindled out of much of his family estate by unscrupulous guardians. His story is certainly one of triumph over adversity. Demosthenes has been lauded as Greece's greatest patriot and condemned as an opportunist who misjudged situations and contributed directly to the end of Greek freedom. This book aims to determine which of these two people he was: self-serving cynic or patriot—or both. The book discusses Demosthenes' troubled childhood and youth, the obstacles he faced in his public career, his successes and failures, and even his posthumous influence as a politician and orator. The book offers new insights into Demosthenes' motives and how he shaped his policy to achieve political power, set against the history of Greece and Macedonia. The book gives extensive quotations in translation from his speeches to sum up their main points and help to illustrate his rhetorical style, which the book also discusses.Less
Demosthenes' resolute and courageous defiance of Philip II of Macedonia earned for him a reputation as one of history's outstanding patriots. He also enjoyed a brilliant and lucrative career as a speechwriter, and is regarded as Greece's greatest orator, as proved by the rhetorical style of his surviving speeches. Yet he was a sickly child who suffered from several physical and speech impediments, had an interrupted education, and was swindled out of much of his family estate by unscrupulous guardians. His story is certainly one of triumph over adversity. Demosthenes has been lauded as Greece's greatest patriot and condemned as an opportunist who misjudged situations and contributed directly to the end of Greek freedom. This book aims to determine which of these two people he was: self-serving cynic or patriot—or both. The book discusses Demosthenes' troubled childhood and youth, the obstacles he faced in his public career, his successes and failures, and even his posthumous influence as a politician and orator. The book offers new insights into Demosthenes' motives and how he shaped his policy to achieve political power, set against the history of Greece and Macedonia. The book gives extensive quotations in translation from his speeches to sum up their main points and help to illustrate his rhetorical style, which the book also discusses.
