Keeping to the Point in Athenian Forensic Oratory: Law, Character and Rhetoric

The first volume to connect legal institutions and court arguments in a series of close readings of selected speeches from the Attic Orators.

• Showcases new trends in the study of Athenian Law and Forensic Oratory by creating a fruitful dialogue with modern legal theory about the Rule of Law
• Offers an analysis of the legal arguments and forensic techniques in the Attic Orators by combining institutional and legal analysis with the study of rhetoric, character, narrative, and moral concepts
• Fosters a renewed theoretical and methodological reflection within Greek law and forensic rhetoric about the importance of legal institutions and how they should be studied
• Individual chapters contribute to close reading of Athenian speeches and timely scholarly debate (e.g. violence and disrespect; rule of law and accountability; religion in Classical Athens, family and economy)
• Provides ancient historians, literary scholars and legal historians with sophisticated and up-to-date interpretation of the key texts of Attic Oratory and promotes interdisciplinary debates about legal studies, ancient rhetoric and studies on ancient Greek behaviour and democracy

When a litigant initiated a lawsuit in Classical Athens, he submitted a written plaint to the relevant magistrate. This document contained his name, the name of the defendant, the legal procedure employed, and the specific violations of part of the law. If the magistrate accepted the plaint, the legal charges were read to the court before and after the litigants spoke, and the judges swore in their oath to vote only about the charges in the plaint, that is, whether the defendant had violated a specific law or not. In private suits, litigants took an oath to ‘keep to the point’, that is, discuss only the legal charges. In public cases litigants were under the same obligation. This volume examines several Athenian court speeches and show that litigants paid close attention to legal relevance in court. Consequently, the essays in this volume make the case for integrated approach to rhetoric and law emphasizing an institutional understanding of Athenian forensic oratory.