[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Oratory is essential to understanding the political and social attitudes and events of Greek history. Kapellos has curated an invaluable volume in the pursuit of this study, with contributions from many of the leading scholars of the genre of oratory. The focus of the volume is the narrow view, and use, of the recent past from the point of view of the orators themselves, and their use of it to create the version of the past that they wished to communicate to their audience. While this has been addressed in previous works, this volume examines the orators’ use of the recent past rather than just examining the notion of ‘the past’ in oratory, though as Kapellos himself points out (p.9), it is hardly possible to be exhaustive in one volume alone. To meet the challenge of such a large scope of study, each contribution examines one aspect of the recent past in a narrow area, a single ancient Greek orator, or a speech.
In the introductory chapter, Kapellos introduces the idea of the recent past in oratory, contrasting the ‘recent past’ with the ‘distant past’ and the ‘middling past’, emphasising both that the recent past exists in the mind’s eye of the audience, and that such a “temporal distinction is artificial” (p.3). While orators might borrow stories or motifs that exist in the distant past, this longer time frame is of little value for orators who are suggesting pragmatic solutions to immediate problems, hence the importance of understanding the recent past. To assist the orientation of the reader to such problems and affairs, Kapellos helpfully lists the historical events and individuals explored in the volume (p.8–9) before outlining the contributions of each author (p.9–19). In asserting that the ‘distant’ past is “rarely referred to in symbouleutic and forensic speeches” (p.4), Kapellos understates the important role played by these historical discussions in leading the audience, particularly in symbouleutic oratory (for one example, the references to the distant past of the fifth century Athenian empire: Dem. 2.24, 9.36, 45, 3.23–26, 18.208–09; Aeschin. 2.171–77, 3.183–86; Lyc. 1.98–101). The fact that “speakers in the assembly or the courts knew that their audiences could not have a true knowledge of all past things” (p.4–5) meant that, as Kapellos correctly points out, the speakers could invent their own version of the past to suit their point and ‘educate’ their audience. In defining what is more appropriately the ‘recent past’, Kapellos uses Nouhaud’s (1982) definition that 20 years is considered ‘recent’ (p.4). The authors have written their contributions to reflect this time frame where appropriate.
In addition to chapters addressing specific work(s) of an individual orator, there are several chapters that explore broader issues. For example, Blank considers the notion of ‘truth’ and the importance of context and purpose in identifying the use of the recent past in narratives, providing a methodological prologue to the more focused examples in later chapters. Blank’s central tenet is that there were various factors that influenced the orators’ representations of their respective recent pasts (pp. 29–38). Firstly, he emphasises the importance of the role played by the event in public memory and its importance to the public understanding of the past and specific events. Secondly, Blank makes the point that in understanding a depiction of the recent past we must understand the orator’s context and the audience at the time. Thirdly, he emphasises that there were certain expectations for different genres of oratory, necessitating a differentiation in the presentation, structure, and even authorship of oratory. Finally, he discusses the importance of the performative aspect of oratory, concluding by emphasising that the revision of oratory for publication should also play an important part in the way in which historians should interpret the use of the recent past in oratory. He ends the chapter by claiming that while we may conclude that a set of historical facts portrayed by an orator is untruthful, such information may not be deliberately misleading and is better to be thought of as a cultural understanding of a set of facts, creating a public narrative that was used by the orators for their own purposes, outlining a useful methodological approach for using oratory.
Kapellos has not shied away from the difficulties presented by oratory, offering two chapters examining Andocides’ On the Peace. In one, Pownall examines the depiction of the Spartans and their regime of the ‘30 tyrants’. She takes a less traditional approach by considering that the depiction was not an attempt at “whitewashing the role of the Spartans” (p.77). Pownall concludes that the speech was most likely a written pamphlet designed to elicit support for his ideology of a moderate democracy, circulated among like-minded, educated peers, and that this demonstrated consistency with the ideology he promoted in his other speeches. His use of the recent past in this instance was an attempt to undermine the ‘public narrative’ (cf. Blank’s four factors), as the role of the Spartans remained ambiguous and unclearly defined in the memory of the Athenian public, in contrast to the vivid public memory of the Thirty themselves. To do this, Pownall argues that Andocides makes references to oligarchic values and ideals in the democratic context to subvert the traditional narrative of the recent past to “[legitimize] a moderate oligarchy on the Spartan model” to restore Athenian power. Andocides rejects what he saw as the failures of Athenian imperialism, while at the same time upholding the accepted public narrative of events of the recent past.
In contrast, Harris considers that it was not possible for an orator to lie about major events in the recent past as they were still in the memory of the audience. To lie about the recent past as an orator would mean a loss of credibility (p.81). As proof, Harris asserts that Demosthenes was “generally reliable and accurate” (p.86), with only a few events of the recent past actually used in Demosthenes’ deliberative oratory; while there may be few, if any, outright deliberate lies in Demosthenes’ deliberative oratory, there is extensive obfuscation and creative retelling of the recent past to suit his own purposes throughout the corpus (such as the idea that Cardia was not independent from Athens in 342, central to the speech On the Chersonnese; or the fabrications of the second embassy to Philip in Dem. 18). In comparison, the numerous errors in Andocides (which, in several instances, I would prefer to call exaggerations and re-interpretations rather than outright lies) forces Harris to conclude (in conjunction with Dionysius of Halicarnassus) that Andocides’ On the Peace is not a genuine speech because “any speech that did not contain reliable information about major events could not have been a genuine speech composed in the fourth century” (p.98). While I find Harris’ overall conclusions about historical accuracy of the recent past less persuasive than Pownall’s approach towards the speech as a circulated pamphlet, Harris makes valuable points about the existence of the Peace of Epilycus (p.93-95) and the problem with the mention of presbeis autokratores (p.96-97), and his methodology of attacking the veracity of Andocides’ statements still provides much to consider about the genuineness of Andocides’ On the Peace.
In contrast, Brun explores the very modern notion of ‘fake news’, considering the idea in relation to the Peace of Philocrates and the alliance with Thebes in 339 BC. Brun points out that Demosthenes rewrote the history of these recent events effectively, with Demosthenes omitting and lying to create his own narrative. Orators did indeed tend to retell history to suit the purposes of the occasion (emphasising Blank’s ideas about both the purpose of the orator and the situation in which they found themselves). While Brun focuses much of his arguments on Demosthenes and Aeschines’ forensic speeches, he equates the forensic twisting of the truth with the retelling of false narratives on the bema. His conclusion is an important lesson for democracy—the people may well have remembered the truth that Demosthenes was trying to bury, but it seems that they were more willing to believe his lies and make this the “collective memory” (p.319) to soothe their own consciences.
Various chapters in this volume address the issues of the use of the recent past in forensic oratory. Zimmerman’s contribution focuses on the use of the recent past in Lysias 14, Against Alcibiades, where it is clear that the audience would likely have known that the accounts of the recent past were fabricated to tell the version that best suited the logographer and his client. Zimmerman points out that the strategy of blackening the opponent’s name publicly, even by using lies about, and exaggerations of, the recent past, would have been a successful political strategy. Many in the jury would not have believed such fabricated stories about the elder Alcibiades’ treasonous responsibility for the Athenian defeat at Aegospotami because many in the jury would have fought at the battle. However, the pathos this discussion would have elicited from both the jury and the audience would have generated such emotion that the jury, looking for someone to blame, may have been swayed. Zimmerman’s conclusion that forensic oratory is more indicative of the public feeling about the past at the time, rather than for the purposes of reconstructing the recent past for historical purposes, is not just valid for forensic oratory, but for all oratorical genres.
The fluidity of time, as Kapellos discussed in his introduction, features prominently in the chapters by Too and O’Connell. For Too, Isocrates uses time flexibly as a pedagogical tool to suit his purposes. Too points out that the duration of the past is inconsequential for Isocrates because all of the past is used to teach and inform the present. For example, in Areopagiticus, Isocrates utilises the past to show his audience what should be used to remedy the city’s difficult situations. When the past ‘happened’ is irrelevant when compared to its pedagogical value. This is seen throughout his oratory and is particularly relevant in the context and form of On the Peace (p.195), Antidosis (pp.196–98) and Panathenaicus (pp.198–99), though less so in Evagoras (pp.199–201), most likely due to the purpose of the text. O’Connell points out a similar fluidity of time in Demosthenes’ reporting of his actions in On the False Embassy. Demosthenes’ key strategy is to make the recent past seem a long time ago in an attempt to make the jury doubt their own memories of recent events. Again, purpose and context dominate this representation of the events, and in doing this Demosthenes is attempting to ensure that it is his voice, not Aeschines’, that will dominate Athenian policy-making (p.339). In both Isocrates and Demosthenes, the concept of the recent past is flexible, making these chapters invaluable for exploring the concept of the overall volume.
The focus of most chapters on specific speeches in this volume allow readers to consider the role of the recent past and its portrayal in different contexts, which is a more authentic approach to this topic. The few chapters on topics that support a broader understanding of oratory contribute to the overall understanding of the creation of the past by various orators, and this is aided by chapters on Plato (Kapellos) and the Rhetoric to Alexander (Chiron). These provide a good background to the ideas explored throughout. What would have added to the usefulness of the book for less expert readers is a chapter bringing together some of the threads and their development and use of the recent past over time. Nevertheless, Kapellos has expertly curated a volume in which the authors have presented challenging and thoughtful contributions to the study of oratory. It will be useful for both students and experts in oratory alike and will be of great value for scholars of oratory, historical memory, and classical political culture.
Authors and titles
The Orators and their Treatment of the Recent Past: Introduction (Aggelos Kapellos)
Methodical Remarks on the ‘Truthfulness’ of Oratorical Narrative (Thomas G.M. Blank)
Antiphon and the Recent Past (Michael Gagarin)
[Lysias], 20 for Polystratus: Polystratus and the Coup of 411 B.C. (Peter Rhodes)
Andocides, the Spartans, and the Thirty (Frances Pownall)
Recent Events in Assembly Speeches and [Andocides] On the Peace (Edward M. Harris)
Lysias’ Against the Subversion of the Ancestral Constitution of Athens: A Past not to be Forgotten (Cinzia Bearzot)
The Athenian Civil War according to Lysias’ Funeral Oration (Dino Piovan)
Lysias’ Speech 14 and the Use of the Recent Past for Political Purposes (Markus Zimmermann)
Plato’s Menexenus on the Sea Battle-trial of Arginousai and the Battle of Aegospotami (Aggelos Kapellos)
Isocrates and the Peloponnesian War (David Whitehead)
Back to the Future: Temporal Adjustments in Isocrates (Yun Lee Too)
The Recent Past in Isaeus’ Forensic Speeches (Stefano Ferrucci)
The Forensic Time Machine: Play on Times in Apollodorus’ Against Timotheus (Nicolas Siron)
Family Portraits in Demosthenes’ Inheritance Speeches: Between Rhetoric & History (Brad L. Cook)
Reusing Invective: Demosthenes on Androtion’s Past (Gunther Martin)
A Tale of Two Sea-battles: Demosthenes’ Praise of Chabrias in the Speech Against Leptines (Jeremy Trevett)
The Rhetoric of Deflection: Demosthenes’s Funeral Oration as Propaganda (Nathan Crick)
Demosthenes, between Fake News and Alternative Facts (Patrice Brun)
Facts, Time, and Imagination in Demosthenes and Aeschines (Peter A. O’Connell)
Peace and War with Philip: Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon on the Recent Past (Dániel Bajnok)
Lycurgus and the Past (Joseph Roisman)
Remembering Chaeronea in Hyperides (Craig Cooper)
Hyperides, Diondas, and the First Ascendancy of Demades (Janek Kucharski)
Hegesippus and his Treatment of the Recent Past (Zhichao Wang)
Dinarchus, the ‘Recent’ and the ‘Very Recent’ Past: Lessons from Aeschines, Demosthenes and Lycurgus? (Ian Worthington)
Remembering Injustice as the Perpetrator? Athenian Orators, Cultural Memory, and the Athenian Conquest of Samos (Joshua P. Nudell)
State Inscriptions from the Recent Past in the Attic Orators (James Sickinger)
The Rhetoric to Alexander and its Political and Historical Context: The Mystery of a (Quasi-) Occultation (Pierre Chiron)