Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts

Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts breaks new ground by exploring different aspects of forensic storytelling in Athenian legal speeches and the ways in which forensic narratives reflect normative concerns and legal issues.

The chapters, written by distinguished experts in Athenian oratory and society, explore the importance of narratives for the arguments of relatively underdiscussed orators such as Isaeus and Apollodorus. They employ new methods to investigate issues such as speeches? deceptiveness or the appraisals which constitute the emotion scripts that speakers put together. This volume not only addresses a gap in the field of Athenian oratory, but also encourages comparative approaches to forensic narratives and fiction, and fresh investigations of the implications of forensic storytelling for other literary genres.

Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts will be an invaluable resource to students and researchers of Athenian oratory and their legal system, as well as those working on Greek society and literature more broadly.

Preface (Mike Edwards and Dimos Spatharas); List of contributors; Introduction (Dimos Spatharas); Chapter 1: Storytelling in Athenian Law (Michael Gagarin); Chapter 2: Storytelling about Laws and Money: Solon on Stage (Demosthenes 24.212-214) (Catherine Psilakis); Chapter 3: The Devil’s in the Detail: Including ‘Irrelevant’ Details in Homicide Narratives (Christine Plastow); Chapter 4: Social Norms and the Legal Framework of Forensic Narratives in Disputed Inheritance Claims (Brenda Griffith-Williams); Chapter 5: Deceptive Narratives in the Speeches of Isaeus (Mike Edwards); Chapter 6: The Story about the Jury (Peter A. O’Connell); Chapter 7: Inciting Thorubos and Narrative Strategies in Attic Forensic Speeches (Noboru Sato); Chapter 8: Political Ideology and Character Portrayal in Apollodorus’ Forensic Narratives: [Dem.] 50 Against Polycles (Kostas Apostolakis); Chapter 9: Reconstructing the Past: Forensic Storytelling about the Athenian Constitution in Lysias 12 and 13 (Eleni Volonaki); Chapter 10: As If You Were There: Enargeia and Spatiality in Lysias 1 (Ruth Webb); Chapter 11: Temporal Irony in Athenian Forensic Narrative: Lysias 1 On the Murder of Eratosthenes (Victoria Wohl); Chapter 12: Narrative and Emotions in Pseudo-Demosthenes 47, Against Euergus and Mnesiboulus (Nick Fisher); Chapter 13: Truth and Deception in Athenian Forensic Narratives: An Assessment of Demosthenes 54 and Lysias 3 (Christos Kremmydas); Chapter 14: Greek Teachings about Forensic Narrative (Rosalia Hatzilambrou); Index

Mike Edwards is Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, after being Professor of Classics in the Universities of London, Wales and Roehampton, all in the UK. He was Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, UK, and President of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. He has published extensively on the Attic orators and is currently preparing an Oxford Classical Text of Isaeus.

Dimos Spatharas is an Associate Professor at the University of Crete, Greece. He is the author of a forthcoming book, Emotions, Persuasion, and Public Discourse in Classical Athens, and of several articles on the Sophists, Greek oratory and Athenian law, and ancient emotions. He recently co-edited a volume entitled TheAncient Emotion of Disgust (2016). He also co-edits the book series Trends in Classics-Ancient Emotions.