Demosthenes’ "On the Crown": Rhetorical Perspectives

243 Pages·2016·5.425 MB·English

by  James J. Murphy, Lois Peters Agnew, David Mirhady, Richard C Katula, Jeffrey Walker, Richard Leo Enos

DEMOSTHENES'
ON THE CROWN
Rhetorical Perspectives
Edited by
James J. Murphy
EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 11/23/2019 5:06 AM via TEL AVIV UNIV
AN: 1429312 ; Murphy, James Jerome, Demosthenes.; Demosthenes' 'On the Crown' : Rhetorical
Perspectives
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Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address

DEMOSTHENES'
ON THE CROWN
Rhetorical Perspectives
Edited by
James J. Murphy
Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Press
www.siupress.com
Copyright © 2016 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
Chapter 2 copyright © 2016 by Donovan J. Ochs;
chapter 3 copyright © 2016 by Edwina M. Keaney;
chapter 8 copyright © 2016 by Richard Leo Enos
This book is a revised version of Demosthenes’ “On the Crown”:
A Critical Case Study of a Masterpiece of Ancient Oratory, published
by Hermagoras Press in 1983.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration: Artemis temple columns. iStock.com / Ahmad
Atwah
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Murphy, James Jerome, editor. | Demosthenes. On the crown.
English.
Title: Demosthenes’ “on the crown” : rhetorical perspectives / edited
by James J. Murphy.
Description: Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 2016.
| Series: Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | “This book is a revised
version of Demosthenes’ “On the Crown”: A Critical Case Study of a
Masterpiece of Ancient Oratory, published by Hermagoras Press in
1983.”
Identifiers: LCCN 2016012977 | ISBN 9780809335107 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780809335114 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Demosthenes. On the crown. | Rhetoric, Ancient—
History and criticism. | Oratory, Ancient | BISAC: language
arts & disciplines / Rhetoric. | language arts & disciplines
/ Speech. | language arts & disciplines / Communication
Studies.
Classification: LCC PA3950.C6 D4 2016 | DDC 885/.01—dc23 LC
record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016012977
Contents
Introduction 1
James J. Murphy
Part One.
Demosthenes and His Greatest Speech
1. Demosthenes and His Times 9
Lois P. Agnew
2. Aeschines’ Speech Against Ctesiphon: An Abstract 36
Donovan J. Ochs
3. Demosthenes’ Oration On the Crown: A Translation 46
John J. Keaney
Part Two.
Rhetorical Evaluations
4.A Structural Analysis of the Speech On the Crown 105
Francis P. Donnelly, SJ
5. Ēthos in On the Crown 114
David C. Mirhady
6. Crafting Nostalgia: Pathos in On the Crown 130
Richard A. Katula
v
Contents
7. On the Deinos Logos of On the Crown 148
Jeffrey Walker
8. Demosthenes’ Style: Lexis in On the Crown 174
Richard Leo Enos
Epilogue 205
James J. Murphy
Select Bibliography 209
Contributors 223
Index 225
vi
Demosthenes’ On the Crown

Introduction
James J. Murphy
Next comes the vast army of orators—so vast that a single age produced
ten of them at Athens. Of these, Demosthenes was by far the greatest,
almost a law of oratory in himself: such is his force, the concentration of
his thought, his muscular firmness, his economy, his control—one feels
that there is nothing lacking and nothing superfluous.
—Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 10.1.76
The Renown of Demosthenes
This praise of Demosthenes by the Roman rhetorician and educator Marcus
Fabius Quintilianus about the year 95 in the first Christian century1 is typi-
cal of Demosthenes’ reputation in the more than two thousand years since
he delivered his most famous oration, On the Crown, in 330 bce.
Even his opponent on that occasion, Aeschines, who went into exile fol-
lowing his defeat in this famous case, later praised his speech to the students
he was instructing on the island of Rhodes. The story is told that Aeschines
had been declaiming his own crown speech to the students, who marveled
that such a fine performance could still have failed to gain one-fifth of the
votes—the minimum necessary under Athenian law to avoid a fine in such
cases. “But oh,” Aeschines said, “if only you had heard Demosthenes!”
The Roman orator Cicero was so entranced by the speech that he translated
it into Latin together with that of Aeschines. Unfortunately the translations
1