ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

chapter Chapter 1|11 pages

Storytelling in Athenian law 1

chapter Chapter 2|16 pages

Storytelling about laws and money

Solon on stage (Demosthenes 24.212–214) 1

chapter Chapter 3|13 pages

The devil’s in the detail

Including ‘irrelevant’ details in homicide narratives

chapter Chapter 5|10 pages

Deceptive narratives in the speeches of Isaeus

chapter Chapter 6|18 pages

The story about the jury 1

chapter Chapter 8|15 pages

Political ideology and character portrayal in Apollodorus’ forensic narratives

[DEM.] 50 Against Polycles 1

chapter Chapter 9|21 pages

Reconstructing the past

Forensic storytelling about the Athenian constitution in Lysias 12 and 13

chapter Chapter 10|13 pages

As if you were there

Enargeia and spatiality in Lysias 1

chapter Chapter 11|15 pages

Temporal irony in Athenian forensic narrative

Lysias 1 On The Murder of Eratosthenes

chapter Chapter 13|17 pages

Truth and deception in Athenian forensic narratives

An assessment of Demosthenes 54 and Lysias 3 1