ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters I have highlighted the problems and controversies surrounding the modern reception and interpretation of the wide use of character evidence in the courts of classical Athens. Chapter 1 presented a holistic view of argumentation from character since the age of Homer. The wide invocation of character evidence is not a peculiar feature of the Athenian courts nor is it to be found only in fourth-century sources. On the contrary, its wide presence from Homer onwards, in both judicial and other contexts, calls for a magnifi cation of perspective in order to give a universal explanation for this attitude. Chapter 2 confi ned the perspective to the Athenian legal system, focusing on the factors that provided formal incentives for Athenian litigants to resort to a wide use of character evidence. The mere presence of such formal enticements in the judicial context calls for a plausible exegesis. Chapter 3 proposed that the rationale behind the wide argumentation from character is to be found in the relevant Greek ideas of ‘character’. The conclusions offered in this chapter were applied in Chapter 4 which offers the ways and methods for providing character evidence. The Greek ideas of ‘character’ called for (and caused) a wide invocation of character evidence, especially in the form of several characteristic past acts. The current chapter completes the explanation of this practice by examining the Greek ideas of ‘personality’.
