ABSTRACT

Charting the tradition regarding an author or theme1 from classical antiquity has become one of the most popular and fruitful fields for scholars to exploit in the last few decades.2 It has interest not only for those who wish to follow the ups and downs of classical scholarship itself, but also for social and intellectual historians, who can often find reflections of contemporary attitudes in the views a given generation holds of the individual or idea concerned. Indeed, in many cases these shifts and changes tell us more about ourselves than about the subject.3 In this context, a brief review of the history of scholarship on Demosthenes, his Afterlife (Nachleben), has more to tell than many such studies, since he was both orator and politician,4 two pursuits which were and have been embroiled in controversy.