ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses three issues associated with the rhetoric of homicide: intent, motive, and motivation to prosecute. It establishes that intent was a defining factor in designating the type of homicide charge in a specific case and the court at which it would be tried, but argues that the Athenian legal understanding of intent cannot be accessed through the forensic speeches, as orators adjust the meaning of intent to suit their client’s position. This chapter then catalogues the motives for killing that are listed in the speeches, and notes that speakers do not make much of them, but nevertheless do not pass over them entirely either. Finally, it examines numerous instances where homicide accusations or prosecutions appear to have been made for reasons other than to right the wrong of a killing: several that appear to be acts of character assassination; two where the procedures and punishments for homicide were allegedly employed as political or legal manoeuvres; and one where the charge of homicide was used as a strong centre around which to build a range of political charges that would otherwise have been inadmissible under the terms of the Amnesty of 403. This examination demonstrates that the ideology of the rigorous nature of homicide prosecution did not always hold in practice.
