ABSTRACT
There is an anecdotal story that ‘when someone asked Demosthenes what the first most important skill in oratory is, he said “hypocrisis”; and the second “hypo - crisis”; and the third “hypocrisis”’ (Plutarch’s Lives of the Ten Orators 845b1-5). This story, despite its uncertain historicity, indicates the importance of what ancient sources call hypocrisis: gesticulation, facial expressions and vocal ploys. This chapter aims to examine several features of the transmitted oratorical scripts of Aeschines 2, 3 and Demosthenes 18, 19 to explore the clues that they offer to hypocrisis: emotional appeals, deixis, figures of speech, shifts to and from narrative and some other techniques such as puns and mimetic passages.
