No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
THE RHETORIC OF VISIBILITY AND INVISIBILITY IN ANTIPHON 5, ON THE MURDER OF HERODES*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2016
Extract
Alone among surviving Athenian homicide orations, Antiphon's On the Murder of Herodes resembles a modern murder mystery. Antiphon's client, a Mytilenean named Euxitheus, tells a story of a stormy night, an isolated harbour, a drunken murder victim, a missing corpse, misleading bloodstains, forged documents and hints of political intrigue. And, like in any good whodunnit, Euxitheus insists that no one knows who the killer is. Although all the clues seem to point to him, he maintains that Herodes' relatives have manipulated the evidence to make him seem guilty. We do not know whether Euxitheus succeeded in convincing his jurors, but the author of the Life of Antiphon attributed to Plutarch, who says that Antiphon was ‘adept in situations with no way out’ (ἐν τοῖς ἀπόροις τεχνικός), considers On the Murder of Herodes one of Antiphon's finest compositions (832E, 833D).
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Classical Association 2016
Footnotes
*
I am grateful to Albert Henrichs, David Elmer and Gregory Nagy, who first helped me to develop this argument in a chapter of my dissertation, to Edwin Carawan, who read and improved the version of this paper that I presented at the 2013 meeting of the American Philological Association in Chicago, and to the editors and anonymous reader of CQ for their comments and advice.
References
1 The name is preserved by Sopatros (Rhetores Graeci 4.316 Walz), who may not be a reliable source. F. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit (Leipzig, 18873), 1.645; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893), 3.369 n. 3; U. Schindel, Der Mordfall Herodes: Zur 5. Rede Antiphons (Göttingen, 1979), 4. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the name, I use it for the sake of convenience, following E. Heitsch, Antiphon aus Rhamnus (Wiesbaden, 1984), 33 n. 86; M. Edwards and S. Usher, Antiphon & Lysias (Warminster, 1985), 23 with 27 n. 1; M. Gagarin, The Murder of Herodes (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 12 n. 6.
2 Antiph. 5.23, 26, 27, 42. Gagarin (n. 1), 103–15 views this alibi with scepticism.
3 Antiph. 5.25-8, 43–5. C.G. Kuebler, The Argument from Probability in Early Attic Oratory (Chicago, 1944), 51–7; Gagarin (n. 1), 47–56; Kraus, M., ‘Nothing to do with truth? εἰκός in early Greek rhetoric and philosophy’, Papers on Rhetoric 7 (2006), 129–50Google Scholar, at 139–40.
4 Antiph. 5.57-63. Gagarin (n. 1), 83–6.
5 Antiph. 5.8-19, 85–96. M.H. Hansen, Apagoge, Endeixis and Ephegesis against Kakourgoi, Atimoi and Pheugontes: A Study in the Athenian Administration of Justice in the Fourth Century b.c. (Odense, 1976), 45, 104–7; Edwards and Usher (n. 1), 27–8 n. 3; Gagarin (n. 1), 17–29, especially 18 with nn. 4–5, which refer to earlier scholarship; E. Carawan, Rhetoric and the Law of Draco (Oxford, 1998), 348–50.
6 M. Gagarin, Antiphon: The Speeches (Cambridge, 1997), 175: ‘Throughout he stresses the separation of what is clearly established (φανερός) and what is unclear (ἀφανής) or has disappeared (H.'s corpse and the tortured slave).’
7 The historical parallels in Antiph. 5.67-73 are not true legal precedents but a form of argument by paradigm, on which see Arist. Rh. 1393a31-b4 and [Rh. Al.] 1429a21-b24. On the question of whether Athenian litigants ever appeal to true legal precedents, see E.M. Harris, The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens (Oxford, 2013), 246–73; L. Rubinstein, ‘Arguments from precedent in Attic oratory’, in E. Carawan (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Attic Orators (Oxford, 2007), 359–71; A. Lanni, ‘Arguing from precedent: modern perspectives on Athenian practice’, in E.M. Harris and L. Rubinstein (edd.), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece (London, 2004), 159–71.
8 All translations are my own, but I have regularly consulted Gagarin's translations in M. Gagarin and D. MacDowell, Antiphon & Andocides (Austin, TX, 1998), and I have sometimes adopted his wording.
9 These witnesses speak after chapter 24, and the departure of Herodes was presumably central to the prosecution's case as well. On the witnesses, see Edwards and Usher (n. 1), 83–4; Gagarin (n. 6), 189. On φανερός εἰμι or φαίνομαι with the nominative participle showing ‘manifest evidence’, see G.L. Cooper, Attic Greek Prose Syntax (Ann Arbor, 1998), 1.812-13.
10 Cf. Gagarin (n. 6), 188: ‘φανερὸς … ἀφανής: Eu. takes pains to distinguish between what is clearly established and what is not, giving the impression that all the events before H.'s disappearance (including Eu.'s alibi) are in the first category.’
11 Palau, A.C., ‘Ipotesi per un „giallo” antico (A proposito della V orazione di Antifonte)’, Helikon 17 (1977), 193–209 Google Scholar, at 200; Gagarin (n. 1), 53.
12 Mirhady, D.C., ‘Athens' democratic witnesses’, Phoenix 56 (2002), 255–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 262–3 with nn. 32–49 collects the abundant ancient evidence.
13 S. Todd, ‘The purpose of evidence in Athenian courts', in P. Cartledge, P. Millett and S. Todd (edd.), Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990), 19–39, at 39. The list of witnesses in L. Rubinstein, ‘Main litigants and witnesses in the Athenian courts: procedural variations', in R. Wallace and M. Gagarin (edd.), Symposion 2001: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Vienna, 2005), 99–120, at 115–19 is complete except for homicide speeches and speeches given before the boulē.
14 S. Humphreys, ‘Social relations on stage: witnesses in Classical Athens', in Carawan (n. 7), 140–213, at 145, 158–9, 202 and D. Cohen, Law, Violence and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1995), 107–10 emphasize the social function and family responsibilities of witnesses. Carey, C., ‘Legal space in Classical Athens’, G&R 41 (1994), 172–86Google Scholar, at 183–4, Mirhady (n. 12), 262–3 with n. 31, and Rubinstein (n. 13), 103–5 instead emphasize the content of their testimony.
15 See Mirhady (n. 12), 266–7 on the ‘speaker's formulaic statement, that the witnesses are to show that he is speaking the truth’. For variations on the sentence ὡς οὖν ἀληθῆ λέγω, μάρτυρας τούτων παρέξομαι, ‘I will produce witnesses of these things to prove that I am speaking the truth’, see Antiph. 5.83; Andoc. 1.18, 112, 123; Lys. 3.20; 13.42, 66, 68, 81; 19.23, 27; 23.8, 14; 31.14, 23.
16 Ar. Nub. 776–82. Mirhady, D.C., ‘Forensic evidence in Euripides' Hippolytus ’, Mouseion 4 (2004), 17–34 Google Scholar, at 29.
17 On the phrase ἐπ᾿ αὐτοφώρῳ, here translated with ἐπιδεῖξαι as ‘make obvious', see E.M. Harris, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens: Essays on Law, Society and Politics (Cambridge, 2006), 373–90.
18 Pl. Leg. 917d. Cf. the φάσις procedure, which at least sometimes seems to have required a visual demonstration of contraband goods introduced by the verb φαίνω. D.M. MacDowell, ‘The Athenian procedure of phasis', in M. Gagarin (ed.), Symposion 1990: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Cologne, 1991), 187–98, at 188.
19 Harp. ἀφανὴς οὐσία καὶ φανερά = Lys. fr. 172 Carey with Ferrucci, S., ‘La ricchezza nascosta: osservazioni su ἀφανὴς e φανερὰ οὐσία’, MedAnt 8 (2005), 145–69Google Scholar, at 149–52.
20 Lys. 32.23; Dem. 28.7. Gabrielsen, V., ‘φανερὰ and ἀφανὴς οὐσία in Classical Athens’, C&M 37 (1986), 99–114 Google Scholar, at 105–8.
21 Isae. 8.35; 11.43. Cf. Ferrucci (n. 19), 150.
22 Gabrielsen (n. 20), 101 with n. 7, which refers to earlier scholarship.
23 Gabrielsen (n. 20), 103–4.
24 Cf. Johnstone, S., ‘Women, property and surveillance in Classical Athens’, ClAnt 22 (2003), 247–74Google Scholar, at 250–5.
25 In Isoc. 17.7-9 the speaker accuses the banker Pasion of stealing money which he had secretly deposited with him. Since he had publicly denied possession of the money, he had no way of showing ownership. Cf. Lys. fr. 287 Carey. See the discussion at Gabrielsen (n. 20), 103; Ferrucci (n. 19), 162–3. Johnstone (n. 24), 255–7 stresses the need for trust in monetary transactions which did not involve witnesses.
26 Ar. Ran. 1065–8 is probably an allusion to it, and in Isoc. 18.60 τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ ἀποκρυπτομένων (‘keeping the rest hidden’) is certainly a reference to keeping property invisible. Cf. Gabrielsen (n. 20), 104–5 with n. 19; Ferrucci (n. 19), 165–6 with nn. 52–5. L. Kurke, The Traffic of Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 225–39 argues that Pindar knows the distinction.
27 See Schindel (n. 1), 30–7 for a discussion of misleading arguments in the speech.
28 Antiph. 5.25. Cf. Palau (n. 11), 196–7.
29 Antiph. 5.27, 28, 29, 45. Cf. Gagarin (n. 1), 53.
30 Antiph. 5.44. Cf. Gagarin (n. 1), 55.
31 Antiph. 5.26.
32 Gagarin (n. 1), 50–1. Cf. Heitsch (n. 1), 87–8 with n. 239.
33 Soph. OT 656–7. The textual problem of whether to read τὸν ἐναγῆ φίλον μήποτ’ ἐν αἰτίᾳ | σὺν ἀφανεῖ λόγῳ σ’ ἄτιμον βαλεῖν (Dawe) or τὸν ἐναγῆ φίλον μήποτέ σ’ αἰτίᾳ | σὺν ἀφανεῖ λόγων ἄτιμον βαλεῖν (Lloyd-Jones and Wilson) cannot be resolved from the manuscripts. For discussion, see R.D. Dawe, Sophocles Oedipus Rex (Cambridge, 20062), 129; H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson, Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford, 1990), 95 with West, M.L., ‘Tragica III’, BICS 26 (1979), 104–17Google Scholar, at 106.
34 The phrase φανερὰν τὴν πρόνοιαν recalls what Euxitheus says in section 57, that the intention of anyone who commits murder would have to be visible from a great distance, since it is planned (δεῖ … τὴν πρόνοιαν ἐκ πολλοῦ φανερὰν εἶναι ἐπιβουλευομένην). Through the repetition, Euxitheus contrasts his lack of a motive for murdering Herodes with the prosecution's allegedly obvious motive for bringing a false charge against him. Carawan (n. 5), 324; Gagarin (n. 6), 205. On the meaning of πρόνοια in homicide contexts, see Harris (n. 7), 182–9.
35 Cf. Gagarin (n. 1), 91–4.
36 Antiph. 5.68. On the murder of Ephialtes, see Keaveney, A., ‘The murder of Ephialtes’, GIF 54 (2002), 89–94 Google Scholar.
37 Antiph. 5.69.
38 Antiph. 5.69-70. The trial mentioned here is generally assumed to date from the 450s or 440s, since the speaker says that only the older members of his audience would be able to remember it. Gagarin (n. 6), 209; R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972), 246.
39 Diodotus continues to criticize the influence of anger throughout his speech (Thuc. 3.43.5, 3.44.4).
40 Anti-Mytilenean prejudice is central to Schindel's interpretation of the speech. Schindel (n. 1), 39–41 with Gagarin (n. 1), 112.
41 Gagarin (n. 6), 210.
42 Antiph. 5.74-80.
43 Antiph. 5.81-4.
44 Antiph. 5.85-96.
45 Antiph. 5.85.
46 I am grateful to E. Carawan for this suggestion.
47 Antiph. 5.11-12. D.M. MacDowell, Athenian Homicide Law in the Age of the Orators (Manchester, 1966), 90–100; Carawan (n. 5), 138–43; A.H. Sommerstein and A.J. Bayliss, Oath and State in Ancient Greece (Berlin, 2013), 111–15.