Demosthenes is recognized as a defender of Athenian democracy and freedom, particularly in voicing his concern about the growth of Macedonian power. While the defence of democracy is a recurring theme in his speeches, Demosthenes did not develop a theory of democracy. Rather, he tended to idealize the Athenian democratic experience. Further, in his defence of democracy and the ethos of the democratic citizen, Demosthenes references oligarchy, though again not from a theoretical perspective. The objective of this paper is to analyse Demosthenes’s use of the democratic and oligarchical forms of government in his defence of Athens, with a focus on his construction of an antithesis between them and his deployment of the Athenian experiences with oligarchy in 411 and 404 BC in his oratory.
Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil - ORCID: 0000-0003-2616-7186
Titolo del capitolo
Forms of government and rhetoric: perceptions of democracy and oligarchy in Demosthenes
Autori
Priscilla Gontijo Leite
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4.08
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai)
Sottotitolo del libro
Athenian Democracy in the Making
Curatori
Breno Battistin Sebastiani, Delfim Ferreira Leão
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
140
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-612-4
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-611-7
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-612-4
eISBN (epub)
978-88-5518-613-1
eISBN (xml)
978-88-5518-614-8
Collana
Studi e saggi
ISSN della collana
2704-6478
e-ISSN della collana
2704-5919