Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens

Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens

Bers, Victor

Paperback

Series: Hellenic Studies, Book 33

Literary CriticismAncient GreeceTheater History

ISBN10: 0674032039
ISBN13: 9780674032033
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr
Published: Oct 1 2009
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
Under the Athenian democracy, litigants were expected to speak for themselves, though they could memorize a speech written for them. The texts of about one hundred judicial speeches of the genos dikanikon (the forensic genre) have survived, all attributed to Demosthenes or another of the ten writers of canonical status. These professionals wrote either for themselves or members of a small elite. Victor Bers argues that men too poor to afford a professionally written speech frequently spoke before judicial bodies in procedures crucial to their status, wealth, or even their lives, and that these amateur performances often manifested an unmanly yielding to emotions of anger or fear; professional speech, Bers seeks to demonstrate, was to a large degree crafted in reaction to amateur stumbling.

Also in

Ancient Greece

View All