Research Catalog

Title

Genos dikanikon : amateur and professional speech in the courtrooms of classical Athens / Victor Bers.

Author

Bers, Victor.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University ; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 159 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

"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 the ancient canon. These professionals wrote either for themselves or for 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, their 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."--Jacket.

Series Statement

Hellenic studies ; 33

Uniform Title

Hellenic studies ; 33.

Subject

• Forensic orations > Athens > History
• Forensic oratory > History
• Rhetoric, Ancient

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-137) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The challenge of court speech -- Amateur litigants, amateur speakers -- Natural and artificial speech from Homer to Hyperides : a brief sketch -- Terrors of the courtroom -- Performance as evidence -- Appeals to pity and displays of anger -- Tactics, amateur and professional.

ISBN

• 9780674032033 (alk. paper)
• 0674032039 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009016266

OCLC

319063968

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library