S3_Attic Orators (5/10)

• Aeschines - rival of Demosthenes, lived c 390-336; he was impeached in 343 by Demosthenes, but successfully appealed. Three of his speeches survive.
• Aeschines gave the speech, Against Timarchus (an ally of Demosthenes) and successfully convicted him of immorality in 345.
• Aeschines convinced Athens to start a sacred war with Amphissa, which culminated in war with Macedonia and defeat for Athens.
• Aeschines gave the speech, Against Ctesiphon in 330, but was defeated by Demosthenes’ On the Crown. Aeschines was decidedly inferior to Demosthenes in oratory.
• Demosthenes - the greatest Athenian (also the greatest Greek) orator, he studied under Isaeus.
• Demosthenes overcame a speech impediment (he practiced speaking with stones in his mouth) to become a prominent politician. He was strongly against Philip II of Macedon.
• First Philippics were a series of speeches given by Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon.
• On the Peace: (speech) given in 346 by Demosthenes after the Peace of Philocrates with Macedonia.
• On the Crown: this was Demosthenes’ greatest speech; given in 330, it was in reply to Aeschines’ attack on a proposal by Ctesiphon to give Demosthenes a crown for his services to Athens. The vote on the proposal was overwhelmingly in Demosthenes’ favor.
• Isocrates - lived from 436-338, influenced by the Sophists and Socrates (who in one of Plato’s dialogues predicts Isocrates’ future greatness as either an orator or philosopher), he stayed out of public life for a while, due to a weak voice and a lack of nerve. He overcame this eventually.
• Isocrates was most famous for his Panegyricus, which urged Greeks to unite. He was pro-Macedonian, and wrote the Philippus to Philip II of Macedon, urging him to unite Greece.
• On the Peace: (speech) given in 355 by Isocrates, it urged Athens to pursue a non-aggressive foreign policy and to abandon the maritime empire Athens had built
• Lysias - originally from Syracuse, he settled in Athens; he fled from the Thirty Tyrants, who killed his brother Polemarchus. His style was clear and resigned. Some of his 34 extant speeches are: On the Murder of Eratosthenes
• Andocides - convicted for the Mutilation of the Hermae and disgraced, he wrote On his Return, asking for a return to Athens, and On the Mysteries, referring to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which he once attended
• How did Demosthenes overcome his speech impediment?

  Practice speaking with stones in his mouth
• Who was Demosthenes strongly against?

  Philip II of Macedon