Witnesses and evidence in ancient Greek literature / edited by Andreas Markantonatos, Vasileios Liotsakis and Andreas Serafim.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Markantonatos, Andreas, editor.

Liotsakis, Vasileios, editor.

Serafim, Andreas, editor.

Series:

Trends in classics. Supplementary volumes ; Volume 123.

Trends in classics. Supplementary volumes ; Volume 123

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--Greece--Athens--History--To 1500.

Democracy.

Classical literature.

Witnesses.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (314 pages)

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2021]

Summary:

The fact that aspects of witnesses and evidence put them in the centre of the institutional and cultural (e.g. religious, literary) construction of ancient societies indicates that it is important to keep offering nuanced approaches to the topic of this volume. To advance knowledge of the processes of presenting witnesses and gathering, or constructing, evidence is, in fact, to better and more fully understand the ways in which deliberative Athenian democracy functions, what the core elements of political life and civic identity are, and how they relate to the system of using logos to make decisions. For, witnesses and evidence were important prerequisites of getting the Athenian citizenship and exerting the civic/political identity as a member of the community. It is important, therefore, all the matters that relate to information-gathering and decision-making to be examined anew. Emphasis can be placed on a variety of genres to allow scholars recreate the fullest and clearest possible image about the witnessing and evidencing in antiquity. Chapters in this volume include considerations of social, political, literary, and moral theory, alongside studies of the impact of information-gathering and decision-making in oratory and drama, with a steady focus on the application of key ideas and values in social and political justice to issues of pressing ethical concern.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Witness and Evidence in Legal, Oratorical and Other Literary Contexts in Antiquity

Part I: Written and Oral Evidence

The Role of Written Documents in Athenian Trials

Rumour and Hearsay Evidence in the Athenian Law-courts

Part II: The Rhetoric of Information-Gathering and Decision- Making

Audience Memory as Evidence in the Trial on the Crown

Additional Information in Witness Testimonies in Classical Athens

Self-Quotations as Witnesses and Evidence: The Case of Isocrates’ Antidosis

Antiphon’s Witnesses: Extending the Earliest Greek Theories of Argumentation

Part III: Scripting Witnesses and Evidence: Prose and Verse Texts

The Questions in (Answering the Question about the Historicity of) Plato’s Apology of Socrates

Plato’s Apology of Socrates: The Rhetoric of Socrates’ Defence and the Foundation of the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry

Witnesses and Evidence in Thucydides: The Institutional and Rhetorical Context of the Digression on the Tyrannicides

The Torture of Prometheus

Poet, Patron, Message: Witness-Roles and the Game of Truth in Epinician Eidography

Part IV: The Cultural Workings of Witnesses and Evidence

Information and Decision in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Medea and Ino

Scandals as Evidence in Attic Forensic Oratory: The Case of Aeschines’ Against Timarchus

Notes on Editors and Contributors

General Index

Index Locorum

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9783110751970

3110751976

OCLC:

1294425611