International Conference, 23-24 November 2017, University of Athens, Greece

The Rhetoric of (dis)unity:

Community and division in Greco-Roman prose and poetry

ABSTRACTS
Alessandro Vatri (Oxford): Divisive scholarship: affiliation dynamics in ancient Greek literary
criticism
Texts define communities. In the first place, they identify the one consisting of their receivers. At the
same time, they separate those who understand them and/or share the views or feelings they express
from those who do not. In principle, these dynamics (deliberate or not) can be brought about by texts
of any type and on any topic. Such a process can be explicit (e.g. in overt polemics) or implicit (e.g.
if special registers, objectionable views, or references to the world knowledge of the few exclude
groups of receivers from functional communication). Quite importantly, it is not restricted to public
discourse, and even texts meant for private, solitary reading can generate a sense of membership in a
virtual textual community.
All of this is also true of ancient Greek texts. Apart from public/civic literature (e.g. drama and
oratory), identity dynamics were brought about in private genres (e.g. sympotic and sapiential
literature) as well as (postclassical) readerly texts. Rhetorical strategies defining the identity of the
target readership can be observed, for instance, in (metarhetorical) works of literary criticism. Besides
overt polemics against their predecessors, ancient critics often refer to us or those who and
useas critics do!contrasts and strong expressions of praise or blame (e.g. it is ridiculous that),
as well as appeals to the readers (good) tastewhich automatically exclude those who disagree with
the critic, or fail to feel the effect described, from the group each critic aims to create (and instruct).
This paper will discuss examples of these linguistic and rhetorical devices, and the identity dynamics
they trigger, from the rhetorical works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the treatise On the Sublime,
Hermogenes On Types of Style, and Aristotles Rhetoric and Poetics, highlighting similarities
and differences that reflect the nature and purposes of these works and the audiences they aim to
define.

Andreas N. Michalopoulos (Athens): Fighting against an intruder: he speeches of Pentheus

(3.531-563) and Niobe (6.170-202) in Ovids Metamorphoses
In this paper, I will attempt a comparative reading of the speeches of Pentheus and Niobe to the
Thebans. Although found in different books of the Metamorphoses, the third (3.531-563) and the
sixth (6.170-202) respectively, these two speeches offer ample grounds for comparative treatment,
since they share a common theme: a Theban king and a Theban queen resist the worship of a deity
by their citizens. Pentheus does not acknowledge the divinity of the new god Bacchus, while Niobe
denounces the worship of Latona claiming that she is far superior.

I will discuss and compare the argumentation of Pentheus and Niobe and the language they employ.
I will explore, on the one hand, how both speakers try to forge their proximity with the Thebans and
1
promote their bonding and affiliation with them, and, on the other, how they attempt to distance
themselves from Bacchus and Latona and arouse their peoples hostility against these religious
intruders.

Andreas Serafim (Cyprus): A War in Words: Mockery, laughter and the rhetorics of (dis)unity
in Attic oratory
In this paper, I intend to explore the features of laughter-inducing mockery, and the ways in which it
is used in selected public (Aeschines 2, 3 and Demosthenes 18) and private speeches (Demosthenes
50-56) of Attic oratory. Mockery is not a conventional or a hackneyed element of speeches. It is used
to accomplish several goals: to engage the audience and elicit peoples reaction, to lambast the
opponent and to create, therefore, a community by binding the speaker to the judges and the onlookers
while estranging the target of the ridicule from them.
The dichotomy between public and private orations, I argue, affects the use of mockery and laughter.
In the public speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes, on the one hand, both the prosecutor and the
defendant have freedom to choose any means of poking fun at their opponents. Mockery has three
features: incongruity, the construction of a set of expectations that are then juxtaposed with an
unexpected conclusion (e.g. Aeschines 2.49; Demosthenes 18.262); the inversion of tragic patterns
into comic ones (e.g. Aeschines 3.209-10); and the use of stock comic characters (e.g. Demosthenes
18.243).
In the private speeches of Demosthenes, on the other hand, the defendant uses mockery and laughter,
albeit sparingly and in a rather unclear way, with the aim of brushing aside potentially damaging
issues. The plaintiff, however, avoids using mockery and laughter perhaps because he seeks not to
give the impression that his adversary is a trivial menace or that his punishment should be lenient.

B Breij (Radboud University Nijmegen): It takes more love to kill a son than to vindicate
him: how maxims may contribute to affiliation
In chapter 2.21 of his Rhetoric, Aristotle names the two main advantages of maxims: the audience
likes them, provided that they refer to situations with which it can identify, and maxims make a speech
ethical, because they evince a speakers moral choices (Ar. Rhet. 1395b). In other words, a speaker
will use maxims to boost his ethos by establishing a common moral identity with his audience.
A genre in which ethical maxims crop up abundantly ad nauseam, according to some is
declamation, the mock-forensic or political speech that was the pice de rsistance of ancient elite
education. Despite criticism, the genre was hugely popular: it was practiced in schools and theatres,
by young and old, all over the ancient world, throughout antiquity, and remained virtually unchanged
for well over six centuries. This makes it an invaluable source if one wants to explore ancient common
values which contributed towards (or against!) group identity.
In my paper I will address the occurrence of maxims in the Declamationes Maiores ascribed to
Quintilian. I will discuss the methods by which they were constructed, e.g. by using indefinite
pronouns, and their actual content, which often is not quite so generic as their phrasing suggests. I
will argue that in many cases, the maxims may apparently serve to explore and provoke common
values, but in the end they aim to establish and consolidate those values and the group identity of
which they form an essential part.

2
Brenda Griffith-Williams (London): Everybody knows: the common knowledge topos in
Athenian forensic oratory
Appealing to shared knowledge is one way for a forensic speaker to construct or manipulate his
audience in relation to himself, his opponent, and others. The everybody knows ( )
topos was recognized in fourth century Athens as a convenient device for a litigant lacking solid
evidence; he could simply allude to unsubstantiated rumour or gossip as common knowledge. One
litigant, Mantitheos, warned the dikasts that his opponent would do precisely that ([Demosthenes]
40.53). Aristotle (Rhet. 1408a) understood that such tactics are effective because people are ashamed
to admit ignorance, fearing exclusion from what Ober calls the community of knowing (Democracy
and Knowledge, 189).
The topos takes various forms, sometimes in combination with other rhetorical or linguistic devices.
A speaker may use the first person plural () to associate himself with the dikasts, or the second
person () to distance himself from them. The compound verb (used five times in
Aeschines 1) explicitly constructs a community of knowing. The rhetorical question
positively challenges the individual dikast to dissociate himself from that community (e.g.
Demosthenes 21.140). Combined with a civic address ( ) the topos appeals to shared
Athenian values (real or imagined), sometimes implicitly identifying the speakers opponent as non-
Athenian. Occasionally, combined with a judicial address ( ), it constructs the
dikasts identity as a more exclusive group with its own body of specialist knowledge (e.g. Lycurgus
1.29).
After examining the variety of forms and range of situations in which the topos occurs, I conclude
that it was undoubtedly more versatile than Aristotle suggests; in Obers words, it had more to it than
merely shaming the uninformed into acquiescence. My analysis does not, however, support Obers
contention that common report was expected to carry greater weight with Athenian dikasts than the
arguments they heard in court (Mass and Elite, 150).

Cristina Rosillo-Lopez (Seville): Bonding with the audience in trials: the importance of the
corona in the Late Roman Republic
Trials constituted important political events in the Late Roman Republic. The orators faced the
challenge of convincing the judges of the innocence or guilt of their defendant. However, even though
they casted the vote, the judges were not the only audience that mattered.

Taking into account the practices of the orators and the reactions of the public and judges, this paper
argues that, even deprived of any formal role in a trial, the corona, the informal and not organised
crowd that surrounded the speakers and judges, was an component of much weight. Its influence
before, during and after the lawsuit was relevant. Audiences became one of the main sources of
information about the trial for the rest of the citizens, circulating rumours, gossip and anecdotes about
it after the sessions had finished.

Facing this situation, the orator could not afford to ignore that audience. In fact, he needed to bond
with it in order to have his support not only in the trial, but also after the hearings had ended, as a
vector and disseminator of a certain public opinion which would secure him a favourable outcome.
As some trials, such as the Pro Cluentio showed, popular expectations and opinions about the
outcome of a trial could weigh heavily, among other considerations, on the final decision of the
judges. Thus, taken together, all these factors explain the relevance of the corona in trials, despite
their lack of constitutional or formal role.

3
T. Davina McClain (Northwestern State University): Cato vs Valerius/Men vs Women:
Rhetorical Strategies in The Oppian Law Debate in Livys Ab Urbe Condita
In Book 34, Livy presents the speeches of Cato and Valerius arguing against and for repeal of the
Oppian Law (34.2.1-34.7.15). Although scholars have primarily discussed the debate to determine
whether the Oppian Law was a sumptuary law or a measure to raise funds during the Second Punic
War, little attention has been paid to the rhetorical strategies that Livy uses in the speeches to create
contradictory images of women and of womens roles in Romes past.
Livy has Cato craft women as a group that men must control and fear. He cites the story of the
Lemnian women killing all the men on the island as something he used to consider a myth and a
made-up event (34.2.3: fabulam et fictam rem), but he can now believe it because of his personal
observations of the behavior of the Roman women in the streets. He poses repeated threats of what
might happen if women meet in groups or if they secede to force the repeal of the law (34.2.4; 32.4.7).
Cato, however, offers no actual example from Roman history that proves that women are a danger to
men. In constrast, Valerius unrolls Catos own account of Romes past to offer examples of women
striving to help the state and willingly sacrificing for the greater good of Rome (34.5-7-11). Yet after
Valerius demonstrates the good women have done, he also responds to Catos implication that women
should be feared: this restriction would vex men, so why condemn the feelings of the little ladies
(34.7.7: muliercularum) whom even little things upset?
The historically accurate speech wins the day and undermines Catos attempt to put men and women
on opposite sides when it comes to the good of the state.

Dimos Spatharas (Crete): Emotions, out-groups and the construction of social identities in the
Attic orators
Recent approaches to emotions emphasize that affects are cognitive phenomena rather than instinctive
responses to external stimuli. As Aristotle realized long before modern psychologists, emotions
require appraisals: pity, for example, typically involves the agents perception that the target has
suffered a(n) (undeserved) suffering. Manipulation of emotions in rhetorical contexts, therefore, is a
highly demanding task, which, however, is not incompatible with speakers attempts at rational
argumentation. Eliciting jurors emotions requires the construction of appropriate conceptual frames
through the use of all the means available to the orator: e.g. narratives, characterization, figurative
language (especially metaphors).
In this methodological paper, I employ modern cognitive approaches and the results of experimental
psychology to explore the ways in which forensic speakers manipulate emotions by way of
constructing social identities. I argue that the appraisals involved in the social emotions that we
commonly find in the extant speeches enable speakers to highlight normative transgressions which
identify their opponents with out-groups. In forensic contexts, social identities are therefore
constructed on the basis of shared values which not only serve as a medium of exclusion and character
assassination, but also as a vehicle through which speakers indicate assertively the characteristics
which are typical of the healthy in-groups. Forensic uses of emotions, thus, typically appeal to
comforting myths of normality by identifying jurors with the values favoured by the in-groups.
Emotions such as indignation, shame, anger, and especially disgust invest with salient instances in
which citizens are accused of deviant behaviour and thus emphasize the extra-statutory norms
asserted by the polis. I conclude that the use of emotions enables us to look into the idealized value-
system of the polis. Not only are forensic audiences conceived as archetypical representatives of the
values shared by the in-groups, but also as guardians of the polis social identity.

4
Eleni Volonaki (Kalamata): Rhetorical techniques of identification/hostility between speakers
and audience in eisangelia cases
According to the eisangeltikos nomos, which was most probably introduced after 336 and before 330
BC, the eisangelia procedure and the offences subject to it include firstly the attempt to overthrow
the democracy or conspiracy against the constitution, but also contain additional charges, such as
treason, bribery of the rhetores, deceiving the demos by giving false promises and finally offences
relevant to treason, such as damage of naval facilities or trading, arson of public buildings or
documents and acts of sacrilege. In cases of eisangelia, which were of such a public importance and
interest, issues of hostility are central to the argumentation concerning either attacks of ethos or
appeals from pathos, particularly in the prosecution speeches. Moreover, the defendants-traitors of
the city and the constitution in eisangelia trials are treated as the enemies of the judges while
prosecutors identify themselves with the audience by sharing the same hostility toward the accused.
The present paper examines a few examples of eisangelia trials in the beginning and toward the end
of the fourth century BC addressing hostility as central argument from persuasion in public cases of
treason.

Thus, for example, the case of Nikomachos (Lysias 30), an anagrapheus of the Athenians laws, who
was accused of misconduct, while republishing the Athenian sacrificial calendar at the end of the fifth
century, or the case of Lykourgos who prosecuted Leokrates, eight years after the Athenian defeat in
the battle at Chaironeia (330 BC), for treason are some indicative examples to illustrate how hostility
establishes the whole of the prosecution argumentation and constitutes an effective means of
persuasion in court by employing the rhetoric of unity between speakers and audience and dis-unity
between the accused and the Athenians, the whole of the city, throughout the fourth century.

Flaminia Beneventano (Siena): Rhetoric of the humans, rhetoric of the gods. Deigmata,
phasmata and the construction of evidence
The aim of this paper is to look into two different means of creating evidence and significance through
signs - deigmata and phasmata. While deigma, like deiknymi, is related to the notions of calculus and
arithmetic (as in Hdt. II 143-4), phasma belongs to the semantic field of phain and involves a
communicative process which is based on inference, hypothesis and interpretation (e.g. Pi. O. VIII
37-44; Hdt. IV 79; D.H. V 46.1-3). Deigma implies a process of ostension which immediately and
incontrovertibly generates knowledge in its recipient, phasma, vice versa, requires the mediation of
an expert, such as a soothsayer or a mantis.
These characteristics of phasmata and deigmata relate to a broader topic and concern two different
communicative models: one based on unity, the other founded on division. Deigma is in fact an
artefact, a human reality and while acting as a sign its meaning can be directly understood by any
recipient. Accordingly, the type of communication implied is comprehensive, immediate, unitary and
accessible to all mortals. Phasma is, on the contrary, an event generated by the gods. It thus belongs
to a type of communication which is inherently divine and addresses a restricted audience in a divisive
manner. The epistemic process which makes this kind of communication effective is what Ch. S.
Peirce refers to as abduction: the result is aleatory, implies a guess on behalf of the recipient and does
not build indisputable evidence. Experts are divided from non-experts, and those who do not possess
the required instruments nor the necessary knowledge to analyze the signs phasmata deliver are
excluded from reaching a positive outcome and from establishing a successful communication.

5
George Paraskeviotis (Cyprus): Humorous unity and disunity between the characters in
Vergils Eclogues 1, 2 and 3
The importance of humour in rhetoric has been recognised even from antiquity. Platos, Aristotles,
Ciceros and Quintilians views on humour deal with cautionary warnings concerning its rhetorical
efficacy, thereby confirming that it is a strong tool of persuasion. Moreover, there is evidence to
suggest that these authors are also familiar with the most common humour theories: a) Superiority
Theory, b) Release/Relief Theory and c) Incongruity Theory. On the other hand, Vergils educational
training is closely associated with the rhetoric and certain rhetorical features have already been
identified and been examined in the Vergilian oeuvre. However, there is a substantial rhetorical
device, which has escaped critical attention: humour.
This paper aims to fill this significant interpretative gap by examining this overlooked rhetorical
feature (humour) in Vergils Eclogues and investigating its role and function in the collection. My
methodology is based on these three humour categories used as interpretative tool to show the humour
that is caused not only to the reader(s) but also to the character(s) in the collection.The examination
concentrates on Tityrus non-justified indignation for the cheat he believes thatsuffers in town (Ecl.
1.31-35), on the erudite mythological exempla used by Corydon (Ecl. 2.19-27) and his self-address
(Ecl. 2.56-57) and on Damoetas sexual insult to Menalcas (Ecl. 3.7-9);thereby, it aims to display that
humour constitutes a dynamic rhetorical strategy used to create affiliation or division between the
characters in Eclogues 1 (Tityrus and Meliboeus), 2 (Corydonand Alexis) and 3 (Damoetas and
Menalcas).

Ilias Arnaoutoglou (Athens): Corporate rhetoric and identity-building in Athenian

Hellenistic associations
Honorific decrees are most often appreciated and studied for their pragmatological wealth of
information they provide for polis institutions, polis interaction with kings and other polities.
Honorary decrees of private cult associations are usually mined for snippets of information about the
structure and administration of the issuing corporate body. However, they are rarely treated as
embodying a particular rhetorical strategy aiming at not only justifying the attribution of honours to
a particular member (or less often to a non-member) but also reaffirming, implicitly or explicitly, the
boundaries between members and outsiders, between worthy individual members and those who will
never qualify for similar praise.
These documents, or rather their abridged version inscribed on stone, contain a concise traditional
argument on the reasons leading to the decision (most often a detailed account of the individuals
record as a magistrate), although we lack the dynamic aspect of the exchange of arguments in their
assembly (even if the decision was unanimous, there should have been some canvassing done before
the final confirmation; the exchanges recorded in IG ii2 1368 is most probably an edited version of
what happened in the assembly of Iobakchoi in AD 164). At the same time in some of them like the
decree IG ii2 1283, 2-13 (240/39 BC) there is an interesting excursus about the compound identity of
the group, as part of the ethnos of the Thracians and as orgeones of Bendis in Peiraieus. Therefore in
this paper Ill attempt to pinpoint these rhetorical elements, like the standardized vocabulary of values
promoted (, , , , and seldom ), the emulation
clause (e.g.
), and the ways in which we is contrasted with the rest.

6
Ioannis Konstantakos (Athens): Divided audiences and how to win them over: The case of
Aristophanes Acharnians
Dicaeopolis, the hero of Aristophanes Acharnians, wishes to end the Peloponnesian war but meets
with opposition from the Chorus of Acharnian elders, ardent supporters of military action against
Sparta. Dicaeopolis makes a speech on the origins of the war, a masterful piece of comic oratory,
which divides the Chorus; half of the Acharnians are won over to the heros side, but the other half
persist in their warlike attitude and call general Lamachus to assistance. Dicaeopolis then employs
demagogic rhetoric in order to denounce Lamachus as a coward and simultaneously promote himself
as a good soldier that conscientiously fights for the city. Thus, the remaining pro-war Chorus-men
are also convinced for the justice of Dicaeopolis cause.
This core situation of the play provides an intra-dramatic reflection of the relationship between the
poet and his audience, as set up in the parabasis. In the embattled Athens of 425 B.C., Aristophanes
would be facing a divided audience in the theatre, resembling the Acharnians Chorus. Some of the
spectators would have been weary with the war and ready to embrace Dicaeopolis peace project;
others would have shared the vengeful will to pursue the conflict with Sparta. To ensure the favour
of both parties and win the prize, the comic poet adopts an ambiguous rhetorical strategy similar to
his heros tactics. The entire play, like Dicaeopolis discourse, is an advocacy of peace and a
denunciation of warmongering. But in the parabasis the poet fosters an image of himself as an
excellent war councilor that will help the Athenians defeat Sparta an image analogous to
Dicaeopolis self-presentation as a patriotic soldier.
By means of this double-sided rhetoric, Aristophanes hopes to transmit his anti-war message and
simultaneously avoid the displeasure of the belligerent faction of his audience. Ambivalence, role-
playing, and even jingoism are exploited in this comic attempt to enforce a hard-earned mythopoeic
unity on a reality of profound civic discord.

Marco Romani Mistretta (Harvard): Finding unity through knowledge: narrative and identity-
building in Greek technical prose
The notion that rhetorical qualities are by no means alien to Greek and Roman technical prose is well-
established in scholarship on ancient knowledge traditions (e.g. Roby 2016; Berryman
2009;Schneider 1989). However, the question of how the rhetoric of identification is employed by
technical authors still remains open. Through a comparative case-study, this paper addresses the use
of cultural historical narrative as a rhetorical means of identity-building in two Greek prose texts
belonging to different technico-scientific domains: the Hippocratic treatise On Ancient Medicine (ed.
Schiefsky 2005) and Philo Mechanicus artillery manual (ed. Marsden 1971). I shall argue that, in
constructing narratives concerning the origin of their craft or science, both authors emphasize the
collective and collaborative dimension oftheir disciplines progress, in order to strengthen a sense of
affiliation among practitioners.

While the Hippocratic writer opens his work with a subtle account of the invention of medicine (De
vet. med. 1.2-5.5), Philos handbook includes a detailed narrative reconstruction of the beginnings of
artillery-science (Belop. 50.14-51.2). As I shall show, both authors attribute the discovery of their art
to anonymous groups of researchers who, by trial and error (cf. Schiefsky 2015; Dunn 2005),
developed the mental model (cf. Renn and Damerow 2007) on which any further innovation in the
craft is ultimately based. By insisting on the plurality of the discoverers and highlighting the
continuity of their disciplines methods and procedures across generations, these technical authors
construe their crafts development as cultural-historical narrative of unity and collaboration.

7
Thus, both Philos and [Hippocrates] narratives adopt a rhetorical strategy of identity-building: both,
in fact, aim at demonstrating that membership in the practitioners community is contingent upon
mastery of a systematic method of discovery. For both authors, as I shall argue, the role of cultural
history in scientific communication is to persuade both the expert and the non-professional audience
of the epistemic value of the methodological principles established through the practitioners
cooperation. While reinforcing the specialists sense of belonging to a community of skilled
technicians, this rhetorical strategy co-opts the lay reader into the ongoing progress of the craft.

Maria Kythreotou (Cyprus): Antithesis as a (dis)uniting figure in Thucydidean speeches

Antithesis is one of the most prominent figures in Thucydides History and it is used especially in the
speeches. This figure performs various uses, one of them being to unite or separate an audience.
According to the purpose of each speaker this figure may work as a uniting figure in order to
affiliate an audience including people with different political sympathies, age or ancestry. The same
figure may, however, be used by the speakers in order to separate the members of an audience. Thus,
Nicias in his speech in 6.9-14 separates the old people from the young ones, whereas Alcibiades in
his own speech (6.16-18) unites his audience using the same antithesis, but referring to their common
interests.
Other speakers use the antithesis between the Spartans and the Athenians, the two basic opponents of
the war, whereas other speakers, like the Lacedaemonians (4.17-20) speaking in favor of peace avoid
this antithesis, while they tend to use the first person plural in order to show the common interests of
the two parties. A commander encouraging his troops before battle may use the antithesis between
past and present in combination with the antithesis between the terms victory and loss in case he had
lost the previous battle, while his opponent will use past and present as a united time space in order
to claim that the previous victory will happen again. Antithesis may also be used to express the hostile
feelings of a speaker, but covertly in order not to bring on the anger of the audience. Thus the Plataians
(3.53-59) use the antithesis between the Spartans and the Plataians trying to express their angry
feelings, but always behind the surface since their aim is to avoid their punishment and to remind
their audience of their previous cooperation.

Maria S. Youni (Komotini) Lycurgus speech Against Leocrates has long been considered as a
rhetorical paradox, not only because of the lengthy quotations of irrelevant literary and legal texts,
but also because of the rhetorical techniques of megethynsis and dramatization amply used by the
orator. The case is well-known. Lycurgus impeached Leocrates by eisangelia before the Assembly
for treason, and the case was referred to the heliastic court. In his speech for the prosecution, Lycurgus
uses as evidence a variety of literary texts: ancient myths, such as the myth of the self-sacrifice of
the Athenian king Codrus and the myth of king Erechteus, who sacrificed his daughter to save the
polis; long quotations from epic, lyric, and tragic poetry; and some decrees issued by the Athenian
Assembly in the past, which were not strictly relevant to his cause. Clearly, neither myths nor poetry
could be considered as true means of proof in Athenian litigation or in any other court, but it is
remarkable that in Lycurgus speech the same is true of the decrees read out to the dicasts.

Why did Lycurgus incorporate all these quotations in his speech? A logical explanation is that he
used all sorts of extra-legal sources because the accusation was not founded on any law, and he was
therefore trying to distract the jurys attention from the lack of legal basis. This paper elaborates
further on Lycurgus scope, and argues that the speech against Leocrates is a paradigm of the
innovations introduced by Lycurgus in what concerns the relation between law and morals, court
procedure and especially eisangelia, and the notion of citizen in the aftermath of the battle of
Chaeronea.

8
Michael Edwards (Roehampton): The Rhetoric of (Dis)unity in the Attic Orators
In Demosthenes 57, Euxitheus appeals against the decision of his deme to strike him off its register of
members. One of the grounds for this decision, he alleges, is that his father, who had been captured in
war and sold as a slave, had acquired a foreign accent (Dem. 57.18). In Isaeus 6, on the other hand,
Aristomenes supports the claim of his friend Chaerestratus to inherit the estate of Philoctemon by noting
immediately that Chaerestratus had acted as a trierarch for an expedition on which both men were
captured (Is. 6.1); and in case the judges forget this sure indication of good character, Chaerestratus
services to Athens, including his trierarchy, are repeated towards the end of the speech (Is. 6.60). In this
lecture, I shall attempt to address the various topics enumerated in the conferences original call for
papers, drawing on evidence from forensic speeches in the corpus of Attic orators to indicate how
speakers in the public arena of the Athenian courts bolstered their cases by employment of a civic
rhetoric of unity and disunity.

Michael Paschalis (Crete): The Rhetorical Strategy of Ciceros On Divination

The two books of Ciceros treatise On Divination are an extraordinary work of philosophical rhetoric.
In the first Quintus Cicero formulates along Stoic lines the arguments in favour of divination, while
in the second Marcus Cicero attacks these arguments and undermines the principles of divinatory
science along the lines of Academic scepticism. No conclusion is offered. At the end of Book 2 the
reader is called upon my Marcus to make up his own mind, but the conclusion is in a sense misleading.
Cicero ascribes to Aristotle (Aristotelio more) the basic structure of a disputation consisting in two
continuous speeches. But On Divination differs from the De oratore, where the speeches of Crassus
and Antonius are in a sense complementary, or the De natura deorum, where Velleius and Balbus
expose in turn the principles of Epicurean and Stoic theology. In the present case it is not a question
of parallel speeches or of contrasting views on the same topic; and the real issue is not endorsing one
or the other view. Marcus speech is designed as a systematic rhetorical refutation of the foundations,
principles, and methods of divination. It is a destructive and fierce attack on divination mixed with
persistent scorn and ridicule of divinatory notions and their prominent defenders (2.15 Believe me,
there is not an old woman in the world so superstitious as gravely to believe these things: targeting
Antipater, Chrysippus and Posidonius!). In some places Marcus speech is strikingly reminiscent of
Lucretius, but the motive here is not religious scepticism: Cicero chose to treat divination separately
instead of incorporating it in his treatise On the Nature of Gods. The notion of foreseeing future events
and especially the methods of divination seem to have invited a completely different rhetorical
strategy. The two speeches set Marcus against his brother Quintus, Ciceros authorial persona against
the real Cicero, who had reached in the office of an augur the pinnacle of his career, rationalism
against Roman state religion, and late Republican thought against traditional Roman practice.

Myrto Aloumpi (Oxford): Creating community through the rhetoric of charis: deliberative
versus forensic oratory
This paper proposes to explore the different ways in which the rhetoric of charis reinforces unity in
the courtroom and in the Assembly of fourth century Athens, as this is depicted mainly in the speeches
of Demosthenes.
Various scholars have explored the significance of the rhetoric of public service and reciprocity in
the Athenian courtroom as a means of establishing community between an individual and his city. In
their most explicit form, such arguments take the shape of requests for gratitude from the audience
(or rejection of the legitimacy of such requests by the opposing side), mainly for services already
performed for the city, or on the promise of future benefactions. The language of charis in such
arguments is employed to express the ideas of service bestowed (or not bestowed), favour owed (or
9
not owed), and mutual goodwill (or the rejection of it) between city and citizen. In these ways, the
rhetoric of charis in forensic oratory reinforces unity between speakers and their audience by means
of bringing to the forefront ties of mutual interest and mutual obligation that bond the Athenian
community.
Not much attention has been paid to the discourse of charis in the Assembly. In the deliberative
speeches of Demosthenes, the rhetoric of public service is absent and so is the discourse of reciprocal
charis that we find in the courtroom. This point has escaped many scholars attention some of who
treat forensic and deliberative oratory indiscriminately. As I argue, though, not all places were
appropriate for boasting about ones record of public donations and not all public activities and
contributions were suitable for being presented as private investments on public gratitude. What was
regarded as reciprocal in a courtroom was regarded as individualistic in the Assembly. In this
framework, speaking to win charis in the Assembly is presented as an individualistic activity that
spoils good conduct of politics and promotes division. In particular, the rhetoric of charis is associated
with warnings that the civic-oriented speaker gives to the audience to protect them from deceptive
speakers who seek to win the audiences favour (charis) and promote their private interests. In this
way, the discourse of charis in symbouleutic oratory bonds the speaker with his audience in a
cooperative attempt to deal with deceptive speakers who threaten unity and public interest.

Noboru Sato (Kobe University): Thorubos in Athenian speeches, a sign of (dis)unity

Athenian speakers in public space, both in the assembly and in the law courts, often faced thorubos,
noise, hubbub or heckling from their audience. Thorubos can be seen as a clear sign of disunity
between a speaker and his audience in many cases. In this paper, I shall investigate how Athenian
speakers dealt with topics on thorybos from a rhetorical point of view: how and why did Athenian
speakers refer to thorybos in the assembly or in the law courts?
First of all, the difference between the forensic and the deliberative speeches is striking. Speakers in
the assembly either mentioned the Athenian citizens current habit of clamouring or anticipated that
hubbub might occur in the middle of their own speech and urged their audience to listen to their
speeches without making noise.
On the other hand, law court speakers tended to refer to the thorubos which had occurred in a previous
public meeting, mainly in a previous assembly. In many cases, speakers mentioned thorubos in a
previous occasion, in order to give the judges the impression that the citizens as a whole had expressed
with their hubbub disagreement with a powerful politician, usually the opponent of the speaker. In
other words, a past thorubos was mentioned as a sign of disunity between his opponent and the
citizens as well as a sign of unity between the citizens and the speaker himself. In some cases,
however, speakers could not avoid referring to the occasion in which uproar was made against
themselves. In such a case, a speaker explained it away, by suggesting either that the uproar had been
made only by some citizens, not the demos as a whole, or that his opponent had misled the citizens
to make noise against the speaker himself.

Nick Fisher (Cardiff): Creating a Cultural Community: Aeschines and Demosthenes

This paper will consider attempts in Athenian political trials to create a unity between speaker and
jury by an appeal to an imagined cultural community to which they belong but from which their
opponents should be excluded. The argument rests on assertions of ordinary Athenians
understanding of their educational culture of music, poetry, athletics and sexual relationships, with
its moral responsibilities and problems. The primary focus would be a central strategy in Aeschines'
speech Against Timarchus which I identified in my commentary. Aeschines chose, or was compelled,
to build his case (above all in 1.132-159) on a carefully constructed argument that Athenians all
10
valued as he did the erotic pursuit of younger males at gymnasia and symposia as a major element in
their culture, provided it was conducted decorously and that mercenary inducements were avoided;
and that Timarchus sexual history and subsequent political activities challenged this culture. That
Aeschines won his case suggests that enough jurymen were persuaded that they did share these values
and agreed that Timarchus offenses (and also Demosthenes offences against masculine deportment)
set a bad example for the young at a time of existential crisis for Athens. Demosthenes response
from (19. 233, 280-9) accused Aeschines of hypocrisy in arguing for moral reform, given his and his
relations record of deviance and political corruption. The paper will analyse in more detail the
rhetorical means by which Aeschines sought to unite himself (a new member of the elite) with
ordinary Athenians in the defence of this culture, and conversely those by which Demosthenes must
have developed his counter claim for excluding Aeschines from this cultural community. Among the
rhetorical methods considered will be flattering appeals to the jurys intellectual and moral
understanding, rhetorical questions and calls for audience reaction, aggressive humour, and the
creative use of quotations from Homer and drama.

Paulo Martins (Sao Paulo): The Neoteric Poetry and Old Voices in Early Empire
As the expression poetae noui, or neoteroi, suggests, this group of new poets provided unusual,
innovative and unprecedented poetic material in Latin language. Thus, such poets are not only
chronologically but also discursively younger than their predecessors. Their new poetics establishes a
disjunction or opposition between discourse and poetic norms. In this communication, I will
investigate the mark of this new opposition in Catullus, and how Propertius, in the following
generation, emulates it.

Philip Hardie (Cambridge): Concordia and Discordia in late antique Latin poetry: The rhetoric
of community and dissension in church and state
This lecture will explore the late antique obsession with unity and disunity at a time when the
coherence of the Roman state, divided between western and eastern empires, was placed under
repeated strain, and when the official state religion, Christianity, was subjected to the divisive force
of doctrinal disagreement and heresy. I will look at the kinds of political communication operative in
the rhetoric of epideixis in panegyrists in prose and verse (the Panegyrici Latini and Claudians
panegyrical epics); and at the religious politics of unity and division in Christian texts across a range
of genres: Prudentius epic and didactic engagements with the forces of heresy, and Prudentius
polemical answer to Symmachus third Relatio; the concrete rhetoric of Damasus epigrams; the
homiletic poems of Paulinus of Nola.

Robert Sing (Cambridge): Trust me, I am not an expert: Identifying with a moral ethos
Athenian orators faced several barriers when it came to affiliating themselves with the majority of
their fellow citizens. These barriers included not just their wealth and birth (cf. Ober 1989), but their
status as well-informed, skilled professionals in a democracy controlled by amateurs (cf. Kallet 1994).
The creation of the powerful theoric fund in the 350s has traditionally been taken as evidence for a
weakening of popular suspicion towards expertise that would continue for the rest of the fourth
century. If Athenians became more willing to defer to specialists the gap between dmos and orators,
and the rhetorical challenge of bridging it, would have grown even greater.

The nature of democratic leadership certainly changed after 350, and all orators had to respond to the
unprecedented importance of financial ability. However, the way Demosthenes presents himself as
an advisor (symboulos), indicates that a truly persuasive speaker was one who managed to get his

11
audience to identify with him as a trustworthy and useful citizen, and not simply to defer to him (cf.
Arist. Rhet.1356a114).

Yunis (1996) reads Demosthenes as imitating Thucydides Pericles, trying to impress and instruct
the dmos by laying claim to superior, fact-based judgement (Dem.18.172). I argue this misses
Demosthenes wider, innovative challenge to technical expertise as the primary prerequisite for
political influence. Demosthenes exploits deep-seated Athenian anxieties about concentrating power
by making moral excellence a quality all good citizens have a share in central to his political
persona (e.g. Dem.5.112). The dmos is encouraged to identify with him and to trust him as an
outsider and a different, higher sort of expert: his judgement alone is true because it is uncorrupted,
and he alone fights with the dmos against a ruling cadre of corrupt professionals. Through this
characterisation, his lack of experience and his record of rhetoric failure become a virtue.
Demosthenes subsequent rhetoric draws much of its strength from this affinity based on thos, and
not deference based on epistm or techn.

Roger Brock (Leeds): Citizens and demesmen in Athenian rhetoric

Athenian civic identity was in important ways anchored at deme level, since it was demes which
regulated membership of the citizen body through the scrutiny of new citizens and the maintenance
of deme registers: when citizens need to establish their bona fides in court, whether because of an
inheritance dispute or a challenge to legitimacy, the arguments are typically based on activity at a
local level, and rely on local communities or their members for support. More fundamentally, deme
membership was part of the basic identity of all those who were party to litigation at Athens: in my
paper, I shall consider the uses made of demotic identity for persuasive purposes, both as a proof and
a source of solidarity for litigants and, and in particular, as a device through which individuals might
be subtly included or excluded.

Simone Mollea (Warwick): Humanitas: a double-edged sword in Apuleius the orator?

In his famous contribution Humanitas: Romans and Non-Romans, Paul Veyne argues that
humanitas is a key value in indicating inclusion as well as exclusion in Roman society. Although in
Apuleius oeuvre the term does not seem to refer to the idea of Romanitas, humanitas is admirably
employed as an oratorical weapon which can suggest identification and misidentification between the
accused and other categories of people. Interestingly, this happens not only in Apuleius true judicial
speech, the Apologia, but also in the oration which Lucius delivers in his own defence in the mock
trial of Metamorphoses 3. In the Apologia, in addition to the superior culture that they share,
humanitas is what binds together the proconsul Maximus, who also plays the part of the judge in the
trial, his predecessor Avitus, the learned inhabitants of Athens and Apuleius himself, and sets them
apart from Apuleius accusers and the uncivilized inhabitants of Sabratha. As for the Metamorphoses,
in the mock trial which takes place during the Risus festival, Apuleius skills as orator even make of
humanitas a double-edged sword. In what van der Paardt refers to as an Apologia parva, Lucius,
charged with voluntary slaughter for killing three men (who eventually turn out to be three
wineskins), seeks the Hypatans sympathy by resorting to the humanitas argument. In fact, given that
the evidence against him is apparently incontestable, Lucius seems to have no choice but to make
appeal to their common condition of members of the same, miserable, human society. Yet, Lucius
weapon backfires, for the widows of the alleged corpses use the humanitas argument in a more
sophisticated way, thereby reaffirming Lucius exclusion from the Hypatans community.

12
Stratis Kyriakidis (Thessaloniki): Anadiplsis and geminatio in Ausonius: Rhetorical theory
and poetic praxis
Anaclasis, antanaclasis, anadiplosis, palillogy and geminatio are rhetorical terms which in one way
or another are related to the phenomenon of echo and resonance when a word (or phrase) at the end
of a sentence or verse is repeated at the beginning of the next sentence or verse. This figure appears
from the archaic age onwards in all genres of poetry and prose and in rhetorical praxis. Naturally it
has become part of the theoretical discussion which has evaluated its usage. Of especial value is Ps-
Plutarch view in De Homero:
(the figure shows the movement of the speaker moving at the same time the listener, 2.363-
373). This interpretation shows how this figure places the orator/author/poet and the listener/reader
in the same emotional situation. To put it briefly, the repetition entails the covering of a longer period
of time; the time lapsed, however, is not continuous. Between the first and second utterances there is
usually a short time gap indicated by a punctuation mark. Ausonius, in his Technopaignion, seems to
explore the phenomenon of time disruption noticed in the figure of geminatio and he elaborates on it
in terms of echo: the second word-utterance functions as an echo of the first but owing to the void
of time between the two utterances and the discontinuity involved it becomes autonomous and it is
renewed in a different context ( can be again the rhetorical term). Ausonius seems to show that,
through this time-disunity and the echoing figure of geminatio, each rhetor/author has the potential
to shift his listener/reader to a new context and frame of mind by keeping him identified with his own
.

Tzu-I Liao (London): Persuading us: Demosthenes strategy of using the collective identity
in the Assembly
Doing politics meant for ancient Athenians a continuous struggle between the individual and the
community: both the speaker and every other participants in the Athenian Assembly are torn between
the freedom of individuals (isgoria) and communal consensus (homonoia), always endeavouring to
find a balancing point between the two ends (Ober, 1989; Cf. Hansen, 1991, Marstein-Marx, 2004).
For the elite individual who speaks before the community, it is necessary to engage in a drama in
which they were required to play the roles of common men and to voice their solidarity with
egalitarian ideals (ibid. 191). To have himself and the collective identity aligned, the speaker often
manipulates or (re-)defines this collective as fit for the persuasive situations, characterising it as the
people sharing certain knowledge or positions. This shared preference in socio-political contexts often
means they work best towards the same purposes in political situations (Ober, 2008, 114).
This paper intends to investigate one of the means the speaker defines and plays the role of the mass
in the Athenian Assembly: when and how the collective identity we is evoked in the Demosthenic
symbouleutic speeches. I will look at the density, location, and the degree of elaboration in the
mentioning of first person plural references, and discuss the circumstances when the speaker includes
himself in the communal identity. Special attention is paid to prosodic emphases (as expressed by
pronominal or lexical references), as well as the types of activities the collective identity is associated
with, which reveals how the speaker characterises the shared persona of the community (and its value
system) in order to exploit the sense of solidarity. This paper shows how in observing the linguistic
configuration of the collective identity one can further understand the interpersonal dynamics and
strategies of unity required in the Athenian politics.

13
Vasileios Liotsakis (Heidelberg): How to Satisfy Everyone: Balance between Unity and Division
in Arrians Anabasis of Alexander
If we wish to apprehend the way in which the art of rhetoric determined ancient Greek historiography,
Flavius Arrians Anabasis of Alexander could no doubt serve for us as a highly illuminating start
point. This is because Arrian, as most of the Greek authors of the Second Sophistic did, wished his
work to impress both his literate compatriots as well as the Roman readers, including the emperor
himself, and thereby to constitute a decisive factor for the development of his political career in the
Roman world. In this respect, the Anabasis had to meet the stylistic and ideological specifications of
its intellectual environment, in order to present Arrian as a gifted writer and avid connoisseur of the
Attic literature of the glorious Greek past. Furthermore, the subject of the Anabasis by itself targeted
further disparate, and very often colliding, categories of readers. By undertaking the narration of the
exploits of Alexander the Great, Arrian opened a dialogue with both the admirers of the Macedonian
conqueror and those who criticized his vanity, with the Stoics being the most prominent spokesmen
of the latter. Last, but not least, the twofold generic character of the work, drawing both from classical
historiography of Herodotus and Thucydides as well as the biographical and encomiastic tradition of
Xenophon and Isocrates, invited not only demanding readers to scrutinize data but also an audience
which expected nothing more than to satisfy its curiosity for anecdotes on Alexanders life.

This paper elaborates on three test-cases, where we discern Arrians effort to affiliate with or oppose
to one or sometimes all of the categories of readers mentioned above. The units in question are (a)
the geographical digression on the occasion of the crossing of the mountain Hindu Kush (3.28.5-7),
(b) the episode of Clitus death (4.8-9.6), and (c) the Homeric description of Alexanders injury
during the battle against the Mallians (6.9-11). The analysis of these passages stresses the intense
rhetorical nature of the Anabasis which lies in Arrians unremitting effort to identify himself with
many different categories of readers by using multiple authorial and ideological masks. The main
focus of the presentation will be the rhetorics (narrative and stylistic techniques) through which
Arrian aims to reach his goals.

14