Impersonalización, modalidad deóntica y discurso judicial: un estudio del modal δεῖ en Lisias

Impersonalization is a communicative peculiarity of courtroom discourse and the modal verb δεῖ is one of the linguistic devices that encode it in Greek. Δεῖ expresses deontic modality, which includes directive value for the expression of orders and other directive speech acts. This paper offers a study of δεῖ in Lysias’ forensic speeches.

A Triangle in the Law-court: Speakers-Opponents-Audiences and the Use of the Imperative

This paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of the polis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.

Antiphon. Fragments and Testimonia

Antiphon (c. 480–411 BCE) was famous in antiquity for his forensic speeches as well as more theoretical works, such as The Truth and On concord. He is also credited with the invention of logography as a profession. The majority of his heritage is now lost. The present publication contains a collection of scant doxographic evidence about Antiphon’s life and writings. The evidences are based on A. Lask and G. Most’ Early Greek Philosophy (2016).

Historical Readings of Oratory

Chapter 3 examines how contemporary historians use the Attic orators. It first considers political histories of Philip II of Macedon and their dependence upon speeches from the Demosthenic corpus, noting how the emergence of vernacular translations of Demosthenes and Aeschines in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France and England were harbingers of the first histories of Philip. The chapter then explores problems that affect historians, in particular those relating to authorship, authenticity, chronology, and bias, before describing how the orators are useful for different types of historians, such as economic, social, religious, and legal historians. Finally, it analyses problems that arise from the constraints of the corpus, focusing on the forensic speeches. More specifically, it considers the consequences of using speeches that represent a limited class of litigants and that aim at persuasion rather than truth; epigraphic evidence may at times be a remedy for the first problem, and the application of the method of ‘forensic attestation’ for the second.

Disputes

No further definitions of kin were formalized after Solon’s legislation, but in a highly law-conscious society there is ample evidence of disputes between kin. This chapter aims to reconstruct the legal process of such disputes and their effects on the litigants and their kin, drawing on several case studies attested by forensic speeches and stressing the importance of long-term analysis of process as legally dubious compromises led to later lawsuits.

Law’s Nature: Philosophy as a Legal Argument in Cicero’s Writings

The paper deals with the use of philosophical arguments in Cicero's legal writings, in particular his forensic speeches. It tries to demonstrate that Cicero developed a unique, holistic theory of law, which is not based on a juxtaposition of natural law and positive law, but tries to deduce the nature of law from the nature of men. Even though this theory probably did not influence the writings of the later classical jurists in a direct way, Roman law was open enough for philosophical arguments to allow Cicero to make use of this theory within the legal discourse. Using examples from Cicero's forensic speeches, the paper demonstrates how Cicero refers to his philosophical concept in order to develop specifically legal arguments.