04 - Aeschines Against Ctesiphon or how to lose an Athenian court case

Demosthenes' speech On the Crown is by far the most famous and widely studied Athenian court speech. But its counterpart, Aeschines' prosecution speech Against Ctesiphon has received much less attention. A detailed English commentary was last written by Richardson in 1889. Modern volumes often discuss Against Ctesiphon only as a necessary but brief introductory chapter to the study of Demosthenes' On the Crown (e.g. Ochs 2016). While certain specifics gained some attention in recent studies, like Aeschines’ use of historical examples (Hobden 2007, Westwood 2020), character framing (Cook 2012) and relevance (Gagarin 2012), considerations of Aeschines’ whole speech remain dismissive: Carey 2000, 165 summarizes: “Modern readers often find this speech disappointing. Certainly, it is disorganized in places, particularly toward the close, and though intermittently powerful, it is uneven.” Usher 1999, 293 sates “for all its moments of brilliance, inchoateness and disorder are recurrent faults of his speech” and Richardson 1889, 30 comments, that it is hard “to find any thread of connection” in the last third of the speech. 

Consequently, did Aeschines lose this court case because of rhetorical failure? This assumption seems not convincing. By 330 BC Aeschines had been a seasoned Athenian statesman and moreover, he had previously proven himself a skilled orator in the public courts and especially against Demosthenes, winning two political court cases against the odds. So, what happened to Aeschines’ oratorical skills in the Crown Case compared to his first two successful speeches? Did he change his forensic oratory or choose the wrong strategy? 

In this paper, I will use frame analysis (Cook 2012, Schmid 2020) as a tool to get new insights into Aeschines Against Ctesiphon by examining storytelling, narrative structures, and cognitive effects. I will show, first, that there is indeed a coherent narrative in Against Ctesiphon, but the story Aeschines tells is not aimed at the court case but refers to Athens and its current situation. Second, I will discuss Against Ctesiphon in comparison to Aeschines’ other two surviving court speeches and show, on the one hand, how the orator uses similar narrative structures and framing techniques in all three surviving speeches, while on the other hand, it was a very different Aeschines that spoke to the Athenians in 330 BC than previously in 346 and 343. In the Crown Case Aeschines not only uses a different tone to address his audience and changes his way of using stylistic elements, but he constructs a new persona for himself, no more is he a humble citizen, rather he acts as a critic of the demos. This is key to evaluating, why this speech did not engage well with his audience and could not even convince one-fifth of the jurors. Finally, I will assess Aeschines communication strategy in comparison to Demosthenes’ On the Crown and with this discuss whether Aeschines actually aimed at winning this case, or whether Against Ctesiphon should rather be read as a final statement by a resigning statesman. 

Bibliography: 

Carey, C. (2000) Aeschines, Austin (Tex.): University of Texas Pr.

Cook, B. L. (2012) Swift-Boating in Antiquity. Rhetorical Framing of the Good Citizen in Fourth-Century Athens. Rhetorica, 30(3), 219-251.

Gagarin, M. (2012) Law, Politics, and the Question of Relevance in the Case on the Crown. Classical Antiquity, 31(2), 293-314.

Hobden, F. (2007) Imagining Past and Present: A Rhetorical Strategy in Aeschines 3, «Against Ctesiphon». Classical Quarterly, N. S. 57(2), 490-501.

Ochs, D. J. (2016) Aeschines' Speech Against Ctesiphon. An Abstract, in Enos, R. L., Walker, J., Katula, R. A., Mirhady, D., Peter Agnew, L. & Murphy, J. J. (eds), Demosthenes' "On the Crown". Rhetorical Perspectives. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Pr.

Richardson, R. B. (1889) Aeschines Against Ctesiphon (On the Crown). Boston/London: Ginn & Company.

Schmid, R. (2022) Framing in Athenian Public Discourse. A Case Study of Aeschines II, in Günther, S. & Günther E., Frames and Framing in Antiquity I, Changchun: Supplements to the Journal of Ancient Civilizations, Vol. 9.

Usher, S. (1999) Greek Oratory. Tradition and Originality. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

Westwood, G. (2020) The Rhetoric of the Past in Demosthenes and Aeschines. Oratory, History, and Politics in Classical Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Presenters

Riccarda Schmid, University of Zurich

  SCS-45