Giannadaki, I; (2014) A Commentary on the Speech of Demosthenes 'Against Androtion' (Dem.22). Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

Abstract

The oration Against Androtion (Dem.22) is one of the five extant speeches found in the Attic orators which involve graphe paranomon (a legal action against the introduction of illegal decrees), one of the two public actions (the other being graphe nomon me epitedeion theinai) related to illegal and inexpedient legislation, with significant implications for the Athenian legal system and the Athenian democracy in general. The speech was written by Demosthenes, probably the first of his public speeches, for Diodoros against a prominent political figure and Atthidographer, Androtion. The speech is a significant source for a number of legal and historical issues including the issue, hotly debated by modern scholars, of male prostitution and the laws regulating the sexual conduct of the citizens and political leaders in classical Athens. Despite its richness and its peculiarity (e.g. most of it pre-empts the rhetorical strategy of the altera pars), the speech is relatively neglected by modern commentators. The last commentary on the speech is dated to the 19th century (Wayte W. (1882) Demosthenes Against Androtion and Against Timocrates, Cambridge). The present study is a detailed, lemmatic, literary commentary: the main focus is on the rhetorical strategy employed and developed throughout the speech and the evaluation of the force of its rhetoric. Along with rhetorical issues, linguistic features and stylistic devices deployed receive important consideration, while textual issues are discussed only when vital for the interpretation and better understanding of the text. Legal issues are discussed, not for their own sake but to the extent that it is necessary for our better understanding of our speech and more importantly for our appreciation of its rhetoric. When historical evidence and prosopographical information are deployed in the speech this is also discussed in the commentary for our better appreciation of the orator’s argumentation. The study consists of a detailed introduction which discusses the legal action employed against Androtion, prosopographical evidence for the dramatis personae, the date and the political context of the trial, the rhetorical strategy of Diodoros and the commentary

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