The Embassy Trial

Chapter 5 discusses the ‘Embassy trial’ of 343 BC, where we have extant speech texts by Demosthenes ( On the False Embassy ) and Aeschines ( On the Embassy ), prosecutor and defendant respectively. It shows how each orator crafts his historical material to respond at the level of technique and/or content to his opponent’s figurations of the past at the previous stage of the encounter. Chapter 5.1 offers an introduction and overview which assesses the character of the speech texts we possess and exposes problems with the conventional view of the duration of major Athenian political trials. Chapter 5.2 explores how Demosthenes’ On the False Embassy capitalizes on a climate unfavourable to the Peace made with Philip of Macedon in 346 to make the right, responsible use of the past a critical stake in the dispute, demolishing a key illustration involving Solon that Aeschines had fashioned in the trial of Timarchus and setting up a long-range comparison between Aeschines and the 360s envoy Timagoras. Chapter 5.3 shows how Demosthenes’ decision to dwell on the terms of the Timarchus trial and to adopt an uncritically broad—and predictably inclusive—approach to the past (and one geared partly towards reinventing himself as an opponent of the Peace) left him vulnerable to a deft, multiform defence strategy from Aeschines which involved careful projection of his own discernment in the use of history along with the creation of lively and overtly continuum-based scenarios of a type probably more immediately associable with Demosthenes. Chapter 5.4 offers a conclusion.

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