A commentary on the speech of Demosthenes 'Against Androtion' (Dem.22)
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:
Giannadaki, I.
A commentary on the speech of Demosthenes 'Against Androtion' (Dem.22). 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:
commentary speech demosthenes against dem oration extant speech find attic orator involve legal action introduction illegal decree public action relate illegal legislation significant_implication athenian legal_system athenian democracy general speech_write demosthenes probably first public_speech prominent political figure speech significant source number legal historical issue include issue debate modern_scholar male prostitution law regulate sexual conduct citizen political_leader classical_athens despite richness peculiarity pre rhetorical_strategy par speech relatively neglected modern commentator last commentary speech date person demosthenes cambridge present_study detail literary commentary