The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory

by: O'Connell, P.A.

Price: 59,30 EURO

(in stock)

In ancient Athenian courts of law, litigants presented their cases before juries of several hundred citizens. Their speeches effectively constituted performances that used the speakers? appearances, gestures, tones of voice, and emotional appeals as much as their words to persuade the jury. Today, all that remains of Attic forensic speeches from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE are written texts, but, as Peter A. O?Connell convincingly demonstrates in this innovative book, a careful study of the speeches? rhetoric of seeing can bring their performative aspect to life.

Offering new interpretations of a wide range of Athenian forensic speeches, including detailed discussions of Demosthenes? On the False Embassy, Aeschines? Against Ktesiphon, and Lysias? Against Andocides, O?Connell shows how litigants turned the jurors? scrutiny to their advantage by manipulating their sense of sight. He analyzes how the litigants? words work together with their movements and physical appearance, how they exploit the Athenian preference for visual evidence through the language of seeing and showing, and how they plant images in their jurors? minds. These findings, which draw on ancient rhetorical theories about performance, seeing, and knowledge as well as modern legal discourse analysis, deepen our understanding of Athenian notions of visuality. They also uncover parallels among forensic, medical, sophistic, and historiographic discourses that reflect a shared concern with how listeners come to know what they have not seen.

Abbreviations of Ancient Authors
Abbreviations of Modern Editions
Note on Translations and the Spelling of Greek Names
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Vision and Performance in the Courts of Classical Athens
Part One: Physical Sight
Chapter 1. Visual Rhetoric and Visual Evidence
Chapter 2. The Meanings of Movement
Part Two: The Language of Demonstration and Visibility
Chapter 3. Showing and Seeing: The Procedural Terminology of Witnessing
Chapter 4. Saying as Showing, Hearing as Seeing
Part Three: Imaginary Sight
Chapter 5. Visualizing Civic Suffering
Chapter 6. Shared Spectatorship: Bridging the Gap Between Past and Present and Here and There
Conclusion
Appendix of Speeches
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Ancient Texts
General Index

The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory

by: O'Connell, P.A.

• ISBN-13: 9781477311684 / 978-1-4773-1168-4
• ISBN-03: 1477311688 / 1-4773-1168-8
• University of Texas Press, Austin, 2019

Price: 59,30 EURO

(in stock)