What Counts as the demos? Some Notes on the Relationship between the Jury and "The People" in Classical Athens

Blanshard, Alastair J. L.

doi:10.2307/4135195

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…50 Cf. Pasquino (2010) and Lanni (2010), on judicial review, and, for example, Hansen (1974); (1991) 150-55, 300-04; Ober (1989) 22-23; Ostwald (1989); Todd (1993) 170, 298-99; Blanshard (2004); Pecorella Longo (2004); Cammack (2012) for the debate on the place of sovereignty in Athens.…”

Section: Iiii Dem 2093-94mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Procedure of Demosthenes’ Against Leptines: How to Repeal (And Replace) an Existing Law

Canevaro

2016

J. Hell. Stud.

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Abstract:The article offers a novel interpretation of the procedure followed in the case of Demosthenes’ speech Against Leptines, clarifying the workings of the institutions that secured the coherence of the laws of Athens. The procedure of this case of γραϕὴ νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδειον θεῖναι seems idiosyncratic: the case came to court over a year after the enactment of the law of Leptines, so Leptines was no longer liable to punishment and the action was only against the law itself; it also involved the proposal of a replacement law. Scholars have argued either that the θεσμοθέται devised a special procedure for these circumstances or that Demosthenes deceived the judges into believing they could enact the replacement law. I argue that there existed two regular uses of the γραϕὴ νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδειον θεῖναι: (1) to repeal laws that had been enacted irregularly and punish the proposer; (2) as part of nomothesia, to repeal existing laws that contradicted the new bill. This second use is the one that we find in Against Leptines: Demosthenes attempts to repeal Leptines’ law as part of the procedure to enact the replacement law. If the accusation is successful, he pledges to have the new bill enacted by the νομοθέται.

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Section: Iiii Dem 2093-94mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Procedure of Demosthenes’ Against Leptines: How to Repeal (And Replace) an Existing Law

Canevaro

2016

J. Hell. Stud.

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“…Knights 40 with Russo (1994) 79-80;Dover (1972) 93. 44 On the extent to which Athenian juries could be identified rhetorically with the demos, see Blanshard (2004). 45 An anonymous reader for CCJ suggests to me that 'audience address potentially changes the potential of representation: the audience can see itself as itself in the "you"'.…”

Section: Comic and Tragic Means Of Portraying The Demosmentioning

confidence: 99%

The demos in Greek tragedy

Carter

2010

Camb. class. j.

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This paper looks at a relatively neglected character in Greek tragedy: the people. I cannot claim to produce a complete survey of this issue; however, I shall identify some different ways in which a tragic poet could portray a city's population, and discuss some examples.This is an important and interesting topic for two reasons, which are linked throughout, for behind my argument is the contention that a consideration of the original staging of a tragedy can help us to understand its politics. In the first place, it is instructive to ask how a poet could meet the challenge of representing the population of a city on stage; in the second, this exercise is likely to shed light on the political function of Greek tragedy. More specifically, it will shed light on the relationship between tragedy and democracy - a vexed question in recent years - for no consideration of democracy in drama can neglect the role of democracy's central player.

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“…And it was surely no coincidence that 6,000 was also the standard number for a quorum in the assembly. 67 For the suggestion that it really was no more than a rhetorical trope, albeit a powerful one, see, for example, Blanshard (2004); Wilson (2004) 212, n. 4.…”

Section: Athenian Leviathanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…68 While Blanshard (2004) maintains that Athenian texts generally recognize a discernible 'gap between demos and jury', he also suggests that sometimes in forensic oratory the 'transformative power of rhetoric' narrowed this 'gap' to the point where the two agencies became entirely conflated. Even if one believes, as I do, that jurors always represented the Demos-State, it was obviously rhetorically convenient at times for litigants to address the jurors collectively as idiôtai, as individuals who lived normal 'civilian' lives outside the courtroom (for example, Dem.…”

Section: Athenian Leviathanmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Personality Of The Greek State

Anderson

2009

J. Hell. Stud.

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Abstract:Were the poleis of Classical Greece state-based or stateless communities? Do their political structures meet standard criteria for full statehood? Conventional wisdom maintains that they do not. According to a broad consensus, the Classical polis was neither state-based nor stateless as such, but something somewhere in between: a unique, category-defying formation that was somehow both ‘state’ and ‘society’ simultaneously, a kind of inseparable fusion of the two. The current paper offers an alternative perspective on this complex but fundamental issue. It questions prevailing views on theoretical grounds, suggesting that the consensus ‘fusionist’ position rests ultimately upon a misunderstanding of what Thomas Hobbes would call the ‘personality’ of polis political structures. Focusing on the case of Classical Athens, it then proceeds to present a new account of the Greek ‘state’, an account that aims to be both theoretically satisfying and heuristically useful. Even if all those who performed state functions were simultaneously constituents of polis ‘society’, the state was nevertheless perceived to function as an autonomous agency, possessing a corporate personality that was quite distinct from the individual personalities of the living, breathing citizens who happened to instantiate it at any particular time.

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What Counts as the demos? Some Notes on the Relationship between the Jury and "The People" in Classical Athens

Cited by 14 publications

References 27 publications

The Procedure of Demosthenes’ Against Leptines: How to Repeal (And Replace) an Existing Law

The Procedure of Demosthenes’ Against Leptines: How to Repeal (And Replace) an Existing Law

The demos in Greek tragedy

The Personality Of The Greek State

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