Antiphon

Antĭphōn, ōntis, m., = Ἀντιφῶν.

• A renowned sophist of Rhamnus, a contemporary of Socrates, Cic. Brut. 12, 47; Quint. 3, 1, 11; 12, 10, 22.—
• II The name of an interpreter of dreams, Cic. Div. 1, 20; 1, 51.

Antĭphon

(Ἀντιφῶν). The earliest of the ten great Attic orators, born B.C. 480 in Attica, son of the sophist Sophilus, to whom he owed his training. He was the founder of political eloquence as an art, which he taught with great applause in his own school of rhetoric; and he was the first who wrote out speeches for others to deliver in court, though he afterwards published them under his own name. He also played an active part in the politics of his time as a leading member of the oligarchical party, and the real author of the death-blow which was dealt to democracy in B.C. 411 by the establishment of the Council of Four Hundred. He then went as ambassador to Sparta, to purchase peace at any price in the interest of the oligarchy. On the fall of the Four Hundred he was accused of high treason, and, in spite of a masterly defence —the first speech he had ever made in public— was condemned to death B.C. 411. Of the sixty orations attributed to him, only fifteen are preserved—all on trials for murder; but only three of them are about real cases. The rest (named tetralogies because every four are the first and second speeches of both plaintiff and defendant on the same subject) are mere exercises. Antiphon's speeches exhibit the art of oratory in its rudimentary stage as regards both substance and form. The best edition is that of Blass (Leipzig, 1881).

Antiphon

(ca. 480-411) Antiphon was a professional speechwriter who was active at Athens in the last quarter of the fifth century B.C. Six of his forensic speeches and numerous fragments of others survive. Three of the surviving speeches were probably delivered in actual homicide cases. The other three are really sets of speeches (two each for defense and prosecution, hence called Tetralogies) which appear to represent imaginary homicide trials and may never have been delivered. The ascription of the Tetralogiesto Antiphon has been doubted by some modern scholars, as has his ancient identification with Antiphon the Sophist, fragments of whose philosophical writings are also preserved. Others are convinced of both the authenticity of the Tetralogiesand the unity of sophist and orator. As a speechwriter (logographos), Antiphon was for the most part employed in writing speeches for others or offering legal advice while never appearing in court himself. After a life out of public view, however, he rose to sudden political prominence in 411. His active support of the oligarchic coup led to his trial and conviction for treason. The main contemporary source for these events is Thucydides, who notes with admiration the brilliant speech Antiphon made in his own defense. A short fragment of this speech also survives.

Family

A member of a prominent Athenian family, Antiphon was the son of the aristocrat Sophilus from the Athenian deme of Rhamnus. The aristocratic or oligarchic leanings of his family are well established. In a fragment of a speech Antiphon himself mentions that his grandfather was a strong supporter of the Peisistratids.

Biography

The date of Antiphon's birth is unknown. Ancient information that he was a little younger than the sophist Gorgias, if true, would suggest that he was born around 480 B.C. Sixty speeches were attributed to him in antiquity. Along with the six extant speeches, fragments of some twenty others are preserved. While some scholars regard the Tetralogiesas an earlier rhetorical exercise, no speech can be shown to date from before 430, and the three forensic speeches probably were composed in the period from 420 to 411 B.C., when Antiphon was put to death.

The subjects of fragmentary speeches are quite varied, but the extant works all deal with homicide cases, suggesting that Antiphon specialized in this area of law. The first speech is Prosecution of the Stepmother for Poisoning, in which the speaker asserts that his stepmother conspired with his father's mistress in the poisoning of his father. The three Tetralogiescome next in the traditonal manuscript order of his works. Each of these takes the form of two speeches for the defense and two for the prosecution in three different kinds of homicide case. The first represents a case of murder, the second an accidental homicide, and the third a killing in self-defence. Antiphon's most admired speech, On the Murder of Herodes, is counted fifth in his corpus. In this speech Euxitheus, a young man from the Aegean island of Lesbos, defends himself on a charge of murdering a fellow passenger, Herodes, on a sea-trip to Thrace. In Antiphon's sixth speech, On the Choreutes, the sponsor of a tragic chorus defends himself against charges that he was responsible for the accidental poisoning of a boy in the chorus.

Toward the end of his life Antiphon suddenly took a leading role in politics as a mastermind and active participant in the oligarchic revolution of the Four Hundred in 411. As a result, he was brought to trial on charges of treason that same year. After making a passionate speech in his own defense, he was nevertheless convicted and executed. Thucydides (8.68) says that this was the very best speech of its kind ever delivered. Unfortunately, only a brief fragment of the defense, On the Revolution, survives.

Except for the controversy about his identity and about the authenticity of the Tetralogies, scholarship on Antiphon concentrates mostly on his prose style and methods of argumentation as a chief representative both of early Attic prose and of the beginnings of forensic rhetoric.

Primary Sources Thuc. 8.68 and 90 Pseudo-Plutarch Lives of the Ten Orators832c-4b Secondary Sources Avery, H.C. “One Antiphon or two?” Hermes110 (1982) 145-158 [argues that Antiphon the sophist and the orator were the same] Dover, K.J. “The Chronology of Antiphon's Speeches” CQ44 (1950) 44-60 [discusses dating of the forensic speeches] Due, B. Antiphon, a Study in Argumentation (Copenhagen 1980) Edwards, M. and S. Usher. Greek Orators-I: Antiphon & Lysias (Chicago 1985) [translation and commentary on Antiphon 5 with extensive bibliography] Gagarin, M. The Murder of Herodes. a study of Antiphon 5. Stud. zur klass. philol. n. 45 (Frankfurt 1989) Heitsch, E. Antiphon aus Rhamnus.(Wiesbaden 1984) Pendrick, S. “Once again Antiphon the Sophist and Antiphon of Rhamnus” Hermes115 (1987) 47-60 [argues against identification of orator with sophist] Schindel, U. Der Mordfall Herodes; zur 5. Rede Antiphons (Gottingen 1979) Solmsen, F. Antiphonstudien (Berlin 1931) [fundamental study of prose style and methods of argumentation] Sprague, R.K., ed., The Older Sophists (Univ. of South Carolina 1990) [contains translations of all sources] Zuntz, G. MH 6 (1949) 100-103 [on the dating and authenticity of the Tetralogies ] John Lawless