‘The behaviour of my adversary shows, better than any theory could, that necessity constrains men to speak and act contrary to their better nature.
Up to the present he has never spoken shamelessly or acted desperately; but now his misfortunes have constrained him to use language which, knowing him, I should never have expected him to utter.’
Antiphon’s method of constructing his speeches is simple: a conventional preface, of the kind which every rhetorician kept in stock,[63] is followed by an introduction describing and criticizing the circumstances under which the action has been brought.[64] The facts, or a selection of facts of the case, are then narrated,[65] and are followed by arguments and proofs.[66] The evidence of witnesses may be interspersed through the narrative, taken point by point; or, if the narrative is short and simple, all the testimony may be reserved for the end. A peroration,[67] reviewing the situation and containing a final appeal to the court, normally ends the speech.
The speeches in the Tetralogies, which are only blank forms composed for practice or as specimens for study, contain only preface, argument, and peroration; there being no actual facts to deal with, there is no introduction or narrative.
It is a peculiar weakness of the extant speeches that they rely so much more on arguments from general probability (εἰκότα) than on real pleading on the basis of evidence.[68]
Thus the defendant in the Herodes mentions quite casually that he never left the ship on the night when the murder was committed on shore, but he produces no evidence for the alibi and treats it as of quite secondary importance.[69] He insists more on the point that the slave who gave evidence against him was probably induced to bear false witness by the prosecutors. Another piece of evidence against him is the assertion that he wrote a letter to Lycinus, stating that he had committed the murder. ‘Why,’ he asks, ‘should I have written a letter, when my messenger would know all the facts?’
It may be, in this instance, that the defendant’s case was a very weak one, and that he was obliged to rely on generalities: but the First Tetralogy affords an interesting parallel. There the defendant, in his second speech, the last speech of the trial, affirms, what he has apparently forgotten to mention before, that he never left his house on the night of the murder.
The most serious artistic defect in the extant speeches is the lack of that realism which the Greeks called ἦθος, characterization. The language of the defendants in the Herodes and the Choreutes is very similar, though the former is a young Lesbian and the latter a middle-aged Athenian. Moreover, the young Lesbian apologizes for his inexperience and lack of capacity for speaking, and does so in polished periods elaborated with all the devices of rhetorical art—antithesis of words and ideas, careful balance of the length of clauses, and judicious employment of assonance.
A perusal of Antiphon’s introduction to the speech de Caede Herodis will help, better than any detailed criticism, to an understanding of his methods of composition. We must note the disproportionate length of this introduction, to which the pleader evidently attaches more importance than to the disproof of the charge itself.[70] A study of it leads us to believe that the guilt or innocence of the party would have little to do with the verdict if he had once succeeded in impressing the jury favourably. He apologizes in artistic periods for his incapacity in public speaking, and enlarges on the commonplace that truth has often been stifled through lacking the power of expression.
He makes no appeal for impartiality, since he can trust the jury—another brazen commonplace (§§ 1-7).