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Abstract
This paper is a comparative study of two different but interrelated discourses: fifth-century Athenian law and the classical Greek tragedy Oedipus the King, and its tertium comparationis is the rhetoric or language shared by these discourses. In order to discuss what is involved in this comparison this paper revolves around three axes of attention. First, it tries to show how most of the language of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, if contextualized, is invested with legal terms and can be interpreted in terms of Athenian law. Second, it argues that, aside from the philosophical and educational aspects of Oedipus the King, the Athenian audience must have experienced one of the most important aspects of their public life: participating in the Athenian popular courts (dikasteria: δικαστήρια) as juries. If it is so, then Sophocles the playwright can be viewed as a logographos, a speech-writer, and his play can be understood as a legal case study in an Athenian popular court. Third, the paper puts forward the proposal that the case of Oedipus the King and its legal rhetoric used as the plot unfolds can be a paradeigma (either a paradigm or an example), in addition to orations by Aeschines, Antiphon, Demosthenes and other Athenian rhetoricians, and can shed light on how the Athenian legal system worked when this tragedy was performed in fifth-century Athens.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Ms Efi Axarli for her administrative support, without of which this study would never have been completed.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 In the fifth-century Athenian Democracy only Athens-born males were considered Athenian citizens; women or foreign residents (xenoi – metoikoi or metics) were excluded from the public sphere of Athens. Yet, the latter (i.e. metics) could speak in Athenian public courts as witnesses, defendants and even prosecutors.
2 Aristotle, Politics, ed. Immanuelis Bekleri, vol. II (Berlin: Academica Regia Borussica/Apud Georgium Reimerum, 1831a).
3 A parodos (: πάροδος: entrance) in the structure of the ancient Greek theatre was the side-entrance to the stage, whereas in an ancient Greek tragedy it was the first song that was sung by the Chorus as they entered the orchestra in the beginning of a Greek tragedy.
4 The primary meaning of the epithet tyrannos was “ruler, sovereign” and described a political situation during which a gifted citizen or a foreigner [xenos – metikos or metic] became, because of his deeds, the absolute sovereign of a city [i.e. the first citizen of the city] without being the hereditary king to its throne [sixth century B.C.]. The second meaning of tyrannos as “tyrant” was developed only when that citizen abused his power in the fifth century B.C. For an excellent study on all the meanings of the word tyrannos; see J.A. Smith, Athens Under the Tyrants (Bristol: Classical Press, 1989).
5 Lene Rubinstein, Litigation and Cooperation: Supporting Speakers in the Courts of Classical Athens (Historia Einzelschriften) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000).
6 For a thorough discussion of informing [menesis (: μήνυσις)] see Douglas M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press, 1978), 181–3, whereas for different kinds of informers [menetai (: μηνυταί)]; see Robert Johnson Bonner and Gertrude Smith, The Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938).
7 The author of this paper has translated all the passages in order to make clear their social, political and judicial meaning. The numbers in parentheses are the line numbers of the original, that is, Sophocles Fabulae, which can also be viewed at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3 Atext%3A1999.01.0191% 3Acard%3D102. The number of the lines coincide in both references.
8 Zetoumenon (: ζητούμενον) can also be translated “sought”. When a public crime took place, the Ekklesia (: Ἐκκλησία – The popular assembly) authorized the Boule (: Βουλή – the Council) to take all necessary action to bring the offenders to justice. Then the Boule appointed a team of investigators [zetetai (: ζητηταί)] and offered rewards for information [menesis (: μήνυσις)].
9 It is significant that in his discourse Oedipus uses the word tyrannidos (: τυραννίδος) to define his office. It is worth noting that the noun tyrannidos cognates from the noun tyrannos (: τύραννος); for the two different levels of interpretation of the word tyrannos, see endnote 5 of the present study.
10 MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens, 109–132; Adriaan Lanni, ““Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 16, no. 2 (2004): 285.
11 The future participate houxelegxon (: oὑξελέγξων) can also be rendered as the “one who will convict the criminal”; see H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, eds., A Lexicon. Abridged from Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 234.
12 For more details see endnote 12 of this study.
13 Sviatoslav Dmitriev, “The Protection of Slaves in the Athenian Law Against Hubris,” Phoenix 70, nos 1/2 (2016): 64–76.
14 Lanni, ““Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” 295.
15 Here antilexai (: ἀντιλέξαι) is the future infinitive of the verb antilegein (: ἀντιλέγειν). Although the primary sense of antilegein is “speak against or gainsay”, in the fifth-century Athenian public court it also meant the right to reply at equal lengths. This right was regulated by the water-clock, and it was made sure that both prosecution and defence had exactly the same amount of time.
16 Lanni, ““Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” 295–7.
17 Stasimon (: στάσιμον) in ancient Greek tragedy was a stationary song that consisted of strophes and antistrophes and was performed by the Chorus in the orchestra (: ὀρχήστρα); the orchestra was a place where the Chorus sang the strophes and antistrophes while dancing (i.e. by moving slightly their body); see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. Immanuelis Bekleri, vol. II (Berlin: Academica Regia Borussica/Apud Georgium Reimerum, 1831b). What we should take into consideration that, after having made their entrance singing (parodos), the Chorus did not usually leave the orchestra until the end of the play.
18 Lanni, “”Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” 294–9.
19 As earlier, Oedipus uses the word tyrannidos (: τυραννίδος) in his discourse to define his office; see endnote 5 of this study.
20 Lanni, “”Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice.”
21 We can find this legal denotation in Isaeus 9.3. (On the State of Astyphilus) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0142%3Aspeech%3D9%3Asection%3D3 (in English). Isaeus was one of the minor Attic orators at the end of the fifth century B.C.
22 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1734a 13–15, ed. Immanuelis Bekleri, vol. II (Berlin: Academica Regia Borussica/Apud Georgium Reimerum, 1831c); the author’s translation.
23 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1378b 23–25; the author’s translation.
24 For a discussion of all legal denotations of hubris; see MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens, 129–32.
25 For a discussion about the ambivalence of the word tyrannos in classical Greek see endnote 5 of the present study.
26 Lanni, ““Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” 310–12.
27 For menesis (: μήνυσις) and zetetes (: ζητητής) see Andokides I.14 (Περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων) http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgiin/perseus/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekSept18&getid=0&query=Andoc.+1 (in Greek), whereas for erotesis (: ἐρώτησις); see Lysias XII. 25 (Κατὰ Ἐρατοσθένους) http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-in/perseus/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekSept18&getid=0&query=Lys.+12 (in Greek). Andokides and Lysias were both advocates and well-known orators in late fifth-century Athens.
28 David M. Pritchard, “The Social Structure of Democratic Athens,” in Morte e Vida na Grécia Antiga: Olhares interdisciplinares, eds. M.A. de Oiveria Silva and C.D. de Souza (Editora da UFPI, 2020), 16–17.
29 Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 396.
30 Sviatoslav Dmitriev, “The Protection of Slaves in the Athenian Law Against Hubris,” 73.
31 Lanni, ““Verdict Most Just”: The Modes of Classical Athenian Justice,” 304–14.
32 Ibid., 279.
33 Ibid., 279.
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Ekaterini Nikolarea
Ekaterini Nikolarea got her BA in English Studies from Greece and her MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from Canada. She was awarded major Canadian Fellowships, Prizes and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship for her contribution to Translation Studies. Ekaterini has published articles on theatre translation (the most known being “Performability versus Readability: A Historical Overview of a Theoretical Polarization in Theatre Translation.” Translation Journal 6.4 (October 2002), reviewed books and articles and authored two Studies Programs for Applied Linguistics. She taught World Literature, English and Greek at Canadian and US Universities, while being in North America. Since she came back to Greece, Ekaterini has been appointed an ESP (: English for Specific Purposes) and EAP (: English for Academic Purposes) at the University of the Aegean (Lesvos, Greece), and has been teaching ESP and EAP in the Departments of: Geography, Social Anthropology and History, Cultural Technology and Communication, Sociology and Marine Sciences of the respective university. In her spare time, she does research both on teaching foreign languages (especially, English) at a university level and on theatre translation, publishes articles, reviews articles for international journals, and works as a freelance bi-directional translator and interpreter, when her services are required.