Théomnestos au tribunal ou l’injure comme arme du citoyen
An historical recontextualisation seems to be necessary to understand what is at stake in Theomnestos 384-383 trial. The plaintiff, Lysias’client, blames Theomnestos for having claimed, in a previous trial, that he had killed his own father. On that occasion, Theomnestos would have made allusion to...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Antiques
2014-02-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Mondes Anciens |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/mondesanciens/1241 |
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| Summary: | An historical recontextualisation seems to be necessary to understand what is at stake in Theomnestos 384-383 trial. The plaintiff, Lysias’client, blames Theomnestos for having claimed, in a previous trial, that he had killed his own father. On that occasion, Theomnestos would have made allusion to an offensive word prohibited by the law (aporrhèta). In the early IVth Century Athens, the offence is a serious one: delivering such an abuse is showing uncivism and reintroducing disturbance in a city which aims to forget the evils of the Peloponnesian War in order to rebuild itself on the basis of an idealized past. Each one of them tries to appear in court as a model citizen. Both the plaintiff and the defendant take a stand about the aporrhèta and practise a kind of dokimasie: the members of the jury interrogate them about their behaviour, their relation to language and to the History of the city. |
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| ISSN: | 2107-0199 |