Isocrates' Civic Invective: Acharnians and On the Peace

On the Peace attacks traditional Athenian patriotic myths and ceremonies with a violence unexampled elsewhere in Isocrates' work. To explicate and justify his unusual approach, the orator assimilates his role to that of the comic poet as defined in Aristophanes' Acharnians. On the Peace suggests that the only effective remedy for Athenian vice would be to permit an honest rhetor the same freedom in invective as the comic poet.

[1]  K. Treu.  REDE ALS KOMMUNIKATION: DER ATTISCHE REDNER UND SEIN PUBLIKUM , 1991 .

[2]  Helene P. Foley.  Tragedy and politics in aristophanes' Acharnians , 1988, The Journal of Hellenic Studies.

[3]  N. Loraux.  L'invention d'Athènes : histoire de l'oraison funèbre dans la "cité classique" , 1981 .

[4]  S. Usher.  Lysias and his Clients , 1976 .

[5]  P. J. Rhodes,et al.  The Athenian boule , 1973 .

[6]  Erich Segal.  Oxford Readings In Aristophanes , 1996 .

[7]  A. Michelini.  Political Themes in Euripides' Suppliants , 1994 .

[8]  Sylvia Usener.  Isokrates, Platon und ihr Publikum : Hörer und Leser von Literatur im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. , 1994 .

[9]  Froma I. Zeitlin,et al.  Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context , 1992 .

[10]  T. Hubbard.  The Mask of Comedy , 1991 .

[11]  Josiah Ober.  Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People , 1989 .

[12]  M. Heath.  Political comedy in Aristophanes , 1987 .

[13]  P. Harding.  The Purpose of Isokrates' "Archidamos" and "On the Peace" , 1973 .

[14]  R. Meiggs.  The Athenian Empire , 1972 .

[15]  W. Robert Connor,et al.  The new politicians of fifth-century Athens , 1971 .

[16]  K. Bringmann.  Studien zu den politischen Ideen des Isokrates , 1965 .

[17]  A. W. Pickard-Cambridge,et al.  The dramatic festivals of Athens , 1953 .

[18]  A. Raubitschek.  Two Notes on Isocrates , 1941 .

[19]  O. W. Reinmuth,et al.  Das Beispiel der Geschichte im politischen Denken des Isokrates , 1939 .

[20]  K. Jost.  Das Beispiel und Vorbild der Vorfahren : bei den attischen Rednern und Geschichtschreibern bis Demosthenes , 1935 .