Speaking Bodies: Physiognomic Consciousness and Oratorical Strategy in 4th- Century Athens.

Abstract

Litigants in 4th-century Athens used opponents’ physical appearance (in court and reported on previous occasions) to ‘prove’ their inferior moral character to jurors. This dissertation examines the implications of this strategy for Athenian democratic ideology and popular morality. Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ uses of the physiognomic strategy contain the assumption that any Athenian can accurately evaluate the character of a litigant or politician from his appearance in court or in the public space of the Agora. This assumption ideologically validates democratic decision-making in Athens’ mass juries and Assembly. The first of two case studies describes the markers which Aeschines uses to demonstrate his rival Demosthenes’ kinaidia (sexual and gender deviance). In their court battles, Aeschines varies the visual indicators of kinaidia to draw on different aspects of the stereotype. In Against Timarchos, Aeschines uses supporting speaker Demosthenes’ luxurious clothing to evoke the unchecked consumption and indulgence in (shameful) pleasures which are characteristic of the kinaidos. This portrait is thematically consistent with that of Timarchos and his other supporters, who all catastrophically lack self-control. In On the Embassy, Aeschines employs Demosthenes’ body to indicate his failed masculinity. Demosthenes challenged Aeschines’ preeminent role in civic affairs because of his lesser wealth and birth. Aeschines responds by locating military and civic worth in the body, and excluding Demosthenes from both. The second case study describes the meanings and uses of ephebic beauty in the trial of Timarchos. Prosecution and defense competed to portray themselves as champions of youthful beauty and proper pederastic eros. However, both exploited the suspicion of ‘gold-digging’ which ephebic beauty raised. The speech is intended to win over a popular audience of jurors, but decorous pederasty is usually identified as a component of aristocratic discourse. However, this and other speeches in which litigants portray themselves as good pederasts and their opponents as bad lovers or beloveds suggest that the common Athenian judged a man’s morality by his good conduct in pederastic relationships. Both case studies explore the visible indicators of normative and queer masculinities on the body, and will be of interest to scholars of the history of homosexuality.