Introduction

Antisthenes’ sources

We have two coherent speeches from an ancient Greek handbook of speeches that are attributed to Antisthenes, one spoken by Ajax and one by Odysseus. Myth relates that after the death of Achilles these two men both claimed the armour of the greatest Greek hero. The Atreides, the kings Agamemnon and Menelaus, not without manipulation, left the judgement about the armour to a jury consisting of Greek warriors who had fought at Troy. The mythological scene was well known before Antisthenes’ day because of its treatment by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Pindar. Every reader of Antisthenes’ speeches knew from the start that Ajax was not awarded the armour, which was given to Odysseus instead, and moreover that Ajax could not handle his defeat and killed himself.

In his tragedy, Sophocles gives his Ajax a long speech deploring the method of jury selection and lamenting his loss. Pindar also dedicates a passage to this subject; he states that Ajax was ‘without gift of speech, but bold at heart’ (because in Homer Ajax was presented as a fighting machine). The secret votes of the Greeks favoured Odysseus, unfairly according to Pindar; the result, he says, ‘Ajax's sword once used in favour of the Greeks and above the corpse of the newly slain Achilles made also a suicidal end to Ajax's life’. Regarding Ajax's loss as unfair, Pindar takes sides against Odysseus, whose reputation was rather controversial as was previously discussed, accusing him of ‘cunning falsehood’.

There must have been something attractive in the matter of the contest between Ajax and Odysseus. Antisthenes also apparently felt that possibilities for exhibiting his eloquence were ready at hand, perhaps especially because Ajax was known to be ‘without the gift of speech’, as Pindar said. Hence it might be an incentive to write a striking speech in favour of a person who was known to be but a moderate speaker, or no speaker at all: in the underworld scene in Homer where Odysseus meets Ajax, he refuses to say anything to Odysseus. As already discussed, Antisthenes had written much to save the reputation of Odysseus, and it must have been attractive to do this again, or to use the material for the first time in a speech, but instead Antisthenes tries to be rather neutral here (at first glance in any case), because of the demands of the forensic context.