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A Critical Note on Demosthenes' First Philippic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S.J. Herbert Musurillo
S.J. Herbert Musurillo
Affiliation:
Bellamine college, Plattsburg, N.R, U. S. A
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Extract

Despite the long controversy on the date and composition of the First Philippic, we are no nearer, it would seem, to a satisfactory solution. F. Focke, apparently following a suggestion in Gercke-Norden, developed what is perhaps the most reasonable presentation of the view that the speech was delivered in the spring of 350 B.C.; but what vitiates his argument in the long run is Focke's constant presumption that all the various datable references must belong to one and the same speech or stratum of composition. For although the view of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that the First Philippic really comprises two distinct speeches, has not in its extreme form won acceptance with modern scholars, other more moderate solutions are not impossible; and it would seem that Blass's revision theory (for which Werner Jaeger has expressed sympathy) suggests a more subtle way of handling the various inconsistencies between the first (§§ 1–29) and the second (30–50) parts of the speech.

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Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2 , January 1957 , pp. 86 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

1 For a bibliography, see especially Sandys, J. E., The First Philippic and the Olynthiacs of Demosthenes (London: Macmillan, 1910, repr. 1955)Google Scholar, lxxvif., 101 f.; Focke, F., ‘Demosthenesstudien’, in Genethliakon Schmid (Tūb. Beitr. Heft 5, 1929), 21 ff.Google Scholar; Jaeger, W., Demosthenes: The Origin and Growth of His Policy (Sather Classical Lectures, Berkeley: University of California, 1938), 116ff.Google Scholar, and Paideia, : the Ideals of Greek Culture (tr. Gilbert Highet, New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), hi. 352 ff.Google Scholar; Semerano, G., ‘Bibliografia’, in Introduzione alia Filologia classica (Milan: Marzorati, 1951), 512–14.Google Scholar

1 Op. cit.

3 In the section by Wendland, Paul and Pohlenz, Max, Einleitung, i (1927)Google Scholar, fasc. 3, 87, where the date 350/49 is given for the First Philippic.

4 Epistula r ad Ammaeum, § 4 speaks of numbers 1–29 of our speech as the Fourth Philippic and dates it to Ol. 107. 1 (= 352/1 B.C.); § 10 mentions numbers 30–51 of our speech as a Sixth Philippic, dating it to Ol. 108. 2 (= 347/6 B.C.). For a discussion, see Rehdantz, C. and Blass, F., Demosthenes' ausgewählte Reden für den Schulgebrauch erklärt…, ed. by Fuhr, K. (Leipzig: Teubner, ed. 9, 1909Google Scholar), 16, n. 8, and Sandys, op. cit., 101 f.

5 Die Attische Beredsamkeit: Demosthenes (ed. 2, Leipzig: Teubner, 1893), 304Google Scholar, where he suggests eine doppelte Ausgabe, one in 351, the other in 347.

6 Demosthenes, 122, where he promises to develop the theory elsewhere. However, in Paideia, iii. 355, he seems to revert to the older dating, 352/1.

7 Storia delta Tradizione critica del Testo (ed. 2, Florence: Le Monnier, 1952), 269–89Google Scholar, which relies on an unpublished Leipzig dissertation by Bernard Hausmann (1921). Pasquali stresses the difficulty caused by serious contamination in our manuscript tradition; his use of the papyri must now be supplemented by die list of Demosdienic papyri in Pack, Roger, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1952)Google Scholar; although no new fragment has been discovered of die First Philippic since P. Gen. 258 (s. iv/v), comprising §§ 27–29, which Pasquali already knew.

8 Étude sur le style de Démosthène dans les dis- cours politiques (Paris: Boccard, 1951), 185;Google Scholar cf. also. 183, where she speaks of the First Philippic as ‘ce chef-d'ceuvre de couleur et de vie’.

1 Without entering into the question of the authenticity of the ‘proems’ or common place-paragraphs (on which see N. W. and N. J. DeWitt, in vol. vii of Demosthenes in the Loeb Library, 1949, 84 ff.), we may recapitulate the parallel passages here. It is a fact that the First Philippic abounds in statements which could very easily be used in other contexts. Compare: Proem with Phil. 1

1. 1–2 1 30. 3 2 (cf. also Phil. 3. 5). 43. 2 3 41.2 7 41. 2–3 12 21.4 14 1. 3 38 53. I44 23. 2 51 With a speech of this nature, it would seem safest to abandon any attempt to settle the problem of dating, and to resign ourselves merely to an enumeration of the possible hypotheses.

2 For the Greek, Fuhr, C., Demosthenis Orationes, ed. maior, , vol. i (Leipzig: Teubner, 1914)Google Scholar, and Butcher, S. H., Demosthenis Orationes, vol. i (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903, repr. 1938).Google Scholar