Douglas M. MacDowell (1931-2010) was a scholar of international renown and the articles included here cover a significant area of classical scholarship, discussing Athenian law, law-making and legal procedure, Old Comedy, comedy and law, politics and lexicography. All of these articles, published between 1959 and 2010, bear the characteristic marks of his scholarship: precision, balanced judgement, brevity and deep learning; they are rational and sober accounts of complicated and controversial issues. Many of these essays are virtually inaccessible as they were originally published in celebratory volumes or article collections which are now out of print or difficult to find outside major libraries. This collection of MacDowell's articles will make these works available to a broad scholarly audience, and make it easier to bring this scholarship to the classroom as part of courses in Classics, ancient history, legal history and theatre studies. The volume includes a biography of MacDowell by Christopher Carey, based on the testimony of his closest colleagues and personal friends, which was presented to the British Academy.

Douglas M. MacDowell (1931-2010) was a scholar of international renown and the articles included here cover a significant area of classical scholarship, discussing Athenian law, law-making and legal procedure, Old Comedy, comedy and law, politics and lexicography. All of these articles, published between 1959 and 2010, bear the characteristic marks of his scholarship: precision, balanced judgement, brevity and deep learning; they are rational and sober accounts of complicated and controversial issues. Many of these essays are virtually inaccessible as they were originally published in celebratory volumes or article collections which are now out of print or difficult to find outside major libraries. This collection of MacDowell's articles will make these works available to a broad scholarly audience, and make it easier to bring this scholarship to the classroom as part of courses in Classics, ancient history, legal history and theatre studies. The volume includes a biography of MacDowell by Christopher Carey, based on the testimony of his closest colleagues and personal friends, which was presented to the British Academy.

In the most comprehensive account available of the texts of Demosthenes, Douglas M. MacDowell describes and assesses all of the great orator's speeches, including those for the lawcourts as well as the addresses to the Ekklesia. Besides the genuine speeches, MacDowell also covers those which have probably wrongly been ascribed to Demosthenes, such as the ones written for delivery by Apollodorus; and he considers too the Epistles, the Prooemia, and the puzzling Erotic Speech.

Wasps was first performed at the festival of the Lenaia early in 422 B.C. It is arguably one of Aristophanes' most entertaining and characteristic works, and the lack of serious difficulties in the text makes it accessible to the less advanced student of Greek. This edition, first published in 1971, is intended for students and scholars, stressing the comic and dramatic qualities of the play while treating the text more as a performance script than as a work of literature. In addition to the revised Greek text, MacDowell includes a lively introduction, full apparatus criticus, a commentary with translations, and two indexes.

The plays of Aristophanes are the oldest comedies which still survive. They are famous for their comic characters, their fantastic plots, their farcical action, and their earthy humour. But they are also highly topical, full of comments, both comic and serious, on politics and other current affairs in classical Athens. This book provides an accessible introduction to Aristophanes' plays, focusing particularly on their relationship to Athenian politics and life, and to the effect that Aristophanes hoped to have on his audience. All passages quoted from them are given in new verse translations, and readers do not need any knowledge of Greek. But scholarly problems are not ignored, and specialists will find here both new suggestions and summaries of different interpretations with recent bibliographical information in the notes.;This book is intended for major text for classics courses featuring Aristophanes; courses on ancient history/classical civilization as supplementary reading.

On the False Embassy is the speech which Demosthenes wrote for the prosecution of Aiskhines on the charge of accepting a bribe from King Philip of Macedon in 346 BC. This edition includes an introduction on the historical circumstances, a revised Greek text with an English translation on facing pages, and a detailed commentary.

Aristophanes' comedies are famous for their comic characters and earthy humour. But they are also highly topical, with many contemporary political allusions easily missed today. This book provides students with a long needed accessible and essential introductory guide to the plays, focusing particularly on information about the Athens of the day.

A more intimate and vivid glimpse of Athenian political life during and directly after the Peloponnesian War is provided by the speech of Andokides On the Mysteries than by any other work: it is also a major source of legal and prosopographical information, and an important specimen of Attic prose style in the most crucial period of its development. Despite this it has been unduly neglected in recent years, partly for lack of an up-to-date English commentary. This new paperback version of MacDowell's standard edition (first published in hardback in 1962) is intended both for undergraduates and professional scholars. The revised text (notably more conservative than other modern texts) with apparatus criticus is supplemented with a full introduction surveying the life and trial of Andokides and his literary style; a note on the basis of the text; a detailed commentary; and appendices which discuss Andokides' innocence or guilt, the chronology and political significance of events in 415 BC, the legal revision ordered by the decree of Teisamenos, the date of the trial and the speech, and aspects of the historical and stylistic background relevant to the work.

This is the eighth volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece. This series presents all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline. These translations are especially designed for the needs and interests of today's undergraduates, Greekless scholars in other disciplines, and the general public.

Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, law and legal procedure, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have recently been attracting particular interest: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few.

Demosthenes is regarded as the greatest orator of classical antiquity. This volume contains five speeches written for lawsuits in which Demosthenes sought to recover his inheritance, which he claimed was fraudulently misappropriated and squandered by the trustees of the estate. These speeches shed light on Athenian systems of inheritance, marriage, and dowry. The volume also contains seven speeches illustrating the legal procedure known as paragraphe, or "counter-indictment." Four of these are for lawsuits involving commercial shipping, a vital aspect of the Athenian economy that was crucial to maintaining the city's imported food supply. Another concerns the famous Athenian silver mines.

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Demosthenes was punched in the face by Meidias in the theatre at Athens in 348 BC. His prosecution - a masterpiece of Greek oratorical prose - is one of the most intriguing forensic speeches to survive. It not only details Demosthenes' personal feud with Meidias but, in passing, gives valuable information about Athenian law and festivals, and especially about the Greek concept of hubris (insolent behaviour). This edition, originally published in 1990, represents the latest scholarship on the text, collating a larger number of MSS than hitherto. It includes a very full introduction on historical, legal, literary and textual matters; a complete facing-page translation; and a detailed commentary.

Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have been largely ignored: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few.

This volume contains the works of the two earliest surviving orators, Antiphon and Andocides. Antiphon (ca. 480-411) was a leading Athenian intellectual and creator of the profession of logography ("speech writing"), whose special interest was law and justice. His six surviving works all concern homicide cases. Andocides (ca. 440-390) was involved in two religious scandals--the mutilation of the Herms (busts of Hermes) and the revelation of the Eleusinian Mysteries--on the eve of the fateful Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415. His speeches are a defense against charges relating to those events.