In this volume, Mirko Canevaro studies the 'state' documents (laws and decrees) preserved in the public speeches of the Demosthenic corpus. These documents purport to be Athenian statutes and, if authentic, provide invaluable information about Athenian history, law, and institutions. Offering a comprehensive account of the presence of the documents in the corpora of the orators and in the manuscript tradition, this volume summarizes previous scholarship and delineates a new methodology for analyzing the documents.
Examining the documents found in Demosthenes' On the Crown, Against...

The book offers an introduction, translation and commentary of the earliest political speech delivered by Demosthenes, the Against Leptines. It studies the speech as a historical document for the reconstruction of Athenian fourth-century politics, law, judicial practices and public economy. It sheds light on the institution of nomothesia, on Athenian euergetism and the economy of honour, and on the workings of and debates on fiscal policy.

In the Hellenistic period (c.323-31 BCE), Greek teachers, philosophers, historians, orators, and politicians found an essential point of reference in the democracy of Classical Athens and the political thought which it produced. However, while Athenian civic life and thought in the Classical period have been intensively studied, these aspects of the Hellenistic period have so far received much less attention. This volume seeks to bring together the two areas of research, shedding new light on these complementary parts of the history of the ancient Greek polis.

The essays...

Defines the cutting-edge of scholarship on ancient Greek history employing methods of social science