Demosthenes' speech against the law of Leptines (20) was given on behalf of Ctesippus, the son of the recently deceased general Chabrias. The latter had been awarded a public statue and hereditary ateleia from festival liturgies, but in 355 Leptines introduced a law abolishing this ateleia for everyone, except the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Leptines' law was an attempt to increase revenue for Athens after the recent Social War, but it was unpopular among the wealthy, and he had been indicted for it. When one of his accusers, Bathippus, died the case was dropped until the following year (354) when Bathippus' son Apsephion challenged the law under a graphe nomon me epitedeion theinai. The state duly appointed a defence commission, which included Leptines, prompting Apsephion to turn to Demosthenes and a man named Phormion to assist him. The prosecution most likely won its case, but only Demosthenes' lengthy speech (167 sections) from the trial survives.
The speech is a rich mine of information for Athenian history, politics, law and society in the fourth century. It also marks the first time that Demosthenes personally delivered a speech he wrote in a case of public importance (I exclude Demosthenes 51 here, which was personal and to the Boule). There has not been a commentary on Demosthenes 20 since that of J.E. Sandys in 1890, and one is long overdue. K. has thus done us a service with his detailed commentary, as well as supplying us with an extensive introduction and a Greek text and English translation. Moreover, K. does not limit himself to matters of content raised in the speech and their implications but also discusses Demosthenes' rhetorical strategy and the speech's structure.
K.'s introduction (pp. 1–69) is divided into four sections. The first is a simple overview of the case. The second deals with matters of Athenian history, society, politics and law to set the background to the case, aimed at readers unfamiliar with these topics – included is a succinct yet thorough treatment of Athenian honours, liturgies and the liturgical system, which lie at the heart of the adverse reaction to Leptines' law. The third section discusses specifics related to the actual trial and Demosthenes' speech against Leptines' law, such as the date, the dramatis personae, the legal issues involved, the outcome, and the structure and arguments of Demosthenes' speech. There is a very good, comprehensive discussion of the legal process against Leptines' law and of the law itself. The fourth section is an overview of the scholarship on Demosthenes' speech, ancient and modern, ending with a list of variants from M.R. Dilts' recent OCT.
The text and translation are to be found on pp. 72–173. K. uses Dilts' OCT; he differs from it in 35 places, which he conveniently lists on pp. 68–9, and also supplies an apparatus criticus under the text itself. The English translation is idiomatic, forceful and captures Demosthenes' Greek well, including his outraged tones at what the people thought was just and unjust and moral cries of doing the right thing by those who served the city.
The bulk of the book is devoted to the commentary (pp. 175–458). K. explains and amplifies the historical and legal matters that the speech raises as well as devoting a generous amount of space to discussing Demosthenes' rhetorical strategy and argumentation. After all, Demosthenes was in effect defending a tax break for the wealthy, which the middle and lower strata of society, then as now, would hardly have embraced. For example, illuminating is K.'s analysis of how, at §§ 7–28, Demosthenes deliberately underestimated the number and income from liturgies to argue that Leptines' law was hardly a boost for the city's finances, or how he employed scare tactic rhetoric at §§ 29–40, where he claims that Leptines' law will endanger the city's relations with the Spartocids and thus threaten the grain supply. There are also very good notes on the famous lengthy list of benefactors who would suffer under Leptines' law at chapters 29–87.
Finally, there is a good-sized bibliography (pp. 459–82) and a short index (pp. 483–9).
K. often tends to be conservative in his approach to his subject matter. For example, he accepts Dionysius' date of 355/4 (archonship of Callistratus) for the speech based on internal references to historical events in it over the arguments of those who query Dionysius' chronology. He argues that the speech's length indicates that it was the most important of the three prosecution speeches (pp. 43, 175), which perhaps explains why Demosthenes gave only a brief prooimion (something K. notes on p. 175 in his commentary on § 1, without pushing the reason for it) before catapulting himself into attacking Leptines' law because Apsephion and Pasion had already gained the captatio benevolentiae. Likewise on why Demosthenes took the case: he was acting out of concern for the city (public motive) and (personal) because of Chabrias' son (though in his commentary K. on p. 179 dismisses Plutarch's claim at Demosthenes 15.3 that the orator wanted to marry Ctesippus' mother), whereas the other prosecutors had more political reasons and may even have been used as pawns by Leptines' political enemies (pp. 39–42 and throughout the commentary). However, more needs to be made of Demosthenes' agenda of self-promotion. Ctesippus' guardian was Phocion, a friend and ally of Eubulus, whom Demosthenes was now courting to advance his own political career. Of stylistic interest is K.'s discussion of ring composition in the speech (pp. 54–8). That Demosthenes does not employ the device to the same extent as – I would argue – Dinarchus matters little; Demosthenes' use of it has implications for the revision process and thus what Demosthenes orally delivered, something K. does not properly address. He appears to accept that the speech as we have it was actually given at the trial (p. 55, citing MacDowell on Demosthenes 21), but because of its structure and length it cannot have been orally delivered, given time constraints at trials.
The English translation is welcome, but that alone will surely not open up the book to the ‘wider scholarly audience’ – to be interpreted as those without a knowledge of Greek – as the publisher's blurb claims because of the amount of Greek in the book. The lemmata of the commentary are in Greek, and I suspect the Greekless reader is likely to get frustrated and abandon this book in favour of, say, the Texas Oratory of Classical Greece series. Understandably, matters to do with Demosthenes' style need to be in Greek, but so they could be within English lemmata, geared to the translation, if author and press want to reach this wider audience. Also, in the introduction K. provides details about the prosecution and defence personnel involved in the case (pp. 34–8), yet he gives their names (including demotics and patronymics) in Greek and not English. If the Greekless reader wants to know more about, for example, Demosthenes or Leptines he/she will surely find it hard to identify them here when their names are in Greek.
These are minor quibbles. K. has provided an important commentary on this speech, which will need to be consulted by everyone working on this period.
