gorgias encomio y defensa de isocrates

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2/11

Rhetoric, Possibility, and Women's Status in

Ancient Athens: Gorgias' and Isocrates'

Encomiums of Helen

Susan Biesecker

Over

the last fifteen years or

so,

scholars

n

the fields of anthropology,

history,and classics have paid considerable ttention o the statusof women in

Hellenic antiquity. They point out thatAthenianwomenwere not permitted o

participaten the social, cultural,economic,andpoliticalarenasof Athenian

life

in

the same ways or to the same degree that their male counterparts id.'

Whereas men were invited to move about the public sphere, women were

confined

largely

to the

private sphere.

The

segregation

of

women

to the

domestic arena

is

evidenced,these scholarsargue, by the fact that Athenian

women were defined

in

termsof their ability to reproduceAthenians.Unlike

Athenian men, they were primarily responsible for "the production of

legitimateheirs to the oikoi, or families" Pomeroy60).

In

conjunctionwith

this

responsibility,

womenalone bore the burdens

f

childrearing, ursing,

and

cooking (Pomeroy 72). Although some

women worked

outside as

well

as

inside the home as washerwomen, woolworkers, vendors, nurses, and

midwives, all women were prohibited rom buying or selling land, or making

contracts

of

a

significant

value

(Pomeroy 3). Moreover,

he

laws

of the

polis

excluded women

from

political participation:"Direct participation

n

the

affairsof

government-includingholdingpublic office, voting, and serving as

jurors

and as soldiers-was

possibleonly

for male citizens"

Pomeroy74).

As

a

rule,

scholarsagree that the

protocols

of

participation

n

public

and

private

life were established long the lines of gender.

Scholars

of

women

n

antiquity

lso tend to agree that

the

extent

to which

Athenianwomen were confinedto the privatespherewas not the same

in

all

periods.

For

instance,

n

her

historyof women

n

Greekand Romanantiquity,

Cantarella

rgues

that

in

comparison with what was to come in the centuries

to

follow, the so-called dark

ages were characterizedby a certain flexibility that allowed women some freedom of

movement and the

right

to

participate (except

in

political life)

in at

least some

aspects of

social

life. It

was

with the birth of

the

polis

... that the situation

changed

and

moved

toward

the

path

that

led,

in the classical

period,

to

the total

segregation

of

the female

sex

(3940).

Similarly, Pomeroy

sees a

direct

relationship

between

the

rise of

democracy

within the

city-state

and the increasedsubordination f

women:

"The curbingof the aristocratsby the democracy

of

the

fifth

century

B.C.

1

To

speak

of "women" r "men" ends

to obscure he

complex

stratification

f

groups

n

Athens. A woman's tatus

and

role in

Athenianife variednot

only according

o

gender,

but

also

with respect

o

class, family,

and

marital

tatus. In this

paper

focus on

Athenian

women,

which

s

to

say

women

born

from

at

least one Athenian

arent

who were

capable

of

producing

Athenian

offspring. Likewise,

when

I

speak

of men I meanthosemen

who

enjoyed

he status

of

Athenian

citizens.

Fora

description

f the stratification

mong

women

n

Athens,

ee

Vernant.


3/11

100

Susan L. Biesecker

entailed

the

repression

of all women"

(78).

As

power

was

shifting

from the

family, where the patriarch-king ruled, to

the

city-state,

wherein the

orator,

legislator, general, and political leader exercised the most influence, women

were more effectively consigned to the domestic arena.

When

measured

against

the standardsof a culture that

put a premium on political

participation,

these scholars conclude,

women's status worsened

with the transformation of

Athens from an aristocratic to a more democratic society.

Although Cantarella's and Pomeroy's scholarship emphasizes

description

over

explanation,

causes for the

change

in the status of women are offered

either implicitly

or

explicitly.

Cantarella's

account,

for

example, explains

the

change

in

terms of a general trend

across several centuries. Since her

history

of women's status

from the darkages to the classical

period

is written

in terms

of "progress[ion]" (39), "increasing exclu[sion]" (40),

and culmination in

"the

perfect realization

of a

political plan

to exclude women"

(38),

it

implies

these

changes

can be

explained by

a

teleology. Similarly, Pomeroy

argues

that the

course of

women's situation followed a

path

toward

further

segregation

and

increased subordination. Her explanation

is

that this change

was

due

to socio-

psychological dynamics

in

the culture.

She

writes:

[A]fter

the class stratification hat

separated

ndividualmen

according

o such

criteria

as noble descentand wealth

was

eliminated,

he

ensuing

deal of equality

among

male citizens

was

intolerable.The will

to

dominate

was such that

theythen

had to

separate

hemselves

s a

group

andclaim to be

superior

o all nonmembers:

foreigners,

laves,

and women

78).

For Pomeroy, the relationship between democracy and the exclusion of

women from the

public sphere

can

be

explained

as a

symptom

of a

psychic

dynamic

in

the male

Athenian collective unconscious.

Thus,

social

change

arises

from

deep

structures

within

either

history

itself or

the

male social

psyche.

To some extent, characterizing

the

changing status

of

Athenian

women as

an

overarching

trend from relative inclusion

in

to

near

total exclusion

from the

public sphere

is useful. It

obliges

us to

recognize

a

significant

paradox

in

a

culture

traditionally

revered

as

the

"origin

of Western

democracy." Contrary

to the

typical understanding

of

the democratization

of

Athens,

these

scholars

show that the opening of the public sphere to some meant the almost complete

exclusion of others.

Yet,

even as we

grant

the usefulness

of

viewing

the

changes

in

women's

situation

in

terms of

an

overarching

trend, we

are

not

obliged

at

the

same time

to describe

those

changes only

in

terms of a

development along

a

smooth

trajectory

that leads to their final

culmination

in

the fourth

century.

What

if

instead of assuming that the trend was

unidirectional,

we entertained the

possibility

that the transformation of

women's status consisted of a series of changes that were sometimes

continuous with and sometimes

discontinuous from the

past?

If

we

adopted

this

working

hypothesis

we could envision moments along

the

trajectory that

opened up possibilities

of better

conditions

for

women even

if

those

possibilities were never transformed nto more equal social relations between

Athenian women and men.

Since

I

am

interested

in

imagining that the increasing exclusion

of women

from the public sphere was not a foregone conclusion, I work from the

assumption

that the trend

consisted of some events that expedited and others

that

contested it. The

particularevents

I

focus on are rhetorical. That is to


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Rhetoric, Possibility,

and Women's Status in Ancient

Athens 101

say, I analyze events in which human beings produce messages

that both

are

shaped by

and

shape

social

history.

Such a focus recognizes human agency as

a

force in the

trend,

and

acknowledges

that change is neither inevitable, down

a predetermined path, nor unidirectional, but subject to symbolic practices,

and sometimes

resisted. Put another way, whereas

Cantarella and Pomeroy

read the texts of philosophy, history,

oratory, and literature

as reflections of

social relations

in

ancient Greece,

I read oratorical texts as mediated uses

of

language that influenced the trend.

I emphasize oratory for precisely

the same reason Pomeroy de-emphasizes

it,

namely,

its

polemic bias (xi).2 Pomeroy finds

oratory's polemic bias

problematic because her aim is

to capture reflections

of Athenian life in

cultural forms. Thus, any trace

of interest

in

a text with political or

social

goals compromises,

in

her view, the accurate recovery

of Athenian

history.

However, to say that oratory is biased is to say that it comes from an interested

perspective that seeks either

to

dispute,

disrupt,

and challenge or to reinforce,

maintain, and

reaffirm tradition. But

if

this is so,

oratory constitutes a rich

discursive field for

inquiring

into the struggles between positions concerning

the status of women. Said another way,

if

the general

trend toward the

segregation

of women did not simply consist

of the unmitigated fulfillment of a

telos,

but rather of

struggles

over the

shape of

actual and

possible

relations

between

men and

women,

the "biased" statements

of the orators

over time

should

suggest points

of divergence

in

the trend. By reading speeches as

reinforcements

of or challenges to the stability of prevailing

gender relations,

a

history of women's

status can be

written as a history that included resistance

and contestation.

In

what follows

I

argue that

a law instituted

in

451/450 B.C.E. by

Pericles

opened up

a

possibility

for

resisting women's

exclusion from the public sphere.

Although there

is no evidence to suggest that the

law changed women's social,

political, cultural, and/or

economic situation,

it does

seem

reasonable

to

argue

that

the

law

created a

potential

space

for

contesting

these conditions.

Pericles' law stated that

if

a

child was to be guaranteed

full

rights

to

citizenship,

not

only

the

father,

but also the

mother

had

to be an Athenian

citizen.

Implicitly

admitting

that women

were

citizens,

that

the

name of the

father was

no

longer by

itself sufficient

for

transmitting citizenship,

and that

women's genealogies were crucial in questions of citizenship, this law created

the

potential

for

a social tension between

traditional and

possible

roles

for

women.

That at least this last

implication

became

manifest

in

the

public

sphere,

I

argue,

can be shown

through

a court case

centering

on

the

issue

of

citizenship

which

required

a

recounting

of a woman's

genealogy.

With this

law

and court

case as the

background,

I

turn to

Gorgias'

and

Isocrates'

speeches

on

Helen of

Troy

and read

them as

unwitting responses

to

these

conditions.

I

argue

that while

the

language

of the former

encourages

the

possibilities opened

up by

Pericles'

law,

that

of

the

latter covers

them over.

As

I

noted above,

in

451/450

B.C.E.

Pericles

proposed

a

law that was

subsequently adopted which required for the first time that both parents be

2

Pomeroy

does

employoratory

s evidence or

her claims.

In

particular

he refers

o the

speeches

of

Demosthenes, ysias,Aeschines,

nd Andocides

see

chapters

and

5). However,

he

uses

oratoryprimarily

o

describe

ocial relations

s

they

were rather han

as

they

were

struggled

over.

That

is,

oratory

is useful

to

Pomeroy only

insofar

as she

can erase its "bias" and

glean

women's

real conditions

from

it.


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102

Susan L. Biesecker

Athenian citizens

in

order for their children to acquire

citizenship. Until

that

time

Athenian law

stipulated

only that

the father

had to

be a citizen.3

Although primary and secondary

sources disagree

on Pericles' political

motivation for proposing this law,4

taken together they do suggest that the law

responded to a

felt need to answer

the question of who deserved the status

of

citizen.5

If

the law was indeed an attempt to clearly

distinguish between

citizens

and

non-citizens,

then it both

did

and did

not

succeed

at its task. On

the

one

hand,

it did

"provide

... a

necessary

condition

of

citizenship"

(Patterson 95).

On the other hand, by stipulating the

necessary condition for

citizenship

the law made

possible disputes

over

questions

of

citizenship.

Put

more concretely,

the law provided a legal standard two

parent citizenship) by

which litigants could and more than

likely

did

contest

or defend an individual's

claim

to

citizenship

in

a court of law.6

All

this

is to

say

that Pericles'

law

may

3

According

to

Patterson

"It is

generally

assumed that before

451/0 Athenian

law

required

only

that the

male

parent

be Athenian for his son

to

be Athenian also"

(8).

MacDowell

agrees.

"Until

the

middle

of the fifth

century

a

person

was a

citizen if

his

father

was a

citizen"

(67).

4

For

example,

Aristotle

argues

that the law was

designed

to control the

population

of Athens:

"owing

to the

large

number of the citizens an enactment was

passed

on the

proposal

of

Pericles

confining citizenship

to

persons

of

citizen birth

on both

sides"

(Athenian

Constitution

26.3)

as

does Gomme

(87).

Manville

claims that Athenians wanted to

protect

their

rights

as

well as

keep

those rights

exclusive:

Clearly,

Athenians were more

jealous

about

sharing

the more robust

privileges

of their

citizenship;

amid

a

widening population

of

non-

Athenians, including both residents in Attika and potential migrants from

across the

broader realm of Athenian influence in the

Aegean,

the

polis

took various

measures to

curb the assimilation of outsiders into

the

civic

body,

and to

strengthen

distinctions between citizens and

non-citizens

(217).

Ostwald

speculates

that the law

was

a

democratizinggesture

intended

by

Pericles

to

"ensure

that the people

as

a

whole would control

questions

of

citizenship" (183). Hignett argues

that

the

law was

designed

to

maintain

a

pure

race: "To allow

citizens

to

interniany

with

such

[aliens] might

entail

a debasement of their

[Athenians']

racial

purity

that would be viewed with

alarn by

conservatives,

and the alarm might be shared

by progressive

statesmen who

could

take a

long

view" (346).

For

a

review of these and

other

views

see,

Stadter

334-35

and Patterson

97-104.

5

Manville writes that "'shades of

gray'

of

membership

existed

throughout society (e.g.,

women, children,

nietoikoi with

certain privileges

that others did

not have); why try

to

make this

group

'black'

or

'white'?" Almost

as

if

answering

Manville's

question,

Patterson

argues

that

in

fact "there

was

a need in

451/0

for a standard

qualification

for

citizenship,

for who could be

considered

an Athenian.

Athenians,

as

the rulers of an

empire,

had

to

be

identifiable,

distinct from

the 'related' but still

'foreign'

allies. Athens was a

polis

not

a

territorial

tate;

its

politai

or astoi

remained distinct from inhabitantsof

the allied cities

or xenoi.

On

a

practical evel, when

an allied

city

could

be

fined five talents for

the murder

of

an Athenian in its

territory

t was

crucial

to

know

just

who was

to

be

considered

an

Athenian"

(104).

It seems

reasonable

to

suppose that both these

scholars are

right.

That is

to

say,

that in classical

Athens there

was

some ambiguity about who was

and who was

not

a

citizen and that

there

was

also

a

desire

to

create

a

strict line demarcating

Athenians and non-Athenians.

6

Patterson

argues:

Once there

was

a

city or

'state'

criterion for

citizenship,

it is

likely-and

logical-that there were also city procedures and regulations for seeing

that

the law was

enforced. While it is

not possible

to

know whether or not

Pericles

on that

day

in

451/0 included

any judicial

measures in

his

proposed decree,

we

might suppose that eitherat that time or soon after the

right

of

appeal from the deme's decision to the demos (the dikasteria) and

the

right (or duty)

of Io

boulonmenos o prosecute someone who was

fraudulentlyclaiming

to be

a citizen

(this may or may not have been called

the

graphe

xenias at

that time)

were established (107).


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Rhetoric, Possibility, and Women's Status

in Ancient Athens 103

have encouraged more rather than less

disputation over citizenship even as it

named a necessary

condition for claiming

full rights in Athens.

In the preceding

paragraph he discussion implicitly centered

around male

Athenian citizenship. However, if the law exacerbated confusion about male

citizenship

so much so that

judicial

disputes probably followed, then perhaps it

is not unreasonable

to argue that the law created at least

the potential for

contesting

the

prevailing status

of women

as

citizens.7

In

fact, the law does

seem to

open

such a possibility by identifying women as

Athenian citizens,

challenging

the absolute authority of the patronym

to

transmit

citizenship

status,

and making genealogies of women crucial when disputes

over male

citizenship

arise.

As to the

first implication, Sealey argues that the

law "implied that

women, as well

as men, could be citizens" (12). Since

in Attic Greek both

words for citizen (astos and polites) were used in connection with women, the

law

probably made no distinction between

men's and women's status as

citizens

(Sealey

12-13). Perhaps

we

could

go even further than Sealey and

say

that

at

least

at

the level

of

language,

the law identified no difference

between the citizenship

of

men and women. Once again

this is not to say that

the law ushered

in

a

period

in

which women actually exercised full rights as

citizens. Rather,

it

is

to

say

that the

law opened up

the possibility for

contesting women's

subjugated

status with

respect

to

citizenship by making

no

gender

distinction.

The second implication, that the law

implicitly challenged the authority of

the

patronym

to transmit

citizenship status,

is

perhaps quite

obvious. By

stipulating

that

not

only

the

father but

also

the

mother

had

to

be

a citizen, the

law

in

effect said

that the name of the father could not guarantee

full rights.

This second implication

is closely related to the third, that

in effect the law

acknowledged matrilineage

in

the enforcement of laws governing official

membership

in

the

state. Since the law required that both

parents be citizens,

any

individual seeking

to

defend

a

claim to

citizenship

would have to

prove

that the mother was a citizen. To

establish the mother's

citizenship

a

defendant

would have

to

recount the mother's

genealogy-show

that she

was

born

of one or two Athenian

citizens

(depending

on whether she became an

adult before

or after the

adoption

of Pericles'

law).

There

seems

to

be

some

textual evidence to suggest that the law did in fact effect both the second as

well as the third implications.

Around 346/345 B.C.E. it was decided

that each of the demes (citizen

groups)

should review their list

of

citizens. Any

one

oil

the

list

found not to

meet the requirements

for citizenship

was

to be

taken off the list

and

denied

citizenship rights.

Those individuals removed

by

the deme

could

appeal

the

decision

in

court

(MacDowell 70).

Shortly

after

this review

began

the

deme,

Halimus,

removed

a

man

by

the

name

Euxitheus

from the citizen

list.

Subsequently

Euxitheus

challenged

the deme's

decision

in

court.

During

his

7

In making this move to a consideration of the potential for ambiguity concerning women's

status as

citizens,

I

am

following

the lead

of

some

classical

scholars

who

are now

raising questions

about the

supposed

stability

of

the

concept

of the

Athenian citizen.

For

instance,

Manville

writes:

"Most

previous

scholarship

in this area

[citizenship]

.

. .

tends

to

portray

citizenship

as

a

primarily legal institution,

timeless

and

unchanged

through history except

for revisions

of

certain

statutory

details"

(27).

As I

introduce the

question

of

women in

relation

to citizen status I

am

merely extending

Manville's

question.

I can see no reason for

ruling

out the

possibility

that

Athenian

law

may

have

been a

bit

unclear

about

the

status of

women.


7/11

104

Susan L.

Biesecker

defense,

Euxitheus

recounted

his

mother's

genealogy

in

some

detail

(Demosthenes,

Against

Eubolides

36-41).

Since

this

section of his

speech

is

quite

long and rather

tedious,

I will

not

quote

it

at

length

here.

Suffice it

to

say that

his defense

makes a

strong

case

to

the

effect

that the

business of

recounting

women's

genealogies

would not

have been

easy

given a

history

in

Athens of

only

keeping

trackof men's

names on citizen

lists. As

Sealey points

out, Pericles'

stipulation about the

mother made

the

enforcement of

Pericles'

law

rather

messy:

Athenian

aw

on

citizenship

would have been

tidier,

had it

provided

hat a

son

should have

citizenship f his

father

was

a

citizen,

whateverthe status of

the

mother. One can

recognizethe

untidyaspect

of

the law

by calling

to

mind

the

questionsput to a

candidate

or the

archonship.If

the statusof

his father

as

a

citizen

were

doubted,

he

could

producewitnessesto

his father's

enrollment

n a

phratry

nd n a

deme. But if the statusof his motherweredoubted,hecouldreplyby

asserting he

citizenship

of her

parents;

hat

s,

he

could

produce

witnesses to

the enrollment

of his

maternal

randfathern

a

phratry

nd a

deme,

but for his

maternal randmother

hecould

only assert he

citizenship

of her

parents. There

was

thus the

possibilityof an

infinite

regress

14).

This

potential

for

confusion

is

significant

because

it arises

out

of the

fact

that the

name

of

the mother

disappeared

through

social

practices

that

privileged the

patronym. By

requiring a recounting of

the mother's

genealogy

which

was

bound to be

difficult,

Pericles' law

created the

potential

for

recognizing

that

matrilineage

had

been

erased

from

collective

memory.

In

sum,

although

Pericles' law

by

no

means

granted

women full

access to

rights as citizens, it implied that they were citizens, called into question the

authority

of

the

patronym

for

transference of

citizenship,

and

tacitly

acknowledged matrilineage. Put

simply,

it created

conditions

in

which a

challenge

to

women's

exclusion from

the

public

sphere

became

possible.

But

if

this

is so,

what became of

thatsmall

opening?

To answer

this question I

turn

to

oratoryfor

the

reasons

mentioned

above and

examine the

ways

in

which

the

language of

the orators

may

have

affected,

however

indirectly, the tension

at

hand.

I

have

chosen Isocrates'

and

Gorgias'

encomiums of

Helen

since,

although

the two

speeches

take Helen of

Troy

as their

explicit

subject

matter,

they

were

composed

in

two

different

centuries

marked

by

divergent

political

contexts.

Gorgias'

speech

was

written

sometime

in

the last

quarter

of

the

fifth

century,

a time

notorious for the

widening

of

political

access; Isocrates

wrote

his

encomium

around

370

B.C.E., a

moment in

which

democratization

was

being contested.

Since

the

two

speeches take

up

the

same

topic

in

dissimilar

contexts,

they should

provide an

occasion

for

comparing

ways

in

which

uses of

language might

influence

possibility.

A

noted

peculiarity

of

Gorgias'

Enconfiunz of

Helen

is that,

strictly

speaking,

the

speech

does

not

suit

its

title.8

Put simply,

it

is not primarily

an

encomium.

Although

Gorgias

announces his aim

to be

the

praise of

Helen,

his

appeals

follow

the

lines of

argument

typicalof a

forensic

speech.

According

to

Aristotle,

a

rhetorical

defense

sometimes

includes

the

admission of

wrongdoing

but never the guilt of injustice (Rhetoric 1358b.30-35). In the same manner,

Gorgias

argues that

although

Helen did

elope with

Paris-did

commit

the

8

For

instance,

in

his

own

speech on

Helen, Isocrates

writes:

"for

although

[Gorgias]

asserts

that he

has

written an

encomium

of Helen,

it

turns out that he

has

actually

spoken a

defense of

her

conduct "

(18-20).


8/11

Rhetoric,

Possibility,

and

Women'sStatus

n Ancient

Athens

105

wrongdoing-she

did not

act unjustly.

Specifically,

he argues

thatshe acted

not of her

own volition

but,

rather,

eacted o

demandsplaced

upon

her by the

gods, eros,Paris,or logos (6). He thusdefendsHelenon the grounds hatshe

didnot cause

the

war. Rather,

he argues, he

war was

due to one of

four other

causes.

Therefore,

so the argument

uns,

people

should

hold one of

these

causesaccountable

nsteadof

Helen.

What is of

particular onsequence

n Gorgias'

apparentmisuse

of

the

epideictic

genre

is the socio-historical

significance

of employing

forensic

proofs

for praising

Helen. As

Takis

Poulakos points

out, around

the time

Gorgias

composed

this

address, forensic

oratory was

becoming

the prominent

means

through which

traditional

socioeconomic

relations

were being

challenged.9

But

if

this

is so, one can

assume

thatGorgias'

forensicspeech

about Helen

was inspired by

the

practice

of contesting prevalent

social

arrangements.The speechpraises he disruptive owerof forensic oratoryby

praising

Helen, and

through

her,forensic

rhetorictself.

As

already

noted,

the

speech

announces its purpose

as the praise

of

Helen.

Yet,

Helen

as

an

individual

s not so

much

he objectof

praiseas the

locus of

competing orces.

Eros,

logos,

Paris,and the

gods all

vie for

hersubmission

o their individual

wills,

Notably,

the speech

makes no distinction

between the

outcome

of her

subjugationo

one competitor

ver and

against he

rest. No

matterwhich one-

actually

overpowered

er, the

result

is the same: the disruption

f

established

relations.

Read

in

this

way,

thefigure

of Helen

stands

n

for

forensic

oratory.'0

Both the

mythical

figure and

the discourse

practice

entertain

competing

forces/voicesvying for assentand bothspell socio-politicalupheaval. Given

that this

representation

f

Helen

is

couched

in

the language

of

praise,

the

speech

can be read

as

praising

he

competitive

haracter

f

forensic

rhetoric,

especially

ts

capacity

o

call the statusquo

into

question.

Gorgias'speech

no

doubt

reiterates he subordination

f

women

insofar

as

it

representsHelen's

deedas

an instance

of victimization

Suzuki

15).

Yet by

makinga

case against

the

generallyaccepted

condemnation

f

Helen

through

forensic

rhetoric,

a rhetoric

that at

that time threatenedestablished

social

relations,

the speech

encourages

he possibility

of

social

change;

and

at the

same

time

it

understands

hat such

change

can come

about

only

as a

result of

contested

views

and

practices.

In

so

doing,Gorgias'

Helen,

at

least

implicitly,

entertainsalternativeversions of the status of women in society, If the

possibility

of an

opening

for

women,

however

small,

had been created

by

Pericles'

law, Gorgias'

speech

shows

no inclination o

close

it;

and

if

women's

genealogies

had

actually gained

some

measure

of

recognition

through

9

He

writes that "[als

early

as the beginning

of

the

sixth century,

Solon

had

instituted

the

right to

an appeal.

This

reform transferred

the

power

to administer justice

from

the

appointed

magistrates

to the law-courts,

i.e.,

from the officials representing

aristocratic

interests

to

juries

composed

of ordinary

citizens"

("Intellectuals"

13).

By

the middle

of the

fifth

century,

Poulakos

continues,

aristocrats

found

themselves

in

the position

of still

possessing

most

of

the

wealth of Athens

but

no longer

having the legal

and political

authority

that could

guarantee

their

continued

economic

domination.

Their

interests

increasingly

depended

on

decisions

made

by the citizens

of

Athens,

most

of whom

had little

or

no property

("Intellectuals"

13).

10

My reading

of Helen

as forensic

oratory is

heavily

indebted

to

John

Poulakos'

argument

that Helen

is a personification

of

rhetoric

("Defense").


9/11

106

SusanL.

Biesecker

recountings

n the courts,

Gorgias'rhetoricwould

likely

have takensuch

a

change

upas a subjectof praise.

Like Gorgias'Encomium

of Helen, Isocrates'

Helen combines he

rhetoric

of praisewith another hetoricalorm. ButunlikeGorgias, socratesprefers he

deliberative

ver the forensic orm. As

JohnPoulakos

rgues,

heHelen

makes

use

of deliberative

hetoric

n

three

ways:

Paris'

preference

or Aphrodite

ver

Heraor

Athena,

Isocrates'own choice

of Helenover Theseus

or Heracles,

and

his selection of

rhetorical

educationover eristic

or philosophical

training

("Use"

305-306).

In

each of these three

instancesof

deliberation,

socrates

praises

or advocatesa singular

ourseof action

while eliminating he

rest on

the grounds

f

expediency.

Typically,deliberative

hetoric eeksa unified

resolveon the part

of some

collectivity

and advancesa particular

ourse

of action.

The action that

the

deliberativeoratoradvocatesmightchallengeestablishedsocial relationsor

reinforce

he position

of thosealready

n power. There s

little

doubtthat the

educational

program

or which Isocrates rgueswould

do the latter. As

Takis

Poulakos

has convincingly

shown, the

form of government

socrates

would

have oratorsadvocate

s controlled

democracy

"Hegemony" 58,

162-64),

a

form

of

governmentwhich,

in

its

most extreme orm,

amounts

o

monarchy,

and which benefits

the

few

rather

than

the

many.

Isocrates' educational

program,

hen,

is

conservative

n

its socio-political

genda:

t seeks a return o

a time before

the democratization

f Athens.

Moreover,

ts

politicalstrategy

for

retainingpower

finds

expression

n

a rhetoric dvocating

he

subordination

of the individual

interests of the

people

to

the

power

of the leader-the

monarch. But if this is so, Isocrates'programproposessilencingdissenting

voices, a move

that would

in

effect protectthe

powerof the privileged

few

from contestation

T. Poulakos,"Hegemony"

50).

Unlike Gorgias' oration,

which defends

Helen as a victim of

four

overpowering

orces,

Isocrates'

peech

praises

her for her

beauty.

Importantly,

however, Isocrates

extols

her beautymore for

the results it brings

than its

inherentcharacter.

Her beauty,

he argues, attracted

men

who were "more

deservingof

admiration hanother

men"

22)

and

who,

once unified, "waged

so

great

a

war,

notonly

the

greatest

f all

wars

n

the violence of its passions,

but

also

in

the duration f

the

struggle

and

in

the extent

of

thepreparations

he

greatestof all time" (49). Similarly,IsocratespraisesHelen for her patri-

lineage

because

it guaranteeshat she

will reproducemore

members

of the

aristocratic lass.1"

Explaining

Paris' rationale or choosing

Helen, Isocrates

writes:

"For he knew that

while other

blessings bestowed

by Fortunesoon

changehands,

nobility

of

birthabidesforeverwith the same possessors;

here-

fore he foresaw that

this

choice would

be to the advantage

of all his race,

whereas he

other

gifts would

be enjoyed

or theduration f

his

own

life only"

(44).

Notably,throughout

is speech

Isocratesextols unity

among the Greeks,

victory

in

war, and excellence

of lineage. Together,

hese

values privilege

collective

purposes

over individualwill, country

over life, and hierarchy

ver

equality.

In

so doing, they

support hesubordination

f popularnterests

o the

11

I

should

point

out

here

that

quite

unlike Euxitheus'

recounting

of his mother's genealogy

(lineage

on

both her

mother's

and

her father's sides),

Isocrates

argues that Paris made a

reasonable

decision since

he

considered Helen's

patrilineage-her

father's ancestors only. Isocrates

does not

introduce Helen's mother's lineage

(43).


10/11

Rhetoric, Possibility, and Women's Status in Ancient Athens 107

benefit

of

the

elite.12 That

this

is

so

is

furtherevidenced by Isocrates' call for

the supremacy of the one, Athens, among the many city-states.

The significance of Isocrates' Helen to the larger issue of this essay,

women's thorough relegation to the private sphere and the possibility for

contesting their exclusion from the public sphere,

is

this: by shifting the

audience's attention to a social and political register that transcends popular

interests, Isocrates' Helen covers over tensions concerning women's status. Put

another

way,

Isocrates'

rhetoric highlights inter-city-state cooperation

and

places intra-Athenian strife in the shade (Perlman 5). Thus, by displacing the

domestic affairs of

Athens,

this

rhetoric

is

non-interventionaland,

as

such, can

be

said

to

reaffirm,

if

only tacitly, the old structureof social relations. For

our

purposes, this means that

if

Pericles' law did

in

fact create an opening

for

contesting women's exclusion from the public sphere, Isocrates' speech would

shut it, if only by not attending to it. And if such a possibility had manifested

itself in the form of recountings of women's genealogies which carried the

potential

for

social disharmony,Isocrates' rhetoric would opt

for

harmony.

In

this essay I have suggested that if we attend to possibilities opened up

and the

way

in

which

they

were influenced

by rhetoric,

we

get

a

different

reading of women's history from one that emphasizes trends: one that includes

possibilities

for

challenging

a trend. As

I

have

shown,

Pericles'

law, quite

apart

from

its

design,

created a

potential

for

contesting women's

socio-political

status.

It

implied

that women could

be

citizens;

it

challenged

the

authority

of

the

patronym

to transfer

citizenship;

and

it

tacitly acknowledged matrillneage

in

a culture organized

in

large part by the

name of the

father. These three

implications of Pericles' citizenship law, the concrete manifestation

of

the

third

implication,

and most

importantly

the

potential

for contesting the

exclusion of

women

that the aforementioned

implications

and court case

suggest,

could

hardly

be identified

by scholarship

like Cantarella's and

Pomeroy's. Scholars committed to historical explanations that subscribe to an

evolutionary

logic of historical

change

or the

deep-seated dynamics

of the

male

psyche

in

a limited

democracy

would overlook

such

possibility

because

their

explanations

assume

that events fall

within rather

than

contest the trend.

But as

I

have tried

to

show, Gorgias'

and

Isocrates'

speeches

can

be

read as

having

responded,

however

implicitly,

to

questions concerning gender

relations: either through forensic rhetoric, which entertained possibilities for

their

change,

or

through

deliberative

rhetoric,

which left

them undisturbed.

That these

encomiums

challenged prevailing

social

relations,

oil the one

hand,

or reaffirmed

them,

on

the

other,

indicates that

rhetoric can

play

a

significant

role

in

social change.

Whatever the intent

of

the author

it can

shape

the

future

12

The

privileging

of socially

and politically

conservative

objectives

over popular

will in

Isocrates's

Helen corresponds

to a

theme

running throughout

his works.

For Isocrates, popular

interests

whether they pertain

to

rhetorical, military

or even sexual spheres

of life

ought

to be

subordinated

o state welfare. As John

Poulakos

argues:

In an age of intense individualism,the commandof logos was often put at

the service

of reprehensible

ends.

Moreover, the

failings

of

the city-state

were

reinforcing the

perceptionthat the

welfare

of the individual

was at

odds

with that of the

state; so much

so, that it

soon became apparent

that

being a good

citizen

did not amount to being

a successful

or

happy

person.

Isocrates tried

to reverse

this

perception

by positing a fundamental

interdependence

between private

and public

well being ("Changes"

318).

See

also T. Poulakos ("Hegemony")

and

Kennedy)


11/11

108

Susan L. Biesecker

of a possibility opened up

elsewhere,

influencing

in

some

small measure the

likelihood that such possibility

could be transformed nto reality.

Susan Biesecker

University

of Pittsburgh

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