Additional Information in Witness Testimonies in Classical Athens

2008

Witnessing in Athenian courts was one of the issues to which a comparative anthropological approach was applied relatively early. The differences between the modern Western judicial systems and ancient or non-European societies have provoked detailed analysis, for example regarding the kinds of people a litigant would summon to give testimony or the purpose and function of witnesses in the courts. 2 Witnesses have been shown to be primarily supporters of one litigant and therefore partisan. Establishment of the facts is thus not the only, perhaps not even the main, purpose they serve. In addition, their personal authority or authority of office was supposed to support the speaker's credibility. Friends, moreover, acted as witnesses to demonstrate the social status of the litigant. However, despite progress in this branch of scholarship, complete clarification regarding the details of the procedure does not seem to have been achieved. The present paper deals with the , the oath of ignorance, by which unwilling witnesses were able to refuse to give evidence. It has been assumed that witnesses could not only state their ignorance of the matter at issue, but could thereby also indicate that the litigant's pre-formulated testimony was untrue. In contrast to this view, I aim to show that in the it was not only impossible to indicate that the statement in the deposition was incorrect, but also that we should refrain from assuming that the oath implied such a contention. Secondly, I will attempt to show that we have no reason to think that the could be taken on a part of the testimony only. The views I am opposing derive, in my opinion, from an inadequate understanding of the role of witnesses: that they serve only to help find the truth. Instead, depositions should be regarded as nothing more than a means in the process of persuasion, an element in the speaker's legitimate aim to present his side of the case without interruption. I thus return to a view that has been rejected because it seemed awkward and alien to our concept of witnessing. However, I aim to show that it can be reconciled with modern studies and matches their results better.

In March 2018 the Centre for Ancient Rhetoric and Drama (C.A.R.D.) at the University of the Peloponnese organised the Second Attic Drama and Oratory International Kalamata Conference with the theme Witnesses and Evidence: Information and Decision in Drama and Oratory. From Antiquity to Byzantium, which gave rise to many highly interesting and thought-provoking papers. In particular, these fourteen selected chapters that began life at the Second Kalamata conference aim to examine an important interdisciplinary, intertextual and intercultural topic: witnesses and a wide range of other ways and means of collecting evidence. This is of great significance in varied legal systems across cultures and ages, but also in the texts and contexts which provide us with information about these systems. Classics, anthropology, sociology and studies of comparative law, among a plethora of contemporary disciplines, and several texts that present the mindset, folklore and cultural identity of ancient populations, provide details about the degree to which legal systems of the past valued the importance of witnesses. Chanakya, who was, among other qualities, an ancient Indian jurist, points out, in his political treatise Arthashastra (book J, chapter 11, verse 50), that "the parties shall themselves produce witnesses who are not far removed either by time or place. Witnesses who are far away, or who will not stir out, shall be made to present themselves by the order of the judge". 1 In the ancient Hindu legal system, "the king, cognizant of laws, and in consideration of the duties of the (four) several tribunal, shall ascertain the truth and determine the correctness of the allegation, description, time and place of the transaction, giving rise to the case, as well as its usages, and pronounce the true judgment". 2 The quintessence of legal systems across cultures and ages has always been the ability to deliver justice that is based on provable truth and impartiality. This makes the ways and means of collecting, constructing and using witnesses

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 1995

In Aristophanes' Wasps the addicted juror Philocleon delivers a pseudo-forensic speech in defence of jury attendance. He lists the types of entertaining performances he can expect to witness in court (562-70):

Mnemosyne, 2013

2005

One of the most significant developments in modern research on the role of the Athenian witness has been the emphasis on the witness’s personal connection with the litigant whom he was supporting. It is widely held that an Athenian litigant would attempt to enlist the support of as many family members and personal friends as he possibly could, and that the main function of such witnesses was to make a public display of the loyalty that the main litigant was able to command. In an influential article, S.C. Humphreys (1985) presented a survey of attested Athenian witnesses, grouped in concentric circles around the individuals whom they were supporting, starting from citizens who appeared in their official capacities as magistrates in the outermost circle and ending with the litigant’s closest kin in the innermost circle. One of the conclusions reached by Humphreys (1985: 350) on the basis of this evidence is that an important function of the witnesses was to convey an impression to th...

"Papaioannou, Sophia, Andreas Serafim, and Beatrice da Vela (eds.). Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Under Contract, Brill)

Contributors: Ian Worthington, Christopher Carey, Catherine Steel, Edward M. Harris, Konstantinos Kapparis, Christos Kremmydas, Brenda Griffith-Williams, Guy Westwood, Henriette van der Blom, Kostas Apostolakis, Beatrice da Vela, Kathryn Tempest, Dimos Spatharas, Jon Hall, Alessandro Vatri. Reviews: (1) Peter O' Connell, The Classical Review 68 (2018) 34-37: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-review/article/theatre-of-oratory-s-papaioannou-a-serafim-b-da-vela-edd-the-theatre-of-justice-aspects-of-performance-in-grecoroman-oratory-and-rhetoric-mnemosyne-supplements-403-pp-xii-355-leiden-and-boston-brill-2017-cased-126-us146-isbn-9789004334649/8406EF25818F2751EF3AECC082EDA5FC. (2) Cristian Criste, München: http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-27889 (in German). Citations: (1) G. Nagy and M. Noussia-Fantuzzi (eds.). Solon in the Making: The Early Reception in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries (De Gruyter 2015). (2) A. Vatri, Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose: A Linguistic Approach (Oxford 2017). (3) G. Westwood, Bryn Mawr The Classical Review 2017.09.40. (4) K. Kapparis, Bryn Mawr The Classical Review 2017.11.02. (5) A. Petkas, “The King in Words: Performance and Fiction in Synesius’ DeRegno”, American Journal of Philology 139 (2018) 123-151. (6) C. Carey, I. Giannadaki and B. Griffith-Williams, Use and abuse of law in the Athenian courts (Leiden and Boston 2018). (7) U. Babusiaux, W. Kaiser and M. Schermaier (eds.). Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung, Volume 135, Issue 1, Pages 877–919.

Witnesses and Evidence, edited by C. Carey, B. Griffith-Williams, M. Edwards , 2024

Gnomon, 2022

Synthesis - Journal for Philosophy, 2023

Although 'epistemic justification' is one of the main concerns within forensic contexts, questions such as 'under what conditions testimonial speeches can be regarded as true?' are much more ancient than lawcourts. Indeed, they are as ancient as Greek culture itself, for the problem of 'knowledge-transmission' worries Greek culture from its very beginning, being essentially linked to the familiar question of 'poetic authority'. My aim is to investigate the development of 'poetic/epistemic authority' in ancient Greek thought: I will take Antiphon as my starting point, and I will work backword. Indeed, Antiphon is particularly significant, for he represents an 'in-between': he is the endpoint of a story beginning with Homer and the starting point of another story leading to the formalization of oratory (forensic oratory) as a separate discipline. The paper is divided into 5 sections: section 1 shall consider a significant passage from Antiphon's On the Chorus Boy; section 2 takes into consideration the 'Homeric paradigm' arguing that it puts forward an extreme 'Preemption Thesis'; section 3 lingers on Hesiod and his role in the evolution of Early Greek epistemology; section 4 takes Xenophanes as the turning-point in pre-platonic epistemology (of testimony); section 5 addresses Parmenides' Poem.