Everything about Aeschines totally explained
Aeschines (in
Greek Αἰσχίνης,
389–
314 BC),
Greek statesman and one of the ten
Attic orators.
Life
Although it's known he was born in
Athens, the statements as to his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable. Aeschines' father was Atrometus, an elementary school teacher of letters. His mother Glaukothea assisted in the religious rites of initiation for the poor. After assisting his father in his school, he tried his hand at
acting with indifferent success, served with distinction in the
army, and held several clerkships, amongst them the office of clerk to the
Boule. Among the campaigns that Aeschines participated in were Phlius in the
Peloponnese (
368 BC),
Battle of Mantinea (
362 BC), and Phokion's campaign in Euboea (
349 BC). The fall of
Olynthus (
348 BC) brought Aeschines into the political arena, and he was sent on an embassy to rouse the Peloponnese against
Philip II of Macedon.
In spring of
347 BC, Aeschines addressed the assembly of Ten Thousand in
Megalopolis,
Arcadia urging them to unite and defend independence against Philip. In the summer
347 BC, he was a member of the peace embassy to Philip, who seems to have won him over entirely to his side. His dilatoriness during the second embassy (
346 BC) sent to ratify the terms of peace led to his accusation by
Demosthenes and
Timarchos on a charge of
high treason. Aeschines counterattacked by claiming that his accuser Timarchos had forfeited the right to speak before the people as a consequence of youthful debauches which had left him with the reputation of being a
whore. Timarchos had been the
eromenos of many men in the port city of
Piraeus. The suit succeeded and Timarchos was sentenced to
atimia and politically destroyed, according to Demosthenes. This comment was later interpreted by
Pseudo-Plutarch in his
Lives of the Ten Orators as meaning that Timarchos hanged himself upon leaving the assembly, a suggestion contested by some modern historians
This oration,
Against Timarchos, is considered important because of the great bulk of
Athenian law it cites, and the light it throws upon the construction of male homosexual relations at the time. In particular, it documents the nuanced view which the Athenians took of relations between men and youths. It shows that such relations were condoned as long as they were based on desire and persuasion, as were Aeschine's own flings with boys, his fights over them, and the poems he addressed to them, all of which he discusses so as to preclude their being used against him. On the other hand, if they were based on financial arrangements in which the boy traded his favors in exchange for money, as Timarchos was shown to have done, having been a paid escort, they were condemned. As a consequence of his successful attack on Timarchos, Aeschines was cleared of the charge of treason.
In
343 BC the attack on Aeschines was renewed by Demosthenes in his speech
On the False Embassy. Aeschines replied in a speech with the same title and was again acquitted. In
339 BC, as one of the Athenian deputies (
pylagorae) in the
Amphictyonic Council, he made a speech which brought about the
Sacred War.
By way of revenge, Aeschines endeavoured to fix the blame for these disasters upon Demosthenes. In
336 BC, when
Ctesiphon proposed that his friend Demosthenes should be rewarded with a golden crown for his distinguished services to the state, he was accused by Aeschines of having violated the law in bringing forward the motion. The matter remained in abeyance till
330 BC, when the two rivals delivered their speeches
Against Ctesiphon and
On the Crown. The result was a complete victory for Demosthenes.
Aeschines went into voluntary exile at
Rhodes, where he opened a school of
rhetoric. He afterwards removed to
Samos, where he died aged seventy-five. His three speeches, called by the ancients "the Three Graces," rank next to those of Demosthenes.
Photius knew of nine letters by him which he called
the Nine Muses; the twelve published under his name (
Hercher,
Epistolographi Graeci) are not genuine.
Ancient Authorities
Demosthenes,
De Corona and De Falsa Legatione; Aeschines,
De Falsa Legations and
In Ctesiphentem;
Lives by
Plutarch,
Philostratus and
Libanius; the
Exegesis of
Apollonius.
Editions
Further Information
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