131:
142:"Against the Stepmother" is Antiphon's only surviving speech for the prosecution. The plaintiff accuses his stepmother of having murdered his father while he was a child. The speech attempts to prove that the stepmother arranged for her husband to be given a drug with the intention of killing him. The case rests on the argument that the stepmother persuaded another woman, the mistress of her husband's friend Philoneus, to poison her husband. The speaker never explains how he came to learn of this conspiracy, and Victoria Wohl says that he may have made it up entirely.
199:
speaker fails to explain the stepmother's motive in poisoning her husband. However, Gagarin argues that though the prosecution case is generally agreed to be weak, the speech is
Antiphon's best narrative, and might still have resulted in a successful prosecution. While Gagarin sees the speech's use of references to tragedy as "particularly effective", Wohl suggests that this strategy might have backfired if the tragic allusions in Antiphon's speech instead brought to mind a more sympathetic character, such as Deianira.
57:
198:
The charge, brought many years after the event, may have been motivated by a dispute over inheritance. As with most surviving
Athenian legal speeches, the outcome of the case is unknown. Scholars have generally considered the prosecution case to be extremely weak. Patricia A. Watson notes that the
187:
As women were not allowed to represent themselves in court in classical Athens, the stepmother seems to have been represented by her sons. The speech for the defence does not survive, but it may have argued that the stepmother had not intended to kill her husband, merely to give him a love potion.
194:
discusses a similar case where a woman was acquitted based on the defence that she was not trying to kill her husband, but was acting out of love. Additionally, Michael
Gagarin suggests that the defence may have attempted to portray the stepmother as sympathetic, and the dead man as having treated
121:
suggests that "Against the
Stepmother" was produced after what is now known as Antiphon's sixth speech, but before the fifth. Therefore, Dover dates the speech to between 419 and 414 BC. Other scholars consider that "Against the Stepmother" was the earliest of Antiphon's surviving speeches, with
64:
The speech was given as part of a trial of a woman for killing her husband some years previously. The husband had visited his friend
Philoneus and had dinner with him; both had died, Philoneus at dinner and the husband twenty days later. Philoneus' mistress was tortured and executed for murder.
47:
in Greek mythology. As with most surviving legal speeches from classical Athens, the outcome of the case is unknown. Scholars generally consider the stepson's case to be weak, though some such as
Michael Gagarin have argued that the speech might still have resulted in a successful prosecution.
65:
After
Philoneus' friend's son reached adulthood, he prosecuted his stepmother for his father's death; "Against the Stepmother" is a speech for the prosecution from this trial. The defence was conducted by the litigant's half-brother, the son of the woman on trial.
145:
Aside from the assertion that the stepmother had previously attempted to poison her husband, the speaker provides no evidence of his claims. Instead, he appeals to the jurors' fear of betrayal by their wives, and compares his stepmother's actions to those of
35:. It is a speech for the prosecution in the case of a woman accused by her stepson of arranging for the murder of his father, her husband. The speech for the defence, apparently made by the sons of the accused woman, does not survive.
38:
The speech does not provide any evidence for the claims made by the prosecution, but instead attempts to appeal to the emotions of the jurors, drawing a parallel between the stepmother's alleged plot and
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176:. The speech also emphasises the contrast between the speaker and his step-family, claiming that he brought the case out of piety, while his stepmother behaved "godlessly" (
130:
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The exact date of the speech is uncertain, though it is likely to have been composed in the final decade of
Antiphon's life (421–411 BC).
668:
134:
Antiphon's speech compares the plaintiff's stepmother to
Clytemnestra, and his murdered father to Agamemnon, shown in this painting by
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The case against the stepmother was probably for homicide, in which case it would have been tried at the
Areopagus
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Wohl, Victoria (2010). "A Tragic Case of Poisoning: Intention Between Tragedy and the Law".
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588:
Edwards, Michael J. (2000). "Antiphon and the Beginnings of Athenian Literary Oratory".
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114:, "planning") of homicide, in which case it would have been tried at the Palladion.
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Michael Edwards arguing that the speech dates to some time before 421.
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The charge brought against the stepmother was probably homicide (
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Dover, K.J. (1950). "The Chronology of Antiphon's Speeches".
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95:
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Gagarin, Michael (2003). "Telling Stories in Athenian Law".
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Envy, Poison, and Death: Women on Trial in Classical Athens
31:) is one of fifteen extant speeches by the Athenian orator
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notes that the speech is also reminiscent of the story of
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Transactions of the American Philological Association
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Transactions of the American Philological Association
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82:). If it was, the case would have been tried at the
680:Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Misogyny, and Reality
659:Gagarin, Michael; MacDowell, Douglas M. (1998).
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591:Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
16:Oration by 5th-century BC Greek orator Antiphon
100:, "drugs"). Alternatively, it may have been
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663:. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
616:. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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21:Against the Stepmother for Poisoning
607:. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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550:Trials from Classical Athens
238:Gagarin & MacDowell 1998
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29:Φαρμακείας κατὰ τῆς μητρυιᾶς
548:Carey, Christopher (1997).
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184:) in killing her husband.
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621:Gagarin, Michael (2002).
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573:10.1017/S0009838800027981
214:Women in Classical Athens
603:Eidinow, Esther (2016).
560:The Classical Quarterly
734:Ancient Greek orations
661:Antiphon and Andocides
614:Antiphon: The Speeches
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136:Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
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644:10.1353/apa.2003.0015
623:Antiphon the Athenian
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729:5th-century BC works
552:. London: Routledge.
446:, p. 41, n. 11.
521:, pp. 104–105.
180:) and "profanely" (
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697:(1): 33–70.
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41:Clytemnestra
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739:Mariticides
507:Watson 1995
195:her badly.
723:Categories
541:References
352:Dover 1950
340:Dover 1950
316:Carey 1997
150:murdering
119:K.J. Dover
52:Background
711:159697583
652:159972377
581:170244774
531:Wohl 2010
480:Wohl 2010
468:Wohl 2010
432:Wohl 2010
420:Wohl 2010
408:Wohl 2010
396:Wohl 2010
168:Sophocles
152:Agamemnon
111:βούλευσις
104:boúleusis
84:Areopagus
45:Agamemnon
203:See also
166:told in
164:Deianira
90:phármaka
33:Antiphon
470:, n.54.
182:anosios
97:φάρμακα
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178:atheos
126:Speech
78:phónos
707:S2CID
648:S2CID
577:S2CID
220:Notes
160:Medea
71:φόνος
665:ISBN
598:(3).
188:The
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