Aeschines: Against Timarchus

[Alexias]

A friend recently suggested that I read the above speech. In summary, Timarchus and Demosthenes charged Aeschines with treason for his partiality towards Philip on the occasion of the second Athenian embassy (346 BC) to Pella to ratify the peace agreed by the same envoys in the preceding year. Aeschines counter-sued Timarchus for breaking the law by acting as a public official when he had, in effect, been a prostitute in his youth by living off a series of lovers and squandering his patrimony.

Below is the text concerning Alexander and Philip (copied from the Perseus online library):

But nevertheless, although all this is so plainly defined, many irrelevant arguments will be invented by Demosthenes. Possibly, when he sticks to his subject, we might be less indignant with him for the animosity he shows; but when, to the injury of our national rights, he foists in matters that do not belong to the case, then one may well be angry. Philip will be largely in evidence, and the name of Philip's son Alexander is going to be mixed up in it. For in addition to all the rest that is bad in him, this Demosthenes is an ill-mannered and boorish sort of person.

His offensive talk against Philip is foolish and out of place, but not so serious a mistake as that which I am about to mention. For confessedly he will be making his slanderous charges against a man—he who is himself no man. But when he insinuates shameful suspicions against the boy, by deliberately applying to him words of double meaning, he makes our city ridiculous.

For, under the impression that he is hurting me with reference to the accounting which I am about to render for my service on the embassy, he says that when the other day he himself was describing the boy Alexander, telling how at a certain banquet of ours he played the cithara, reciting certain passages in which there were thrusts at another boy, and when he reported to the senate what he himself happened to know about the incident, I got angry at his jests at the expense of the boy72, as though I were not merely a member of the embassy, but one of the boy's own family.

Now I naturally have had no conversation with Alexander, because of his youth, but Philip I do praise now because of his auspicious words, and if in what he does toward us in the future he shall fulfil the promise of what he now says, he will make praise of him a safe and easy thing. I did, indeed, rebuke Demosthenes in the senate-chamber, not because I was courting the favor of the boy, but because I felt that if you should listen to such words as his, the city would show itself as ill-behaved as the speaker.


72 The words of double meaning that Aeschines says Demosthenes applied to the boy Alexander would be connected with the story of this “playing” and “reciting.”

My problem is, what is he talking about?

I've only previously read about this incident being very briefly described as the 9 or 10 year old Alexander entertaining the Athenian envoys by playing on the cithara and debating with another boy, but it would appear that the incident was a little more than this and the object of some discussion, or gossip, in Athens.

As the context of the speech is sexual habits, did the 10 year old Alexander act in a sexually provocative manner? Not being a Greek scholar, unfortunately I can’t interpret ‘thrusts’ to say whether Alexander was just making jibes at another boy or whether a verbal, and physical, argument ensued. Aeschines seems to have felt the need to defend Alexander’s behaviour though.

While Philip probably wasn’t actually prostituting his son, he can’t have been unaware that the Athenian envoys would have regarded a pretty, pre-pubescent boy performing for them as eye-candy. With the added frisson of an argument or a fight, the occasion became memorable, but Timarchus and Demosthenes’ would appear to be implying that Aeschines accepted Alexander’s favour as a bribe by Philip to become pro-Macedonian.

Mary Renault has it, of course, that it was Demosthenes who fancied Alexander and became even more anti-Macedonian when he discovered who Alexander was. Yet if Alexander were just one of Philip’s younger sons at this point, might Philip have offered him to secure an important peace deal? Psychologists might have a goldmine here in explaining Alexander’s later sexual restraint!

Am I letting my imagination run away with me, or is there a different interpretation of this speech?

[watchingcat]

I'll stand aside to any expert in the field, but this is what I read:
Demosthenes, on the return of the embassage from Macedon where Peace was agreed, reporting to the Athenian senate, was obviously Anti-Phillip and made several jests regarding Alexander, probably of a sexual nature. Aeschines rebukes him in the senate, to which Demosthenes and Timarchus, probably stung by his wit and nobleness, promptly sue him. This speech was taken from his counter suit, by then presumably wilder and more salubrious accusations claims had been whipped up by Demosthenes, such as insinuations of intimacy between Aeschines and Alexander. Personally, i wouldn't believe a word Demosthenes said.
In my view: Demosthenes was a complete douche, a mouthy demagogue of the very worst kind, if you can have one of those Radio personalities who knows how to stir up trouble, you'll know what I mean. Aeschines, on the other hand, was a noble minded old school military Athenian senator who had served with distinction in battle, and I truly believe he fell for Phillips Dream, the age old dream, "If only Greece could stop fighting itself and unite, what could she achieve?". Demosthenes stupidity and capriciousness would have irked him, "For in addition to all the rest that is bad in him, this Demosthenes is an ill-mannered and boorish sort of person.", let alone making jests about a mans man like Phillip, ie "he will be making his slanderous charges against a man—he who is himself no man.". But it was probably against many high minded Senators taste to make provocative sexual allusions about a 10 yr old prince simply to score some cheap political mileage, and/or hoping to hurt Aeschines that forced him to respond for the 'dignity' of the chamber. Aeschines probably put him in his place, called him "Batulus" as he was wont to do, referring to Demosthenes habit of notoriously bad form of pederasty. Demosthenes was idealised by later peoples due to his "Democratic" ideas, but basically, he was just a troublemaking jealous kiddy diddler who jacked off about Athens still living in the Golden Age. The Cicero of Greece if you will, he didn't have the hardness to make him a Cato. He probably did fap to Alexander , but that's my own deduction of psychology.
Does this sound right to anyone else or am I completely off track. PS I have no Idea what Batulus means.

[athenas owl]

Er....that was rather blunt and plain spoken watchingcat. I arrived at Pothos this morning to add some links, but read this first. I'll have to come back, though, because I can't stop laughing. Really naughty. Do you talk to your classics prof with that mouth?

That said, I agree for the most part...

[Alexias]

I've had a guilty conscience about this thread for years. I should have had the courage to call athenas owl out for her rudeness to watchingcat, who never posted anything again - hardly surprising when met with such mockery, but I didn't.

Anyway, it appears that Alexander played the kithara at a banquet and either debated with another boy or made some remarks about another boy. Because he was a young boy, he did not speak to the men, his father's guests, at the banquet, but obviously made an impression on Demosthenes, who was known for his interest in young boys. In relating the story, Demosthenes imputed sexual innuendo to Alexander's words, which Aeschines objected to. He says his reason for objecting was not to court the favour of the boy - he does not make it clear here whether he means sexual or political favour - but because it reflects badly on Athens to believe such improper stories.

The point of the story appears to be that paedophilia was fairly common in ancient Greece, although officially disapproved of, and that Alexander attracted attention even at 10 years old, perhaps because he was precocious and outspoken.

[system1988]

I am replying just to mention that this is the very first written evidence we got that concerns Alexander's childhood- not Plutarch's story on Bucefalas.

And what evidence this is! As it comes from a famous Athenian orator who, being an ambassador, had the chance to meet Alexander as a young teenager in a symposium held by his father, Philip. On that occassion, Alexander talked, in lines (?), for another child (?). His speech must have been an ambiguous one since it gave to the famous orator, Demosthenes, to "speak ill" of the soon to be full-grown teenager and create an issue in the Athenian Demos. We may never learn to whom Alexander wa refering to and what was the context of his words that gave Demosthenes the opprortunity to make such an offensive reference.

I have read many times that paragraph of Aeschines and my personal take, based on the flow of the speech and the atmosphere of the era on it is that Alexander's words were erotic in their essence. Why else would such a great issue rise for the words of a youngster?

We do have a precocious and outspoken child that acts like an adult.

[hiphys]

We all Pothosians would like to know what Alexander played, told and to whom in this quote of Aeschines (Ag. Tim.167-169). I'll write some remarks about the words used here and some other observations. First the Greek text says Alexander played the cithara, the instrument that was always used to accompany all recitations of poems, lyrics, drama. Here Aeschines describes what Alexander did with two words: "rhèseis" indicates a piece (probably of a poem); "antikroùseis" is literaly an answer, but in this context it may indicate a technique in verse drama (called in Greek "stichomythìa") in which sequences of single alternating lines (and/or half-lines/two-line speeches) are given to alternating characters. Alexander was very fond of tragedies and knew by heart many dramas of Euripides (who happened to be a guest of Archelaos, the Macedonian king of the late V century B.C., wrote the Bacchae and died in Macedon). Therefore was perfectly normal for him to perform some dramatic passages for his father's guests. As for Demosthenes, we know he mocked Alexander, his love for the Iliad and his emulation of Achilles calling him Margites, a comic clumsy hero the opposite of Achilles. But even this guy the 'fool' had the honour to be celebrated by Homer, according to Aristoteles, and Demosthenes was very clever to seize an opportunity to mock the heroic claims of his enemy using nonetheless the same Homer!