Handbuch Antike Rhetorik

Michael Weißenberger

6Demosthenes als Redepraktiker und Kämpfer für die Polis

Abstract: The overall aim Demosthenes pursued in his political activity was to preserve and, if possible, to strengthen Athens’ position among the Greek states and the surrounding powers. The most dangerous threat to this political strategy was Macedon and its ruler King Philip II who, as an inevitable result, became the dominant and almost unique subject of Demosthenes’ oratory. In particular, 17 speeches from the Corpus Demosthenicum, delivered between 354 and 330 BC, provide detailed information about his political ideas, principles and intentions. These will be discussed in the present contribution with a view to the central political issues of that period (Athens, ...