Against Timarchus

Against Timarchus (Greek: Κατὰ Τιμάρχου) was a speech by Aeschines accusing Timarchus of being unfit to involve himself in public life. The case was brought about in 346/5, in response to Timarchus, along with Demosthenes, bringing a suit against Aeschines, accusing him of misconduct as an ambassador to Philip II of Macedon.[1] The speech provides evidence of a number of actions which, according to Aeschines, would cause a citizen to lose the right of addressing the Assembly. Aeschines accuses Timarchus of two of these forbidden acts: prostituting himself, and wasting his inheritance.[2] Along with the accusations of prostitution and squandering his inheritance for which Timarchus was on trial, the speech contains charges of "bribery, sycophancy, the buying of office, embezzlment, and perjury".[3]

Modern scholars have criticised the lack of evidence that Aeschines put forward in Against Timarchus,[4] for instance by pointing out that he has no evidence that any of Timarchus' lovers ever paid him.[5] Indeed, Hubbard observes that he does not even manage to produce a single witness who will testify that Timarchus had any sexual relationship with the men in question at all,[6] though in his speeches Aeschines says that Timarchus' affairs were well known to the jury.[7] Aeschines won the case and Timarchus was punished by disenfranchisement.[8]

References
  1. Cook, Brad L. (2012). "Swift-boating in Antiquity: Rhetorical Framing of the Good Citizen in Fourth-Century Athens". Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 30 (3): 223–224.
  2. Cook, Brad L. (2012). "Swift-boating in Antiquity: Rhetorical Framing of the Good Citizen in Fourth-Century Athens". Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 30 (3): 225.
  3. Hunter, Virginia (1990). "Gossip and the Politics of Reputation in Classical Athens". Phoenix. 44 (4): 310.
  4. Cook, Brad L. (2012). "Swift-boating in Antiquity: Rhetorical Framing of the Good Citizen in Fourth-Century Athens". Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 30 (3): 226.
  5. Lanni, Adriaan (2010). "The Expressive Effect of Athenian Prostitution Laws". Classical Antiquity. 29 (1): 54.
  6. Hubbard, T.K. (1998). "Popular Perceptions of Elite Homosexuality in Classical Athens". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 6 (1): 63.
  7. Kenneth J. Dover (1989). Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 22. ISBN 0674362616.
  8. Cook, Brad L. (2012). "Swift-boating in Antiquity: Rhetorical Framing of the Good Citizen in Fourth-Century Athens". Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 30 (3): 224.
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