Editing Antiphon (orator) (section)

=== Career ===
Antiphon  was a [[politician|statesman]] who took up [[rhetoric]] as a profession.He first started as a teacher teaching rhetoric and began his forensic career later. He wrote his early famous works of Tetralogies with his interest in the philosophy of justice and the Athenian legal system. He continued his teaching career afterward.

In the fifth century, public speaking was a common practice. The Greeks valued impromptu speaking over written discourse, [[Alcidamas]] argued in ''On Sophists'' that the best speeches are the ones ‘least like those are written.’<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gagarin, Michael, and Paul Woodruff |title=Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995}}</ref>As a result, no speaker considered composing their speech for someone else or preparing it beforehand. Or even if there were written speeches, they failed to withstand the stringent requirements of Athenian or critical taste.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Edwards |first=Michael J. |date=2000 |title=Antiphon and the Beginnings of Athenian Literary Oratory |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/880253 |journal=Rhetorica |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=227–242 |doi=10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.227 |issn=1533-8541|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Writing speeches was, therefore, a bold idea that was controversial at the time.

Antiphon became the first to write forensic speeches for publication. He was well-known for his love of money, as declared by [[Plato]] in his ''Peisandros''.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Edwards |first=Michael J. |date=2000-08-01 |title=Antiphon and the Beginnings of Athenian Literary Oratory |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/rhetorica/article/18/3/227/82187/Antiphon-and-the-Beginnings-of-Athenian-Literary |journal=Rhetorica |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=227–242 |doi=10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.227 |issn=0734-8584|url-access=subscription }}</ref> And the [[Archidamian War]] had left his family in poverty, so he looked for an additional occupation of composing speeches.<ref name=":02" /> As suggested by [[Thucydides]], Antiphon ‘was not willingly to come forward before the assembly or any other public arena, but was the object of the people’s suspicion on account of a reputation for cleverness,’ but ‘he was the one who could help the most if somebody asked for advice.’<ref>{{Citation |last=Thucydides |editor-first1=Martin |editor-first2=P. J. |editor-last1=Hammond |editor-last2=Rhodes |title=History of the Peloponnesian War |date=2009-06-11 |work=Oxford World's Classics: Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00266021 |access-date=2025-03-26 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oseo/instance.00266021 |isbn=978-0-19-282191-1|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Antiphon acquired enough reputation to start his [[Logographer (history)|logographic]] business, fragments of his lost speeches revealed that Antiphon traveled far and had a wide range of acquaintances, including the general [[Demosthenes (general)|Demosthenes]] and [[Alcibiades]] as clients.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://doi.org/10.7560/728080 |title=Antiphon and Andocides |date=1998 |publisher=University of Texas Press |doi=10.7560/728080 |isbn=978-0-292-79911-0}}</ref>There were arguments about whether he was the first logographer in Greece, there is no doubt that he was the first to write speeches for money.<ref name=":02" />

He continued to educate, participate in complicated conversations and arguments, and converse with his friends about Athens' political issues in the final 20 years of his life. And more crucially, he stayed behind the scenes to counsel litigants. His chief business was that of a [[logographer (legal)|logographer]] ({{lang|grc|λογογράφος}}), that is a professional speech-writer. He wrote for those who felt incompetent to conduct their own cases—all disputants were obliged to do so—without expert assistance. Fifteen of Antiphon's speeches are extant: twelve are mere school exercises on fictitious cases, divided into [[tetralogies]], each comprising two speeches for prosecution and defence&mdash;accusation, defence, reply, counter-reply; three refer to actual legal processes.  All deal with cases of [[homicide]] ({{lang|grc|φονικαὶ δίκαι}}). Antiphon is also said to have composed a {{lang|grc|Τέχνη}} or art of Rhetoric.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Antiphon|volume=2|page=133}}</ref>