Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon Under Macedonian Shadow

Aeschines, an orator and political rival of Demosthenes, stood before a jury of hundreds and argued law. The charge: that Ctesiphon had illegally proposed to crown Demosthenes with a golden wreath and to announce it in the theater. The year: 330 BCE. The backdrop: Macedonian hegemony after Chaironeia [8], [15]. The venue: Athenian courts near the Royal Stoa, with water-clocks timing speeches and bronze ballots waiting for verdict.

The case exemplified the late 4th‑century tone. Honors were not merely municipal gestures; they were signals in a world with a dominant neighbor. Aeschines pressed procedural points—timing, accounting, legality of public proclamation—knowing that law was the terrain where politics could still play hard. The sound was deliberate: measured voices, the drip of the klepsydra, a murmur mounting to a roar.

Demosthenes answered with his own speech (On the Crown), defending not just the decree but his policy of resistance to Macedon. The jury’s role—sworn, numerous, and sovereign in verdict—gave weight to the outcome. Whatever Macedon thought, Athens would decide this by its procedures.

The city around the courtroom still functioned: Council in the Bouleuterion, prytaneis in the Tholos, laws posted at the Stoa. An anti‑tyranny law glinted on the Areopagos, promising immunity to defenders of democracy [12]. But autonomy was narrower than in Pericles’ day. The color of the age was tempered bronze: resilient, less bright.

In the days after the trial, the verdict—Demosthenes’ side prevailed—registered as a statement of civic values. Legality mattered, but so did a story of honorable resistance spoken in the language of the law. The court’s voice, not the Pnyx’s, carried the day.