Numerous books on Athenian democracy exist, but by far the best is M. H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes2 (Norman, OK: 1999). Hansen published a flood of specialist articles on the workings and composition of the Assembly, many of which are collected in his The Athenian Ecclesia 1 and 2 (Copenhagen: 1983 and 1989). For a more general treatment of the Assembly (which takes into account all his earlier work), see his The Athenian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford: 1987). W. R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (Princeton: 1971), is still, I think, the most accessible and best account of the role of rhetoric and the rhltores in Athenian political life. More detailed is H. Yunis’ study of political rhetoric in Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca: 1996). More controversial is J. Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton: 1989), which looks at the practical dynamic between speakers and the mass of people arising from the former’s exploitation of political and civic ideology. P. J. Rhodes, ‘Political Activity in Classical Athens’, JHS 106 (1986), pp. 132-144, considers, among other things, how politicians marshalled support, a question impossible to answer precisely. Discussion of the orators mentioned in this chapter, as well as of symbouleutic oratory, is best found in G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: 1963) and now
S. Usher, Greek Oratory: Tradition and Originality (Oxford: 1999). For more information on Demosthenes, see the various essays in my Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator (London: 2000).
World History
