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Proem.

Sometimes there is an ordinary proem, much in the manner of Lysias, explaining the friendship of the speaker for the litigant1 or seeking to prepossess the court against the adversary2. Sometimes there is no proem, properly so called. Thus the third and ninth speeches open at once with the briefest possible statement of the case,—followed, in IX., by a sketch of what the speaker will go on to prove (πρόθεσις, § 1),—in III., by a preliminary argument (προκατασκευή, §§ 1—6). The same sort of preliminary argument forms the opening of Or. v., §§ 1—4; and immediately follows the recitation of laws which introduces Or. XI.3 This bold abruptness is characteristic of Isaeos. The genuine forensic speeches of Demosthenes show not a single instance in which he ventured to dispense with a proem.

1 e.g. Or. IV. (Nikostratos) § 1; very brief: Or. VI. (Philoktemon) §§ 1—2: and the fragment For Eumathes.

2 e.g. Or. I. (Klconymos) §§ 2— 7: Or. VIII. (Kiron) §§ 1—5.

3 See, too, the fragment ‘Against Aristogeiton and Archippos’, ch. XXI. ad fin.

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. Macmillan. 1876.

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