The Afterlife of the Orators’ Afterlife

Abstract

The concluding chapter explores how the earliest reception of Attic political oratory shaped the genre’s long-term legacy and illuminates strategies of memory and reconciliation in the early Hellenistic period. Focusing on the Rhodian reception of Aeschines and on third-century bce rhetorical exercises preserved on papyrus, it argues that early Hellenistic engagement with Attic oratory marked a decisive phase in the dissemination of the Athenian political and rhetorical model across the Hellenistic world. Situating this development within broader patterns of cultural convergence among poleis, the chapter returns to Athens to examine how Attic oratory reaffirmed democratic traditions during a period of political transition. It concludes that early Hellenistic Athens played a crucial role in shaping the legacy of Athenian democracy, in antiquity and beyond.