The Honours for Demosthenes

Abstract

This chapter offers a detailed analysis of Demochares’ request for the highest civic honours for Demosthenes, submitted in 281/80 bce, examining the document and its subsections from both literary and historical perspectives. It argues that the request consciously echoes Demosthenes’ own self-representation, especially the arguments developed in On the Crown, while simultaneously appropriating and overturning contemporary criticisms advanced by rival orators. It shows that the honours functioned as a strategy of self-promotion and political legitimization for Demochares himself, who shaped the image of the honorand in ways that aligned Demosthenes’ career with his own political trajectory. The chapter thus demonstrates that the posthumous honours for Demosthenes and the contemporary collection of his speeches formed a coordinated operation of memory politics. Together, they aimed to redefine democratic ideology by elevating Demosthenes as a heroic figure of the recent past and mobilizing his texts as instruments of political authority.