Antiphon Tetralog. 3. 4. 3

Abstract

This paper deals with the initial phrase of Tetralog. 3. 4. 3: κοινοῦ δὲ τοῦ τεκμηρίου ἡμῖν ὄντος τούτῳ τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν. Such is the text of the manuscripts. Some scholars have proposed emendations to it. Evidently, most of them were confused by the proximity of two datives, τούτῳ and τῷ παντί. Others have defended the text as it stands in the manuscripts. At the same time, nearly all have regarded the pronoun τούτῳ as masculine and separated it from the subsequent τῷ παντί: κοινοῦ δὲ τοῦ τεκμηρίου ἡμῖν ὄντος τούτῳ, τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν. I try to show that the correct interpretation, not involving change of the manuscript reading, was proposed long ago by Johann Reiske. He regarded τούτῳ as neuter and separated τούτῳ τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν from the previous part of the phrase: κοινοῦ δὲ τοῦ τεκμηρίου ἡμῖν ὄντος, τούτῳ τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν. This interpretation makes perfect sense. It adds weight to the end of the phrase (τούτῳ τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν versus τῷ παντὶ προέχομεν), as τούτῳ “with the help of the following argument” points to the reason for the superiority of the defense over the prosecution. If the pronoun τούτῳ is neuter, it is opposed to τοῦ τεκμηρίου. According to this interpretation, Antiphon opposes two kinds of arguments: those using inferential evidence (τοῦ τεκμηρίου) and those using direct evidence (τούτῳ). This opposition suits the author of the Tetralogies just fine. Eduard Maetzner adopted Reiske’s interpretation and demonstrated that two adjacent datives with different functions, such as τούτῳ τῷ παντί, are common in Greek.

Keywords:

Antiphon, Tetralogy, interpretation of the Greek phrase, Blass, Süss, Reiske, Maetzner, arguments from probability, direct evidence