I would like to thank Prof. Harris for reading my book Témoigner et convaincre and reviewing it in REA. I also want to thank him for bringing to my attention some bibliographic references, such as his work on the role of pollution in Athenian homicide law and the correct authorship of his analysis in Mirko Canevaro’s The Documents in the Attic Orators: Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus.
However, several points seem to me to have been misunderstood. First of all, Prof. Harris seems to have wrongly perceived the main purpose of the book. He says that “the assertion of Siron that the testimony of witnesses was considered superior is […] inaccurate” (284) and “témoigner was not the only way to convaincre used by litigants” (288). However, my purpose was to uncover the “dispositif de vérité” (the “truth-telling system”) which allows litigants to claim to be speaking truthfully. Even if the witnesses occupy a central position in this system since they are the most frequently used means of persuasion (see p. 58-67 of the book), I stated explicitly that “Il existe donc dans les discours une grande variété d’affirmations au sujet des témoins. Une telle diversité s’explique par le fait que les sources conservées proviennent de la pratique judiciaire plutôt que d’un code de loi, comme à Gortyne. Ernst Leisi a montré qu’il ne fallait pas chercher dans les procès athéniens une « théorie de la preuve » (Beweistheorie), à savoir un cadre judiciaire réglementant la valeur des preuves les unes par rapport aux autres. […] Dans les tribunaux d’Athènes, il est toujours possible d’argumenter contre un type de preuve, quel qu’il soit. » (p. 61) See also p. 36-37: “Tout et son contraire peut être affirmé par rapport aux témoignages, selon qu’ils sont favorables ou défavorables au plaignant. C’est en cherchant à dégager les arguments sur lesquels reposent l’accréditation ou le discrédit invoqués à propos d’un moyen de persuasion qu’il est possible de dépasser les apories théoriques des philosophes pour mettre au jour les critères de fonctionnement de l’attestation de la vérité dans les institutions judiciaires.”
On the contrary, Prof. Harris highlights the importance of documents. I agree that I should have been more specific in chapter 2 about written documents: this chapter only concerns private documents, and I should have been clearer about the importance of public documents. Anyway, the chapter 2 was not so negative regarding the importance of written documents, as I explicitly stated: my analysis “ne consiste pas a remettre en cause la preuve que constituent les documents. Au contraire, leur place dans le dispositif de vérité est essentielle. Il s’agit plutôt de faire varier les échelles pour comprendre sur quoi porte exactement la force probante de chaque preuve.” (p. 120)
In the same way, Prof. Harris declares that “in the absence of documents or witnesses, orators also used sophisticated arguments from probablity [sic] to convince judges (Aeschin. 1.90-92), a topic neglected by Siron” (288). Actually, I clearly wrote: “Les plaidoiries attiques peuvent ainsi envisager tour à tour la supériorité du témoin et celle des arguments logiques comme principal moyen d’attestation. Ces deux modes d’accréditation sont même parfois considérés conjointement et sans hiérarchisation.” (p. 61, with details in the footnotes)
I also showed that a witness statement can be depreciated by litigants in comparison with the knowledge of the jurors: “Les intermédiaires, qui peuvent déformer volontairement ou involontairement un renseignement, sont à proscrire autant que faire se peut. Or ce dernier aspect se retourne finalement contre les déposants : en tant que témoins directs, ils peuvent être présentés comme les premiers informateurs des juges, c’est-à-dire les premiers intermédiaires entre les spectateurs des enceintes publiques et les faits rapportés. Là encore, le dispositif de vérité n’est en rien l’expression d’une Beweistheorie gravée dans le marbre, mais l’ensemble des moyens, parfois contradictoires, dont disposent les plaignants pour jouer avec les codes afin de soutenir leurs affirmations.” (p. 217) See also the intermediate conclusion: “Le savoir des juges rend superflue toute convocation de témoin et l’orateur doit trouver des excuses pour en fournir. Ce phénomène contredit l’idée […] de la prévalence des dépositions dans le dispositif de vérité.” (p. 227) The same is true about the ancient events (that we divide under the terms myths and historical events): they can be more important than witnesses (p. 249-257).
The beginning of my general conclusion expressed without ambiguity the same idea: “Dans les tribunaux athéniens, les plaignants disposent d’une panoplie d’outils de persuasion qu’ils mobilisent selon les nécessités de leur affaire. Outre les différentes preuves mentionnées par Aristote et Anaximène de Lampsaque que sont les témoins, les documents écrits comme les contrats (συγγραφαί) ou les testaments (διαθῆκαι), les textes de lois et les sommations (προκλήσεις) de questionner un esclave ou de prêter serment, les plaignants utilisent, pour soutenir leur cas, de multiples arguments. Ceux-ci sont fondés sur le recours aux vraisemblances, aux preuves logiques, à la responsabilité testimoniale à travers serment ou procès pour faux témoignage, au savoir des témoins qui implique vue, ouïe, présence et expérience directe, aux connaissances des juges, aux récits des faits anciens, aux rumeurs, aux décisions d’arbitres privés (διαιτητής), au rapport avec les plaignants, les synégores ou les sycophantes (figure 7). Dans chaque cas, la démonstration peut mettre en valeur ces éléments s’ils sont en faveur de l’orateur ou chercher au contraire à les critiquer quand ils vont dans le sens de l’adversaire. À ce titre, il ne semble y avoir aucune hiérarchie établie entre les divers moyens de persuasion. Cette conclusion rejoint la démonstration d’Ernst Leisi qui avait pointé l’absence de « théorie de la preuve » (Beweistheorie) dans les discours judiciaires athéniens. Les juges se prononcent au cas par cas, selon les arguments avancés par les plaignants.” (p. 311)
Furthermore, the review misrepresents several of my chapters. About the dike pseudomarturion, Prof. Harris states that “Siron does not analyze in detail any of the speeches in cases brought for this action and the ways in which testimony could be attacked” (286), whereas I devoted seven pages to this issue (p. 150-157), especially to the speech Against Evergos and Mnesiboulos and to the episkepsis (in particular the precise moment when it is launched). On the contrary, regarding the torture of the slaves, Harris says nothing about my main point and chooses to criticize in detail three passages listed and not commented (among ten) in the third part of a footnote (there are 7 pages and 46 footnotes on this topic). The same is true for the appendix 1: Prof. Harris states that “Siron (329-30) claims that the documents at 23, 25, 28, 32, 34, 40, 47, 48, 61, 70, and 123 in the speech of Apollodorus Against Neaira are judged authentic by the majority of commentators”, which is “at best misleading, at worst very inaccurate” (287). Not to mention the fact that I said “several” (“plusieurs”) and not the “majority” of the commentators about §23, 25, 28, 32, 34 and 61 (so I actually included the work of Kapparis, mentioned by Harris), and the fact that three commentators point in this direction (Kirchner, Drerup, Carey, and sometimes four with Kapparis for §40, 47, 70 and 123), which is not the majority but more than the two historians on the opposite side, Harris takes only one example of speech and says nothing about all the other testimonies listed (on nearly 30 pages).
Similarly, Prof. Harris summarizes the whole chapter about witness autopsy without expressing his opinion except the fact that the book “misses here a discussion of the term ep’autophoro” (286) found in the Athenaion Politeia, whereas my book was about forensic speeches and not the Aristotle’s school. In the same way, he outlines the importance of written documents in conclusion: “To ensure accountability, extensive financial records were inscribed on stelai, many of which have been preserved in whole or in part. As Pierre Fröhlich has shown, this practice was widespread throughout the Greek world. But one cannot find any reference to this book or to any inscriptions in Siron’s study.” (288) This remark is quite surprising, as I wanted to focus on the “dispositif de vérité” inside the judicial speeches of classical Athens. This is Prof. Harris’ concern, not mine.
Various other statements concerning less important issues give a false impression of my demonstrations. For instance, Prof. Harris finds “misleading” the table listing cases in which one to six witnesses are called at a time, because “it misses several cases in which more than six are called” (284). But the point that I analyzed in these pages concerned the application in Athenian trials of the principle testis unus testis nullus known from the Roman times: the main focus of this table was the existence of testimonies made by only one witness. Thus, this is the only table in chapter 1 that did not pretend to be exhaustive.
When referring to the oath of the private arbitrators, Prof. Harris states: “Siron (211) rightly sees that the document at Dem. 21.94 is not authentic but paradoxically claims that “il semble transcrire l’idée générale de la loi”.” (287) He unfortunately forgets to say that I gave in footnote the bibliography of the historians supporting this view (Harrison and Karabélias).
Moreover, Prof. Harris declares that I made “no use of the important discussion in C. Pébarthe” concerning written documents. Yet, I mentioned the important book of Christophe Pébarthe in the beginning of the chapter on written documents, both in body text during the historiographic overview and in a long footnote (n. 9, p. 92-93). Similarly, Prof. Harris says that the book “misses the detailed refutation by G. Martin” of Thür’s thesis about the exomosia (286), whereas I mentioned it in body text and in footnote. I explicitly stated that Martin views is opposed to that of Thür (and of Carey, which Harris forgets): “Christopher Carey puis Gunther Martin […] s’opposant sur leur thèse principale” (p. 144) and “C’est sur ce point que Gunther Martin s’oppose à Carey” (p. 149, n. 138).
Some points may give rise to debate. Concerning the engklema, I found no trace of the two charges that Prof. Harris states that the book “fails to mention” (285): he speaks of Dem. 32.37, whereas the speech Against Zenothemis (Dem. 32) stops at §32; and of Dem. 38.6, whereas the engklema is read by the clerk at §14. I told the way I think this charge (Dem. 38.14) and the counter-indictment (paragraphe) at Dem. 32.23 must be analyzed (p. 104): a plaint does not need to be proved and is only called for its informative part (the main point of the chapter being to distinguish between the informative and probative parts of evidence). Adding a reference to the Metroon and its role, as Prof. Harris requests it, would not change anything about it.
But we can reach an agreement about the results of the known speeches. Prof. Harris declares that it is “too pessimistic” to say that we do not know the outcome of the trials in most cases (284). Indeed, I was repeating a common view about it, and I then wrote an article in Dike to show that the known results of the speeches preserved in the canon of the Attic orators are much more numerous than we are used to say (Siron, “Quel est votre verdict ? Le résultat des discours contenus dans le canon des dix orateurs attiques”, Dike, 2020).
Finally, the disagreement is probably deeper. Regarding the criticism about the length of the speeches, Harris says that “Siron […] misunderstands this criticism by failing to connect with the plaint (engklema), which listed the legal charges, and the promise in the judicial oath to vote only about the charges in the plaint. As Plato notes in the Theaetetus (172d-e), it was not the laconic style of speakers but the plaint that compelled litigants to “keep to the point.” Siron’s anthropological approach blinds him to the way in which legal procedures shaped discourse in court.” (288) Indeed, the purpose of the book was to develop an anthropological approach. Thus, it took into account the plaint and the judicial oath to understand why is there such an obligation, as I clearly said: “Cette opposition n’est pas anodine, car aborder des éléments qui ne concernent pas le procès est une manœuvre à laquelle se refusent souvent les plaignants, dans la mesure où elle est interdite à l’Aréopage et peut-être dans tous les tribunaux selon certains chercheurs. Il n’est pas question, ici, d’ajouter une nouvelle prise de position au débat, mais plutôt de comprendre pourquoi cette obligation juridique a été mise en place dans l’Athènes classique.” (p. 275) In the footnote, I reported the pages of my article about the topic to remind the bibliography, especially Rhodes’ “Keeping to the point”, Harris’ The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens and Lanni’s “Relevance in Athenian courts” (see Siron, “Le Laconisme des Athéniens”, Hypothèses, 2017, p. 99-100). The condescending conclusion “such are the risks of an anthropological approach to ancient Greece” (288) is more indicative of Harris’ disregard for the anthropological approach than his consideration of my book.
Nicolas Siron, Docteur de l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne -Membre associé d’ANHIMA