Against the Stepmother for Poisoning

Against the Stepmother for Poisoning (Ancient Greek: Φαρμακείας κατὰ τῆς μητρυιᾶς) is one of fifteen extant speeches by the Athenian orator Antiphon. K.J. Dover suggests that it was produced after what is now known as Antiphon's sixth speech, but before the fifth.^[1] Therefore, Dover dates the speech to between 419 and 414 BC.^[2] Other scholars, however, consider that Against the Stepmother was the earliest of Antiphon's surviving speeches, with Michael Edwards arguing that the speech dates to some time before 421.^[3]

The speech was for the prosecution in a murder trial. The plaintiff accuses his stepmother of having murdered his father while he was a child.^[4] The speech attempts to prove two charges: firstly that the stepmother arranged for her husband to be given a drug, and secondly that she intended for it to kill him.^[5] The case rests on the argument that the stepmother persuaded another woman to poison her husband; as the speaker never explains how he came to learn of this conspiracy, Wohl says that he may have made it up entirely.^[6]

Aside from the assertion that the stepmother had previously attempted to poison her husband, the speaker provides no evidence of his claims. Instead, he appeals to the jurors' fear of betrayal by their wives, and compares his stepmother's actions to those of Clytemnestra murdering Agamemnon.^[7]

As women were not allowed to represent themselves in court in classical Athens, the stepmother seems to have been represented by her sons.^[4] The speech for the defence does not survive, but it may have argued that the stepmother had not intended to kill her husband, merely to give him a love potion.^[4]

The charge, brought many years after the event, may have been motivated by a dispute over inheritance.^[8] We do not know the outcome of the case.^[9] However, Dover comments that the case made in the speech is "extremely weak".^[1]

See also

• Women in Classical Athens

Notes

1. Dover 1950, p. 53
2. Dover 1950, p. 44
3. Edwards 2000, p. 236
4. Wohl 2010, p. 43
5. Wohl 2010, p. 44
6. Wohl 2010, p. 45
7. Gagarin & MacDowell 1998, p. 9
8. Wohl 2010, n.54
9. Wohl 2010, p. 64

References

• Dover, K.J. (1950). "The Chronology of Antiphon's Speeches". The Classical Quarterly. 44 (1).
• Edwards, Michael J. (2000). "Antiphon and the Beginnings of Athenian Literary Oratory". Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 18 (3).
• Gagarin, Michael; MacDowell, Douglas M. (1998). Antiphon and Andocides. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-72808-0.
• Wohl, Victoria (2010). "A Tragic Case of Poisoning: Intention Between Tragedy and the Law". Transactions of the American Philological Association. 140 (1).