The Athenian Procedure of “dokimasia” of Orators. A Response to Douglas M. MacDowell

Douglas MacDowell has provided a complete analysis of the dokimasia rhetoron. In particular, he has affirmed that the consequence of a defeat in a dokimasia rhetoron was not partial atimia, as commonly mantained, but total atimia. He has concluded that the complex of laws involving the four acts mentioned in the law about the dokimasia rhetoron (maltreatment of parents, military dereliction, prostitution, squandering one’s ancestral property) seems very inconsistent, because a person could suffer a different penalty for committing the same act, according to the judicial action chosen (eisangelia or graphe on the one hand, dokimasia on the other). In the case of the laws considered here, some observations raise doubt about the proposition that there were different penalties for the same act, depending on the legal action. On the contrary, in this article I have argued that there were different penalties and, therefore, different actions, according to differences in the conduct for which individuals were prosecuted.