British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The New Hypereides
10.00am - 5.30pm, Friday 30 January 2009
A one day workshop convened by the Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and supported by the British Academy with the co-operation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Room 336, Senate House North Block, Mallet Street, London, WC1E 7HU
A map is available from http://icls.sas.ac.uk/institute/contactus/map_01T.pdf
The workshop will address one of the most exciting textual discoveries in classical scholarship over the last half century. Ten years ago an anonymous purchaser paid $2m for a thirteenth century prayer book part of which had been written on recycled parchment produced by ‘palimpsesting’, scraping away the original text for reuse. International teams of researchers have collaborated in the curation, imaging and decipherment of the lost undertexts. One of these texts consists of fragments of two speeches of Hypereides, a politician and speechwriter prominent in the Athenian opposition to the rise of Macedon as a regional power in the fourth century BCE. The existence of the text is itself a surprise, since received opinion was that Hypereides did not survive into the middle ages. But the text is important in itself, in that it significantly expands the Hypereides text available for study. The larger of the two speeches also gives us an illuminating insight into the legal battles fought in Athens over external policy and the operation of the political factions. The shorter of the two fragments is from private litigation and consists of an attack on a guardian who allegedly defrauded his wards. This both enhances our picture of Hypereides’ skill as a professional speechwriter for the courts and sheds an interesting sidelight on the use of theatrical motifs in forensic speeches.
The text of the larger fragment appeared a month ago (Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 165. 2008, 1-19), the text of the smaller fragment in 2005 (Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 154, 165-173). Research until now has been devoted principally to establishing the text. This workshop will offer scholars the first opportunity to discuss and debate the speeches as literary, oratorical and political/legal historical documents, as well as addressing the transmission of the text itself. As such it will both put our understanding of the texts on a firmer footing and stimulate further study both of these and of related texts and the socio-political context. The speakers have been chosen both to allow the full range of issues to emerge and to secure continuity with research undertaken to date.
The research to date has involved scholars from several countries and the different undertexts have each had their own international axis, in addition to ongoing collaboration with the team responsible for curation and imaging in the USA. The main axis of collaboration for the decipherment of the Hypereides text has been between the UK and scholars working in Budapest under the aegis of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which has kindly agreed to lend its name to the event.
Registration
This event will take place at Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, Room 336, Senate House North Block, Mallet Street, London, WC1E 7HU. A map is available from http://icls.sas.ac.uk/institute/contactus/map_01T.pdf.
Attendance is free but registration is essential. Spaces are limited and early registration is advised. Please contact Dr Olga Krzyszkowska, ICS Secretary: admin.icls@sas.ac.uk 020 7862 8700