Hypereides - Surviving Speeches

Surviving Speeches

Seventy-seven speeches have been attributed to Hypereides, of which seventy-five were regarded as spurious by his contemporaries. It is said that a manuscript of most of the speeches survived as late as the 15th century in the library of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, but was later destroyed after the capture of Buda by the Turks in the 16th century. Only a few fragments were known until relatively recent times. In 1847 large fragments of his speeches, Against Demosthenes and For Lycophron (incidentally interesting for clarifying the order of marriage processions and other details of Athenian life, and the Athenian government of Lemnos) and the whole of For Euxenippus (c. 330 BCE, a locus classicus on eisangeliai or state prosecutions), were found in a tomb at Thebes in Egypt. In 1856 a considerable portion of a logos epitaphios, a Funeral Oration over Leosthenes and his comrades who had fallen in the Lamian war was discovered. Currently this is the best surviving example of epideictic oratory.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century further discoveries were made including the conclusion of the speech Against Philippides (dealing with an indictment for the proposal of unconstitutional measure, arising out of the disputes of the Macedonian and anti-Macedonian parties at Athens), and of the whole of Against Athenogenes (a perfumer accused of fraud in the sale of his business).