Demosthenes’ Shield and Philip’s 'Poetry' in Plutarch, Demosthenes 20

Plutarch’s account of Demosthenes’ experiences surrounding the battle of Chaeronea (Plu. Dem. 20.1-5) is rich with resonances that help to reveal the gap, represented throughout the Life, between Demosthenes’ logoi and his erga (Mossman 1999). But perhaps no detail of the brief narrative is so symbolic as Demosthenes’ shield, which Plutarch says was inscribed with gold letters that read ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ (20.2). This single artifact connects Demosthenes’ behavior more closely with the literary and rhetorical traditions; contributes to the characterization of Demosthenes as a man far better prepared for government than for war; and helps to predict Philip’s unusual reaction after the Macedonian victory. Carrying a remarkable shield bears literary overtones of heroism (citations: Chase 1902), and indeed, Plutarch initially portrays Demosthenes as if he is in command against Philip, composing 20.1 as a virtual battle-exhortation (Mossman). But there are signs even in this short ‘speech’ that Plutarch’s Demosthenes is not quite adhering to the conventions of the genre (e.g. Zoido 2007), especially in the exempla that he chooses: while Epaminondas was remembered in antiquity as a daring and innovative military commander (e.g. Cawkwell 1972; Shrimpton 1971), Pericles tended to be recollected by the orators more frequently for his political leadership than for his service in combat (Nouhaud 1982; Pearson 1941). Demosthenes’ aemulatio of Pericles is therefore perhaps less useful in this context (Mossman). Once the conflict begins, Demosthenes’ shortcomings as a potential fighter are quickly revealed: he casts away his shield and flees (20.2), thereby joining the literary tradition of ripsaspides (e.g. Archil. fr. 5 West). The text’s close juxtaposition of different literary genres in Demosthenes’ ‘performance’ metaphorically recollects some of the compositional techniques of the rhetors (Yunis 2000), but the text on the abandoned shield itself reveals another layer of meaning. Ἀγαθὴ τύχη received worship at Athens as a goddess by the fourth century (Tracy 1994, citing IG II2 4564), and around the time of Chaeronea began to appear more frequently in the dative as part of epigraphic “enactment formulae” (Tracy). This phraseology endured into the Roman era, and is attested widely in the Greek-speaking world. The shield that Plutarch’s Demosthenes abandons at Chaeronea, therefore, may be invoking a divinity, but it is also echoing the currency of Demosthenes’ true profession: the governmental decree. This, then, may help to explain why Philip, in Plutarch’s account, celebrates his triumph over the Greeks in the very next section of the text by reciting a metrical rendition of a decree formula that includes Demosthenes’ name (20.3). Like Demosthenes, Philip brings together disparate literary genres in his own sympotic ‘performance,’ offering as he does so a way of understanding the shield’s wording that would have been familiar to Plutarch’s readers from the inscriptions around them. But still another facet of the shield’s meaning may have emerged for them, as well: Plutarch knew the many guises of τύχη (e.g. Swain 1989), and by the Roman period she had gradually become closely connected with the worship of another divinity whose darker side perhaps represented more clearly what had happened to Demosthenes’ Greeks at Chaeronea: Nemesis (e.g. Plu. Mar. 23.1; Hornum 1993; Edwards 1990). References Cawkwell, G. L., “Epaminondas and Thebes,” CQ 22 (1972), 254-78. Chase, George Henry, “The Shield Devices of the Greeks,” HSCP 13 (1902), 61-127. Edwards, Charles M., “Tyche at Corinth,” Hesperia 59 (1990), 529-42. Hornum, Michael B., Nemesis, the Roman State, and the Games (Leiden, 1993). Mossman, Judith, “Is the Pen Mightier Than the Sword? The Failure of Rhetoric in Plutarch’s Demosthenes,” Histos 1999 (http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1999/mossman.html). Nouhaud, Michel, L’utilisation de l’histoire par les orateurs attiques (Paris, 1982). Pearson, Lionel, “Historical Allusions in the Attic Orators,” CP 36 (1941), 209-29. Shrimpton, G. S., “The Theban Supremacy in Fourth-Century Literature,” Phoenix 25 (1971), 310-18. Swain, Simon, “Plutarch: Chance, Providence, and History,” AJP 110 (1989), 272-302. Tracy, Stephen V., “IG II2 1195 and Agathe Tyche in Attica,” Hesperia 63 (1994), 241-4. Yunis, Harvey, “Politics as Literature: Demosthenes and the Burden of the Athenian Past,” Arion 8 (2000), 97-118. Zoido, Juan Carlos Iglesias, “The Battle Exhortation in Ancient Rhetoric,” Rhetorica 25 (2007), 141-58.