Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens. By Jon Hesk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 344p. $65.00

Extract

This thoughtful and wide-ranging book addresses a problem that is as salient for modern as for ancient democracies: Given that democracy is necessarily predicated on judging the worth of public speech, how can democratic decision makers, whether legislators or jurors, know when speech is truthful? The Athenian political orator Demosthenes put the issue clearly: “Where the political constitution is based on speeches, how can it be safely administered if the speeches are false?” (Demosthenes [On the False Embassy] 19.185; Hesk, p. 164). Jon Hesk shows how that question becomes sharper with the availability of ever more sophisticated techniques of persuasion. Democrats today agonize over the problem of “spin”: manipulation of the media by professionals who are cherished by politicians for their ability to persuade voters to believe that which is advantageous to their paymasters. Hesk cites a well-chosen array of modern examples, drawn primarily from British politics. In ancient Athens, a similar concern centered on techniques of persuasion associated with professional teachers of rhetoric: the socalled sophists. As he proves, the term “sophist” was no more approbative in classical Athens than “spin-doctor” is today.