La Pace di Filocrate e l'enigma della clausola focidese

One of the most debated topics regarding the Peace of Philocrates (346 BC) is the fate of the Phocians: were they excluded by a specific clause or not? This paper argues that if we take Demosthenes at face value the Athenians debated about more than one clause concerning the Phocians. A closer analysis of the historical, performative and memorial context of the peace negotiations, on the one hand, and of the legal proceedings against parapresbeia, on the other, suggests that the clause !"#$%&"'($%)*+%,()'($ was debated in the assembly, and then deleted, whereas the attempt to furtively reinsert it afterwards by Aeschines and Philocrates was invented by Demosthenes in order to get Aeschines into trouble and promote his own policy. For the same reason, the relevance of other Phocian clauses was emphasized. One of the main aims of the whole ‘Phocian discourse’ by Demosthenes was to articulate and share with the Athenians a specific version of the past in order to plot, and increase fear of, the future: the ruin of the Phocians, who were deceived (by Philip and by Aeschines) in the past, is equated with the risk the Athenians are running to be deceived (again by Philip and by Aeschines) and fall into disrepair in the future. Several war scenarios are opening up, the battle of Chaeronea is at the gate: a specific memory of the past raises anxiety levels about the future in the Athenian assembly, a fact Demosthenes is well aware of.