Impiety Avenged: Rewriting Athenian History

In sources from various periods of antiquity we can find numerous remarks concerning the trials for ἀσέβεια (“impiety”) that reportedly took place in fifthand fourth-century Athens. Despite several notorious trials well attested in the contemporary sources, these remarks can often be dated many centuries later than the actual events that they describe, sometimes even as late as the biographical writings of Diogenes Laertius (ca. 3rd century CE) or Plutarch (1st/2nd century CE), neither of whom was particularly careful in his approach to the sources. This essay argues that some of these cases follow a pattern of constructing ancient fake testimonies of the past and, as such, they display numerous shared features relating to their fictive nature.

NCN DEC2012/07/N/HS2/00967