"It may be observed that when Thucydides reports the speech of the Syracusan demagogue Athenagoras, he marks his manner by a certain violence of expression.E.g. vi. 40, ἀλλ' ἔτι καὶ νῦν, ὦ πάντων ἀξυνετώτατοι, εἰ μὴ μανθάνετε κακὰ σπεύδοντες, ἢ ἀμαθέστατοί ἐστε ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα Ἑλλήνων, ἢ ἀδικώτατοι, εἰ εἰδότες τολμᾶτε.In a Mémoire sur Thucydide, by M. Meierotto (in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1790–91, p. 530), the writer observes, with reference to the discrimination of character in the speeches: "Cléon et Athénagore parlent ordinairement d'un ton dur, offensant et grossier, dont pourtant ils s'écartent quelquefois." We have only one speech of Cleon and one of Athenagoras; so far as these go, however, the striking thing, it seems to me, is not the resemblance, but the contrast."
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, "The Speeches of Thucydides", Essays and Addresses (Cambridge, 1907), p. 389
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Athenagoras of Syracuse
(Greek: Ἀθηναγόρας) an elusive character who is only commented on in Thucydides (6, 36–40). The context of his speech in Thucydides is 415 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was about to invade Sicily (Magna Graecia). He denies the invasion, rudely retorting to Hermocrates' speech that no invasion was imminent.
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