Meta-Oratorical Magic: Invoking Peitho as a Powerplay in Ancient Greek Oratory

Any project of public persuasion demands craft, charisma and emotional force. It is no wonder, then, that in lawcourts and theaters, fifth and fourth century Greek orators often appealed to certain gods such as Peitho (conventionally translated, “Persuasion”) in their speeches. As scholars (Johannesen 1962, Martin 2009, Serafim 2021) have pointed out, deistic references of these sorts can be used to curry favor with the audience or, conversely, to alienate an opponent. Given the breadth of studies of deistic and religious references in Greek oratory, however, dynamics surrounding references to Peitho in particular have not yet been fully explored. References to Peitho, however, are unique given that this deity simultaneously embodies an essential quality of the speech act itself: the power of “making willing” and of successfully “winning over” one’s interlocutors. As a daughter of Aphrodite, moreover, Peitho is often associated with a species of erotic magic (Parry 1992, Pucci 1994, Vigni 2016). And, given her ambiguous (and often nonverbal) associations with force or agreeable compulsion (Buxton 1982, Pirenne-Delforge 1991, Stafford 2000), a study of references and invocations to Peitho is both provocative and generative for a deeper understanding of oratorical persuasion at the time. In this paper, then, I bring together Peitho’s tradition and extant references in civic (and dramatic) speeches, in order to illuminate the complexities of such appeals and references within Greek oratory. I argue, ultimately, that during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., Greek orators saw the magical force of Peitho as central to persuasive success.

This paper focuses on a close analysis of almost all of the extant references to the goddess Peitho found in dramatic and oratorical speeches. Before examining oratory, however, I first I first ground my examination with reference to Peitho’s mythopoetic tradition, and particularly, her association with love magic, specifically, agoge spells. I then a selection of speeches, noting, in each case, the different modes and motivations behind the orator’s choice to reference, name, or appeal to Peitho. For example, Demosthenes (Exord. 54.1), Aeschylus’ King Pelasgus (Aesch. Suppl. 523), Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Ar. Lys. 203-4), and much later Dio Chrysostom (Or. 1.9.10) all invoke Peitho at the beginning of their speech acts, in order to procure buy-in from their target audience. Similarly, Themistocles (Hdt. Hist. 8.111) and Aeschylus’ Athena (Aesch. Eum. 885) appeal to Peitho at the end of their speeches, to secure final acquiescence. By contrast, Isocrates (Antid. 15.249. 1-6) and Aeschines (In Ctes. 256) explicitly refer to Peitho to disparage those seeking to harness her power for civic persuasion. In each of these different instances, I point out, Peitho seems to be perceived by the orator as a source of magic through which power can be harnessed or redirected so as to achieve their goals. Furthermore, their continual references to this deity reveal attempts by Greek orators either to control or condemn the semi-divine, pre-rational dynamics central human persuasion and civic rhetoric from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. up to the present day.