Against Neaera

Against Neaera was a prosecution speech delivered by Apollodoros of Acharnae against the freedwoman Neaera. It was preserved as part of the Demosthenic corpus, though it is widely considered to be pseudo-Demosthenic, possibly written by Apollodoros himself. The speech was part of the prosecution of Neaera, a hetaera who was accused of unlawfully marrying an Athenian citizen. Though the speech claims that the case was brought for personal reasons, the date of the prosecution has led scholars to believe that it was in fact politically motivated. In common with most legal cases from ancient Athens, the outcome is unknown.

The speech is important to modern scholars as the best extant biography of a woman from the classical period of ancient Greece, the most extensive surviving source on prostitution in ancient Greece, and the source of Athenian laws on adultery and citizenship which do not otherwise survive. However, it only began to receive significant attention from scholars in the 1990s, as before that period the focus of the speech on prostitution was considered to be inappropriate.

Against Neaera is preserved as Demosthenes' fifty-ninth speech, though it has been thought inauthentic since antiquity. Dionysius of Hallicarnassus, for instance, questioned its authorship. Modern scholars from the nineteenth century to the present have generally accepted that the speech was not written by Demosthenes, and today it is often grouped with the rest of the speeches concerning Apollodoros as being the work of a single Pseudo-Demosthenes. This author has been identified as Apollodoros himself by various scholars, including Kapparis in his commentary on the speech.

The case against Neaera was brought by Theomnestos, the brother-in-law and son-in-law of Apollodoros. In his introduction to the speech, Theomnestos says that he is bringing the case against Neaera in order to exact revenge against her partner Stephanos for his previous attacks on Apollodoros. The enmity between Apollodoros and Stephanos began, according to Theomnestos, when Apollodoros proposed the reallocation of the Theoric fund for military use in 349 BC in preparation for war against Macedon. Stephanos took Apollodoros to court, claiming that the law which he proposed was illegal. The fine which Stephanos proposed was according to Theomnestos large enough that Apollodoros would have been unable to pay it, and so would have been disenfranchised. The court in fact imposed a smaller fine, which Apollodoros was able to pay. Having failed in his attempt to have Apollodoros ruined and disenfranchised, Stephanos then had Apollodoros charged with murder. This time, Apollodoros was able to successfully defend himself, and the suit failed.

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