Abstract

Despite the long controversy on the date and composition of the First Philippic, we are no nearer, it would seem, to a satisfactory solution. F. Focke, apparently following a suggestion in Gercke-Norden, developed what is perhaps the most reasonable presentation of the view that the speech was delivered in the spring of 350 B.C.; but what vitiates his argument in the long run is Focke's constant presumption that all the various datable references must belong to one and the same speech or stratum of composition. For although the view of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that the First Philippic really comprises two distinct speeches, has not in its extreme form won acceptance with modern scholars, other more moderate solutions are not impossible; and it would seem that Blass's revision theory suggests a more subtle way of handling the various inconsistencies between the first and the second parts of the speech