Destiny and Opportunity: Freedom as freedom of expression in the political discourses of Demosthenes

Abstract

The article approaches the problem of the irruption of the freedom of expression in Greece based on a review of Demosthenes political speeches. For this it is indicated that the idea of freedom in the Greek world is product of a progressive transformation which is always led by the rate of the political circumstances. In this evolution of the idea of freedom. the article locates the new sense of it, as freedom of expression, which is conceived by Demosthenes, in a line of progression that starts with the Sofocles vision, passing through the platonic autognosis and the aristotelian freedom until its accomplishrnent in the conception of Demosthenes. While doing the aforementioned the article also shows how the conception of freedom of expression, held by Demosthenes, was iníluenced by the concept of tyché.