The Probability Of Lysias Arguments

Ancient Athens is praised for its well documented democracy and its corresponding policies. Athenians greatly valued justice and order within their democratic society and thus law courts served as the principal organs to uphold governance. In these established intuitions it was commonplace to have logographers partake in judicial discourse, by crafting speeches on behalf of either the prosecution or defense. Lysias, was one such logographer, renowned for his civil trial speeches which were fashioned in a simple and easy flow manner to be delivered by a client.
In his speeches, Lysias was able to present a persuasive but well concealed argument drawn from probability to influence the minds of a jury. This utilization of an argument from probability
An argument using probability focuses on the likelihood that some event or action took place. In a given situation, the probability to have something happen is not necessarily what actually happened. Thus a clear distinction can be seen that the probability of something is not always the reality of a situation. This could be seen as misleading, especially in the context of a courtroom where the ideal outcome should be based on the truth. However in cases where the truth of a situation is not clearly evident, prosecutors and defendants must depend the on the most likely rationale and thus craft arguments based on probability. This is especially true in the cases Lysias seeks to defend, as he produces an argument to defend the actions of his clients. These arguments are built in a manner which aligns with the jury’s most anticipated mental reasoning and their mental understanding on what probably occurred. By aligning his argument with the jury’s mental perception, Lysias is able to portray that his clients’ actions in the case were
The social situation in this trial is radically different from that in On the Death of Eratosthenes, as Lysias’s client is a much older gentleman and the case is based on the premise of a love triangle incident. The background of the case involves both a old man, the defendant, and Simon pursuing the love of a young Theodotus. In this frenzy of love Simon is hurt and thus brings the defendant to trails on the claims he wounded Simon with an intent to murder. In this case Lysias strives to show how the defendant is a law abiding citizen who shows an adverse to conflict and thus its highly unlikely that he would have engaged in an assault on Simon. The narrative opens with a strong characterization of Simon, in a direct personal attack on his character, “[Simon] found out that the young man was staying with me, and came to my house drunk one night. He knocked down the doors and made his way into the women's rooms, were my sister and my nieces were”. With this Simon is painted as an individual who is aggressive under the influence of alcohol and strongly controlled by his passions and lust rather than civil law. This is followed with a situation where Simon once again showed his aggressive state, “I came out, [Simon] he immediately tried to hit me. I Defended myself, so he moved off and threw stones at me. He missed me but hit his own