Logographer (legal)

The title of logographer (from the Ancient Greek λογογράφος, "logographos", a compound of λόγος, "logos", 'word', and γράφω, "grapho", 'write') was applied to professional authors of judicial discourse in Ancient Greece. The modern term speechwriter is roughly equivalent.

In the Athens of antiquity, the law required a litigant to make his case in front of the court with two successive speeches. Lawyers were unknown, and the law permitted only one friend or relative to aid each party. If a litigant did not feel confident to make his own speech, he would seek the service of a logographer (also called a λογοποιός, "logopoios", from ποιέω, "poieo", 'to make'), to whom he would describe his case. The logographer would then write a speech which the litigant would learn by heart and recite in front of the court. Antiphon (480 BC–410 BC) was among the first to practice this profession. Practice in defending the targets of politicized prosecutions built the foundations of a later career in politics for many logographers.

Famous logographers

* Antiphon
* Demosthenes
* Dinarchus
* Hypereides
* Isocrates
* Lysias

ee also

* rhetoric
* Attic orators