Livia De Martinis

SUMMARY: This paper considers the state of the democratic party in the years between the battle of Chaeroneia (338 BC) and Alexander’s invasion of Asia (334 BC), focusing on the relations among its most important representatives, Demosthenes, Hypereides, and Lycurgus. The discussion centers around Eucrates’ law (336 BC), and Hypereides’ speech Against Diondas (recently discovered in the so-called Archimedes’ Palimpsest) is compared with Demosthenes’ On the Crown, which proves to be analogous in language and topics. So the hypothesis of internal struggles in the Athenian democratic party (between the moderate side lead by Demosthenes and the radical side lead by Hypereides) is rejected and the year 334 BC is proposed as terminus post quem for the origin of these struggles.