SOURCE: “Family, Early Career, and Start in Politics,” in Aeschines and Athenian Politics, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 17-40.

In the following excerpt, Harris examines Aeschines's family background and his careers as a public secretary and an actor, explaining how he overcame certain disadvantages to enter politics.

Even in the case of the most important figures in antiquity, the information we possess about their early lives is scant at best. We do not know the year of birth for many famous people, and little is told to us about their education and early activities. Occasionally we are fortunate enough to have a few anecdotes about the childhood and youth of a prominent figure, but these too must be treated with great caution. Anecdotes are often transmitted orally for several generations before being written down and are thus subject to all the changes that this kind of source works on...