Antiphon was an Athenian sophist, author of Truth, Concord, and—if identical with the same person as Antiphon of Rhamnus—three Tetralogies and many court speeches. The identity of the sophist and the speechwriter remains uncertain but is increasingly accepted (see Gagarin 2002; for contra, Pendrick 2002). If the two are the same, Antiphon was an aristocratic Athenian, admired by Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War 8.68), who wrote sophistic works, taught, gave legal and political advice, and wrote speeches for litigants in court. He was a leader of an oligarchic coup in 411 BCE and was tried and executed after the coup quickly failed.

Antiphon's Tetralogies, probably his earliest works (450–430 BCE), were intended for intellectual stimulation and pleasure and perhaps for public performance. Each group of four speeches (two on each side) treats a hypothetical case of homicide. In the First Tetralogy, the identity of...