[1] He was a prominent politician in Athens who had already been involved in a number of legal entanglements before the case from which Demosthenes' speeches were given.
[2] Aristogeiton had been fined five talents for a charge of graphe paranomon (proposing an illegal decree), and 1,000 drachmas for failing to win one fifth of the jurors' votes in a prosecution he himself had brought.
[3] Later, these debts had been taken on by his brother, Eunomos, and so Aristogeiton had resumed public life, arguing that he was no longer a debtor to the treasury.
[9] The final section of the first speech consists of an examination of pleas which could be made in mitigation, along with an analysis of why they do not apply to Aristogeiton's case.
[13] Since the 19th century, however, the authorship has been questioned, primarily on the basis that it makes mistakes about Athenian law which Demosthenes would not have.
[14] Additionally, Raphael Sealey challenges the speech on the grounds that it contradicts other sources on Aristogeiton at a number of points.
[16] Friedrich Blass attributed the speech to Demosthenes, but considered it "repetitive, confused and disorderly"[17] and therefore suggested that it was drafted, but never delivered, by him.