Rhetoric

Up to now, those who have put together arts of speaking have supplied only a small part of the subject. Proofs are the only thing in it that belongs to the art; everything else is accessory. Yet these writers say nothing about enthymemes, which are the body of proof, and spend most of their effort on matters outside the subject. Prejudice, pity, anger and similar emotions of the soul have nothing to do with the facts of the case; they are aimed at the juror.note

So if all trials were conducted as they are now in some cities, especially the well-governed ones, these writers would have nothing to say. Everyone either thinks the laws ought to lay this down, or actually adopts it and forbids speaking outside the subject, as on the Areopagus. They are right to think so. One ought not to warp the juror by leading him into anger or envy or pity; that would be like making crooked the very ruler one is going to use. It is also plain that the litigant has no business beyond showing that the fact is or is not so, has or has not happened. Whether it is important or trivial, just or unjust, insofar as the lawgiver has not defined it, is surely something the juror must decide for himself, not learn from the litigants.note

Above all, then, well-framed laws should themselves define everything they can and leave as little as possible to those who judge. First, it is easier to find one or a few people than many 1354b who are sensible and capable of making laws and judging cases. Next, laws are made after long consideration, while judgments are given on the spur of the moment, so it is hard for those judging to assign what is just and advantageous well. Most important of all, the lawgiver’s judgment is not about particular cases but about what is future and universal. The member of the assembly and the juror, by contrast, judge cases that are present and definite. With these, affection and hatred and private advantage are often bound up. As a result, they can no longer see the truth adequately, and their own pleasure or pain clouds their judgment.

On the other matters, as we say, the judge should be given authority over as few as possible. But whether something has happened or not, will happen or not, is so or is not, must be left to the judges, since the lawgiver cannot foresee these things. If this is so, it is clear that those who lay down rules about other things are writing treatises on matters outside the subject. These are rules about what the introduction or the narration should contain, for instance, and each of the other parts. In all of this they are concerned with nothing except how to put the judge into a certain frame of mind. About the technical proofs they show nothing, and those are what would make someone skilled at enthymemes.

For this reason they say nothing about political speaking, although the method is the same for political and forensic speeches. Political speaking is also a finer and more statesmanlike business than speaking about private dealings. Yet all of them try to write treatises on litigation. The reason is that speaking outside the subject serves less purpose in political speeches. Political oratory is also less open to sharp practice than forensic pleading, because it is more a matter of common concern. In the assembly the judge is judging his own affairs, so nothing more is needed than to prove that things are as the adviser says. In forensic speeches this is not enough, and it pays to win the hearer over. There the judgment is about other people’s affairs. So the jurors look to their own interest and listen for their own gratification, and they give themselves over to the litigants instead of judging.

That is why in many places, as we said earlier, the law forbids speaking outside the subject; in the assembly the judges themselves guard against it well enough. Consider the following points, which are evident. The technical method is concerned with proofs. Proof is a kind of demonstration, since we are most convinced when we suppose that something has been demonstrated. Rhetorical demonstration is the enthymeme, and this is, in general, the most authoritative of the proofs. The enthymeme is a kind of syllogism. And examining every kind of syllogism alike belongs to dialectic, either to dialectic as a whole or to some part of it. It is clear, then, that whoever is best able to see what a syllogism is made from and how it comes about would also be the most skilled at enthymemes. He would only need to grasp in addition what sorts of things enthymemes are about and how they differ from logical syllogisms.

It belongs to the same capacity to see both what is true and what resembles the truth. Human beings are also naturally well enough equipped for the truth, and for the most part they attain it. So someone who is good at aiming at reputable opinions is also good at aiming at the truth. It is clear, then, that the others write treatises on matters outside the subject, and why they have leaned more toward forensic pleading. Rhetoric is useful, first, because what is true and what is just are by nature stronger than their opposites. So if judgments do not come out as they should, the true and the just must have been defeated through the speakers themselves, and that deserves blame.

Again, with some audiences, even if we had the most exact knowledge, it would not be easy to persuade them by speaking from it. Argument based on knowledge belongs to teaching, and teaching is impossible here. Proofs and arguments must instead be built from common notions, as we said in the Topics about dealing with the general public. Again, one must be able to argue persuasively for opposite conclusions, just as in syllogisms. The point is not that we should actually do both, since one must not persuade people of what is bad. The point is that we should not miss how the matter stands, and that if someone else uses [the arguments] unjustly, we can refute them ourselves. None of the other arts draws conclusions on both sides; only dialectic and rhetoric do this, since both deal equally with opposites.

Several things are clear, then. Rhetoric does not belong to any single defined genus but is like dialectic, and it is useful. Its function is not to persuade but to see the available means of persuasion in each case. The same holds in all the other arts too (it is not the function of medicine to make someone healthy, but to bring him as far toward health as is possible.

Even those who cannot recover their health can still be treated well.) It is also clear that the same art sees both what is persuasive and what appears persuasive. In dialectic, likewise, the same art sees both a syllogism and an apparent syllogism. (What makes sophistry is not the capacity but the choice. The difference is that here one person will be a rhetorician by virtue of knowledge and another by virtue of choice. There, a sophist is one by virtue of choice, and a dialectician is one not by virtue of choice but by virtue of capacity.) Let us now try to discuss the method itself: how, and from what, we will be able to achieve our aims. So let us define again what rhetoric is, as if starting from the beginning, and then say the rest.

But this too must come about through the speech, not through a prior opinion that the speaker is a certain kind of person. Some writers of handbooks lay down in their art that the speaker’s decency contributes nothing to persuasiveness, but this is not so. On the contrary, character is, one might almost say, the most authoritative proof. Proof comes through the hearers when the speech leads them into emotion. We do not give our judgments in the same way when we are pained as when we are pleased, or when we love as when we hate. This, we say, is the only thing that present-day handbook writers try to deal with. These matters will be explained one by one when we discuss the emotions. People are persuaded through the argument itself when we show what is true, or what appears true, from whatever is persuasive in each case.

Since proofs come about through these means, it is clear who can grasp them [the three]. It is someone who can reason syllogistically and can study characters and excellences, and, third, the emotions. He must understand what each emotion is and what kind of thing it is, and from what causes and how it arises. So it turns out that rhetoric is a kind of offshoot of dialectic and of the study of character, which it is right to call politics.

That is why rhetoric slips into the guise of politics. So do those who lay claim to it, partly from lack of education, partly from pretension, and partly for other human reasons. For rhetoric is a part of dialectic and resembles it, as we said at the start. Neither of them is a science of how things stand in any defined subject. Both are capacities for supplying arguments. About their capacity, then, and how they relate to each other, enough has pretty much been said.

Now for the proofs that work through demonstrating or appearing to demonstrate. In dialectic 1356b there is induction, syllogism and apparent syllogism, and it is the same here. The example is an induction, the enthymeme a syllogism, ⟨and the apparent enthymeme an apparent syllogism⟩. I call the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism and the example a rhetorical induction. Everyone who produces proofs by demonstration does so by stating either examples or enthymemes, and by nothing besides these. So if it is necessary in general to demonstrate anything [or anyone] either by syllogism or by induction (and this is clear to us from the Analytics), then example and enthymeme must be the same as induction and syllogism respectively.note

The difference between example and enthymeme is clear from the Topics, where syllogism and induction were discussed earlier. Showing that something is so on the basis of many similar cases is called induction there and example here. Suppose that, when certain things are so, something else follows from them, beyond them, because they are so, either universally or for the most part. That is called a syllogism there and an enthymeme here. It is also clear that each kind of rhetoric has its merits, since what was said in the Methodics applies here as well. Some rhetorical speeches rely on examples, others on enthymemes, and in the same way some orators favor examples and others enthymemes. Speeches that use examples are no less persuasive, but those that use enthymemes draw louder applause.note

We will discuss the cause of this later, and how each should be used. For now let us define these things themselves more clearly. What is persuasive is persuasive to someone. Some things are persuasive and credible immediately, in themselves, while others are so because they seem to be demonstrated through such things. No art studies the particular case. Medicine, for instance, does not study what is healthy for Socrates or for Callias, but for this kind of person or these kinds of people. That is what is technical, since particulars are infinite and cannot be known. Rhetoric likewise will not study what a particular person finds reputable, such as Socrates or Hippias, but what people of a given kind find reputable, and dialectic does the same. Dialectic does not draw conclusions from just anything, since even people who talk nonsense find some things plausible. It draws them from what calls for argument, and rhetoric draws them from what people are already used to deliberating about.

The function of rhetoric concerns things that we deliberate about but have no arts for. It is exercised before hearers of a kind who cannot take in many steps at once or follow reasoning from far back. We deliberate about things that seem capable of turning out either way. No one deliberates about things that could not have happened, or cannot happen in the future, or cannot be, otherwise, if he takes them to be so, since nothing is gained by it.

There are two ways to reason and draw conclusions. One can start from what has already been established by syllogism. Or one can start from what has not been so established but needs a syllogism because it is not reputable. The first will necessarily be hard to follow because of its length, since the judge is assumed to be a simple person. The second will be unpersuasive, because it does not start from what is agreed or reputable. So the enthymeme and the example must be about things that can, for the most part, be otherwise, the example being an induction and the enthymeme a syllogism. They must also be drawn from few premises, often fewer than those of a primary syllogism. If any of these premises is well known, there is no need to state it, because the hearer supplies it himself. Suppose the point is that Dorieus has won a contest whose prize is a crown. It is enough to say that he has won at Olympia. There is no need to add that the Olympic prize is a crown, since everyone knows it.note

Few of the things that rhetorical syllogisms are about are necessary. Most of the things that judgments and inquiries concern could be otherwise. People deliberate and inquire about what they do, and actions are all of this kind; virtually none of them happens of necessity. What happens for the most part and is merely possible must be concluded from other things of the same kind, while necessary conclusions come from necessary premises (this too is clear to us from the Analytics). It is evident, then, that some of the premises from which enthymemes are drawn will be necessary, but most will hold only for the most part. Enthymemes are drawn from probabilities and from signs, so each of these two must correspond to one of those two kinds of premise.

A probability is what happens for the most part. It is not simply that, as some define it, but what holds among things that can be otherwise. It is related to the thing it makes probable 1357b as the universal is to the particular. Of signs, one kind is related as a particular to the universal, the other as a universal to the particular. A necessary sign is a sure sign; the sign that is not necessary has no name of its own to mark the difference. By necessary I mean those from which a syllogism comes about. That is why this kind of sign is a sure sign. When people think that what they have said cannot be refuted, they believe they are offering a sure sign, something proved and brought to its limit. In the old language tekmar and ‘limit’ mean the same thing.note

Here is a sign related as particular to universal. Someone might say it is a sign that the wise are just, since Socrates was wise and just. This is a sign, but it can be refuted even if the statement is true, because it does not form a syllogism. Another kind is necessary. Someone might say it is a sign that a person is ill, because he has a fever, or that a woman has given birth, because she has milk. This is the only kind of sign that is a sure sign, because it alone cannot be refuted if it is true. Here, finally, is a sign related as universal to particular. Someone might say it is a sign that a person has a fever, because he is breathing fast. This too can be refuted even if it is true, since a person can breathe hard without having a fever.

We have now said, for present purposes, what a probability is, what a sign and a sure sign are, and how they differ. These matters are defined more clearly in the Analytics. That is also where we explain why some of them fail to form a syllogism and others do form one.

As for the example, we have said that it is an induction and what sort of things it is an induction about. It is not related as part to whole, or whole to part, or whole to whole, but as part to part, like to like. When both fall under the same genus but one is better known than the other, that is an example. Take the claim that Dionysius is plotting a tyranny because he is asking for a bodyguard. Pisistratus earlier asked for a bodyguard when he was plotting, and once he had it he became tyrant. Theagenes did the same at Megara. All the other cases people know of likewise serve as examples for Dionysius, about whom they do not yet know whether this is why he is asking. All of these fall under the same universal: whoever is plotting a tyranny asks for a bodyguard. 1358a We have now stated the sources of the proofs that seem demonstrative.note

Among enthymemes there is a very great difference that has escaped almost everyone’s notice. The same difference exists among syllogisms in the method of dialectic. Some enthymemes belong to rhetoric, just as some syllogisms belong to the method of dialectic. Others belong to other arts and capacities, some of which already exist while others have not yet been established. That is why they go unnoticed [by the audience]. And the more properly people handle them, the further they move out of rhetoric and dialectic. What I mean will be clearer if I explain it at greater length. I say that dialectical and rhetorical syllogisms are those that our topics are about.note

These topics are the common ones. They apply alike to questions of justice, of nature, of politics, and of many things that differ in kind. An example is the topic of more and less. It is no more suited to forming a syllogism or stating an enthymeme about justice than about nature or anything else, even though these differ in kind. Specific topics are those drawn from the premises proper to each species and genus. For instance, there are premises about nature from which no enthymeme or syllogism about ethics can be formed. There are others about ethics from which none can be formed about nature. The same holds in every field.

The common topics will not make anyone knowledgeable about any genus, since they have no particular subject matter. But the better someone selects the specific ones [the premises], the more he will unwittingly produce a science different from dialectic and rhetoric. If he hits upon first principles, what he has will no longer be dialectic or rhetoric. It will be the science whose principles he has reached. Most enthymemes are drawn from these specific topics, the particular and special ones, and fewer from the common ones. So here too, as in the Topics, we must distinguish the specific topics of enthymemes and the topics from which they are to be drawn. By specific topics I mean the premises proper to each genus, and by topics those that are common to all alike.

Let us speak first, then, about the specific topics. But before that let us take up the genres of rhetoric. Once we have determined how many there are, we can take up the elements and premises of each one separately.

A lawsuit is either accusation or defense, since the litigants must do one or the other. Ceremonial speech is either praise or blame. Each of these has its own time. For the adviser it is the future, since he advises about what will be, either exhorting or dissuading. For the litigant it is the past, since one party always accuses and the other defends concerning what has been done. For the ceremonial speaker the present matters most, since everyone praises or blames in view of things as they are. But speakers often draw on other times as well, reminding the audience of the past and making conjectures about the future.

Each of these has a different end, and since there are three of them, there are three ends. For the adviser the end is the advantageous and the harmful. The one who exhorts recommends a course as better, and the one who dissuades argues against it as worse. He brings in the other considerations, just or unjust, fine or shameful, as subsidiary to this end. For litigants the end is the just and the unjust, and they too bring in the other considerations in relation to it. For those who praise and blame the end is the fine and the shameful, and they too refer the other considerations to it. A sign that each has the end we have stated is that on other points they sometimes would not even argue. A litigant, for instance, will sometimes not contend that something did not happen or did no harm. But he would never admit that he is doing wrong, since then there would be no need for a trial.

Likewise, those giving advice often concede the other points, but they would never admit that they are advising what is disadvantageous or deterring people from what is beneficial. Whether it is unjust to enslave their neighbors, even people who have done them no wrong, they often don’t trouble about at all. Likewise, those who praise and those who blame do not consider 1359a whether someone did what was advantageous or harmful. They often even count it as praise that he did something fine with no regard for his own interest. They praise Achilles, for instance, because he came to the aid of his comrade Patroclus knowing that he must die, when he could have lived. For him such a death was finer, but living was advantageous.

It is clear from what has been said that one must first have premises on these subjects. Sure signs, probabilities and signs are rhetorical premises. In general a syllogism is made of premises, and the enthymeme is a syllogism composed of the premises just mentioned. Impossible things cannot have been done and will not be done; only possible things can. Nor can what did not happen have been done, or what will not happen be done in the future. So the deliberative speaker, the forensic speaker and the ceremonial speaker alike must have premises about the possible and the impossible, about whether something has happened or not, and about whether it will happen or not.

Further, everyone, whether praising or blaming, urging or dissuading, accusing or defending, tries to show not only the points mentioned but also that the good or the bad, the fine or the shameful, the just or the unjust, is great or small. They do this either by speaking of things by themselves or by comparing them with one another. Clearly, then, one would also need premises about greatness and smallness and about the greater and the lesser, both in general and in each particular case: for instance, what is the greater or lesser good, or the greater or lesser wrong or just act; and likewise with the rest.

We have stated, then, the subjects on which premises must necessarily be obtained. After this we must make distinctions about each of these separately: first, what deliberation is about; second, what ceremonial speeches are about; and third, what lawsuits are about.

Now, to enumerate precisely, one by one, the subjects on which people usually do public business and to divide them into kinds, and further to define them as far as possible in accordance with the truth, is not something we need to undertake at present. It belongs not to the art of rhetoric but to a more intelligent and more truthful discipline, and rhetoric has already been given far more than its proper subjects of study. What we said earlier is true: rhetoric is compounded of analytical science and the political science that deals with character, and it resembles partly dialectic and partly sophistical arguments. But the more one tries to construct dialectic or rhetoric not as capacities but as sciences, the more one will unwittingly obliterate their nature. In reconstructing them one passes over into sciences of certain underlying subject matters, rather than of arguments alone.

Still, let us now say as much as is worth analyzing while leaving room for inquiry to political science. Roughly speaking, of all the things people deliberate about and deliberative speakers address in public, the most important happen to be five in number: finances, war and peace, the defense of the country, imports and exports, and legislation. On finances, then, someone who means to give advice would need to know the city’s revenues, what they are and how large. That way, any source that is being neglected can be added and any that is too small can be increased. He would also need to know all the city’s expenditures, so that any that is superfluous can be removed and any that is too large can be reduced. People become richer not only by adding to what they have but also by cutting their expenses.

These things cannot be surveyed from experience of one’s own affairs alone. To advise on them one must also be informed about what has been discovered among other peoples. On war and peace, he must know the city’s power: how large it already is and how large it could become, what kind it is and what kind could be added; and further, what wars it has fought and how. He must know these things not only about his own city but also about its neighbors, [or] also about those it is likely to fight. That way peace can be kept with the stronger, 1360a and with the weaker the decision to fight can rest with us. He must know their forces too, whether they are like ours or unlike; for here too one can gain the advantage or be at a disadvantage.

To this end, too, one must have studied not only one’s own wars but also those of others, and how they turn out; for like results naturally come from like causes. On the defense of the country, he must not be unaware of how it is defended. He must know the size of the garrison, its kind and the positions of the guard posts (which is impossible without familiarity with the country). That way, if the garrison is too small it can be increased, any part that is superfluous can be removed, and the suitable positions can be guarded more closely.

Further, on the food supply: what expenditure is sufficient for the city, and of what sort, both what is produced at home and what is imported; and which exports and which imports the citizens need, so that agreements and trade treaties can be made with the relevant peoples. There are two groups toward whom the citizens must be kept free of grounds for complaint: those stronger than them, and those useful to them for these purposes. For the city’s security he must be able to survey all these things, but not least he must understand legislation, since the safety of the city lies in its laws. So he must know how many kinds of constitution there are, what is advantageous for each, and by what each is naturally destroyed, both by causes proper to the constitution and by causes contrary to it.

By being destroyed through causes proper to it I mean this. Apart from the best constitution, all the others are destroyed both by being relaxed and by being tightened. Democracy, for instance, grows weaker when relaxed, so that in the end it will turn into oligarchy, but it also grows weaker when it is tightened too far. In the same way, a hooked nose or a snub nose comes toward the mean when relaxed, but when it becomes extremely hooked or extremely snub it ends up in such a state that it no longer even looks like a nose. For legislation it is useful not only to understand what constitution is advantageous by studying the past, but also to know the constitutions of other peoples, and which kinds suit which kinds of people.

So it is clear that for legislation, travelers’ accounts of the earth are useful (from them one can learn the laws of different peoples), while for political deliberation the histories of those who write about public affairs are useful. But all of this is the business of politics, not of rhetoric. These, then, are the most important subjects on which someone who means to give advice must have ⟨premises⟩. 1360b Now let us go back and say on what grounds one should urge or dissuade, both on these matters and on the rest.

Let happiness be, then, doing well combined with excellence; or self-sufficiency of life; or the most pleasant life combined with security; or an abundance of property and bodies, together with the power to protect them and make use of them. Practically everyone agrees that happiness is one or more of these. If happiness is something like this, its parts must be good birth, many friends, good friends, wealth, good children, many children and a good old age. Further, the excellences of the body, such as health, beauty, strength, stature and athletic prowess; and reputation, honor, good fortune and excellence. A person would be most self-sufficient if he had both the goods within himself and the external ones, since there are no others besides these. Within him are the goods of the soul and those of the body; outside are good birth, friends, money and honor.note

We also think a person should have power and luck, since that way his life would be most secure. Let us grasp, then, in the same way what each of these is. For a people or a city, good birth means being sprung from the land itself or being ancient, having had distinguished first leaders, and having produced many people distinguished for things that are envied. For an individual, good birth comes either from the men’s side or from the women’s side, and means legitimacy on both sides. As with a city, it means having first ancestors notable for excellence or wealth or something else that is honored, and many distinguished members of the family, men and women, young and old.

Good children and many children are clear enough. For the community, [good children] means having a youth that is numerous and good, good in bodily excellence such as stature, beauty, strength and athletic prowess; the excellences of a young man’s soul are moderation and courage. For an individual, good children and many children means having many children of one’s own, of this kind, both female and male. For females, the excellence of the body is beauty and stature; that of the soul, moderation and industriousness without servility. Both privately and publicly, among men and among women alike, one should seek to have each of these qualities present. Peoples whose women are in a poor condition, like the Spartans, are roughly half lacking in happiness.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ The parts of wealth are plenty of coined money and land; ownership of estates distinguished for number, size and beauty; and further, ownership of furniture, slaves and livestock distinguished for number and beauty. All these should be ⟨one’s own⟩, secure, fit for a free man, and useful. The more useful are the productive ones; the more fit for a free man are those for enjoyment. By productive I mean those that yield income; by those for enjoyment, those from which nothing worth mentioning comes beyond their use. Security is defined as possessing things in such a place and such a way that their use is in one’s own power; being one’s own, as its being in one’s power to alienate them or not. By alienation I mean giving and selling.note

In general, being rich consists more in using than in possessing, since the activity and use of such things is wealth. Good reputation is being regarded by everyone as excellent, or having something of the sort that everyone, or most people, or the good, or people of practical wisdom desire. Honor is a sign of a reputation for doing good. Those who have done good are honored, justly and above all, though someone capable of doing good is honored too. Doing good concerns either safety and whatever causes existence, or wealth, or some other good that is not easy to acquire, either at all, or in that place, or at that time. Many people are honored for things that seem small, but the place and the occasion account for it.

The components of honor are sacrifices; memorials in verse and in prose; privileges; grants of land; front seats; tombs; statues; meals at public expense; foreign honors such as prostration and making way; and gifts that are valued in each society. For a gift is both a giving of property and a sign of honor, which is why both lovers of money and lovers of honor desire them: 1361b a gift holds what each of them needs. It is a possession, which lovers of money desire, and it carries honor, which lovers of honor desire. The excellence of the body is health, and health in such a way that people are free of illness while using their bodies. Many people are healthy the way Herodicus is said to have been, and no one would congratulate them on their health, since they abstain from all or most human activities. Beauty is different at each stage of life.note

The beauty of a young man is having a body useful for exertions, both of running and of force, while being pleasant to look at for enjoyment. That is why pentathletes are the most beautiful: they are naturally fitted for force and for speed at once. The beauty of a man in his prime is fitness for the exertions of war, together with seeming pleasant to look at and also formidable. That of an old man is being adequate for necessary exertions and not distressing, because he has none of the things with which old age disfigures us. Strength is the power of moving something else as one wishes. One must move something else by pulling, pushing, lifting, squeezing or crushing, so that a strong man is strong in all of these or in some. The excellence of stature is surpassing most people in height, depth and breadth by just so much that one’s movements are not made slower by the excess.

Athletic excellence of body consists of stature and strength [and speed], for the swift man is also strong. Someone who can fling his legs in a certain way and move them quickly and far is a runner; someone who can grip and hold down is a wrestler; someone who can drive an opponent back with a blow is a boxer; someone who can do both of these is a pancratiast; and someone who can do everything is a pentathlete. A good old age is a slow old age free of pain. One does not have a good old age if one ages quickly, nor if one ages slowly but painfully. It comes both from the excellences of the body and from luck. Someone who is not free of illness or not strong will not be free of suffering and pain, and [neither] would he last long without luck. There is also, apart from strength and health, another capacity for long life.note

Many people are long-lived without the excellences of the body; but precise discussion of these matters is of no use for present purposes. Many friends and good friends are clear enough once a friend is defined. A friend is someone who is inclined to do, for the other’s sake, whatever he thinks is good for him. Someone who has many such people has many friends; someone who has decent men as such friends has good friends. Good fortune is when the goods of which luck is the cause 1362a come about and are present, either all of them, or most, or the most important. Luck is the cause of some things that the arts also cause, but also of many that have nothing to do with art, such as those caused by nature; though it can also work contrary to nature. Art is the cause of health, but nature of beauty and stature.

In general, the goods that come from luck are the kind that arouse envy. Luck is also the cause of goods that defy reason. For instance, the other brothers are ugly but one is handsome; or the others didn’t see the treasure but one found it; or the arrow hit the man next to him but not him; or a man who always went somewhere was the only one not to go, while those who went that one time were killed. All such things are thought to be strokes of good fortune. ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ As for excellence, since it belongs most properly to the topic of praise, we must define it when we come to discuss praise.

Let the good be: whatever is chosen for its own sake; and that for the sake of which we choose something else; and what all things aim at, or all things that have perception or intelligence, or would if they acquired intelligence; and whatever intelligence would assign to each thing, and whatever the intelligence concerned with each thing assigns to it, for this is what is good for each; and that whose presence puts one in a good condition and makes one self-sufficient; and the self-sufficient itself; and what produces or preserves such things; and what such things follow from; and what prevents or destroys their opposites. Things follow in two ways, either at the same time or later. Knowing, for instance, follows learning later, while living follows being healthy at the same time.

And things are productive in three ways: some as being healthy produces health, some as food produces health, and some as exercise does, in that it usually produces health. With these points established, it necessarily follows that acquiring goods is good, and so is getting rid of evils. Not having the evil follows the latter at the same time; having the good follows the former later. So too is acquiring a greater good instead of a lesser, and a lesser evil instead of a greater; 1362b for by however much the greater exceeds the lesser, that much is acquired in the one case and got rid of in the other. The excellences, too, must be good. Through them their possessors are in a good condition, and they produce goods and lead to good action. What each of them is, and of what sort, must be discussed separately.

Pleasure, too, is good, since all living creatures naturally aim at it. So pleasant things and fine things must be good: the former produce pleasure, and of fine things some are pleasant and others are choiceworthy in and of themselves. To list them one by one, the following must be good. Happiness: it is choiceworthy in itself and self-sufficient, and we choose many things for its sake. Justice, courage, moderation, greatness of soul, magnificence and the other such states: they are excellences of the soul. Health, beauty and the like: they are excellences of the body and produce many things. Health, for instance, produces both pleasure and life, which is why it is thought to be the best thing, since it causes the two things most people value most, pleasure and life. Wealth: it is the excellence of possession and produces many things.

A friend and friendship: a friend is choiceworthy in himself and produces many things. Honor and reputation: they are pleasant and produce many things, and they are usually accompanied by actually having the qualities for which one is honored. The ability to speak and to act: all such things produce goods. Further, natural talent, memory, readiness to learn, quickness of mind, and all such things, since these capacities produce goods. Likewise all the sciences and arts. And life: even if no other good followed from it, it is choiceworthy in itself. And justice, since it is something advantageous to the community. These, then, are roughly the goods that are agreed upon. In disputed cases, the syllogisms are drawn from the following. A thing whose opposite is bad is good.

So is a thing whose opposite is advantageous to one’s enemies. For instance, if it is most advantageous to the enemy that the citizens be cowards, clearly courage is most beneficial to the citizens. In general, the opposite of what one’s enemies want or rejoice at appears beneficial; hence the line, “Surely Priam would rejoice.” This is not always so, but usually, since nothing prevents the same thing from sometimes being advantageous to opposing sides. Hence the saying that misfortunes bring people together, when the same thing is harmful to both. 1363a Again, what is not excessive is good, while what is greater than it should be is bad. And so is that for whose sake much labor or money has been spent. It already appears good, and such a thing is taken to be an end, and the end of many efforts, and the end is good.note

Hence these lines: “And they would leave Priam something to boast of,” and “It is shameful to stay long”; and the proverb about the water jar at the door. Again, what many people desire, and what appears worth fighting over; for what all desire was good, and the many seem like all. And what is praised, since no one praises what is not good. And what one’s enemies [and the worthless] praise. It is as if everyone already agrees, if even those who have suffered from it do; they would agree because it is obvious. In the same way, people whom their friends blame and their enemies do not blame are worthless. That is why the Corinthians thought they had been insulted by Simonides when he wrote, “Ilium does not blame the Corinthians.”note

Again, what someone of practical wisdom, or some good man or woman, has preferred: as Athena preferred Odysseus, Theseus preferred Helen, the goddesses preferred Alexander, and Homer preferred Achilles. And in general, things that are deliberately chosen. People choose to do the things mentioned, things that are bad for their enemies and good for their friends, and things that are possible. Possible things are of two kinds: what could happen, and what happens easily. Easy things are those done without pain or in a short time, since difficulty is defined either by pain or by length of time. Again, things that turn out as people wish. They wish for either no harm at all or less harm than good, which will be the case if the penalty goes unnoticed or is small. And things peculiar to oneself, things no one else has, and the extraordinary, since there is more honor in that.note

Again, things that suit people: these are what befits their birth and capacity, and things they think they lack, even if small, since they are no less inclined to choose to do these. And things easily accomplished, since they are possible because they are easy. Easily accomplished are the things that everyone, or most people, or one’s equals, or one’s inferiors have succeeded in. And things by which they will please their friends or vex their enemies. And whatever the people they admire choose to do. And things for which they have a natural gift and experience, since they think they’ll succeed more easily. And things no worthless person does, since these are more praiseworthy. And things they happen to desire, since these seem not only pleasant but also better. Above all, each kind of person is drawn to what matches their character: 1363b lovers of victory, if there will be victory; lovers of honor, if there will be honor; lovers of money, if there will be money; and the rest likewise.

These, then, are the sources from which we must draw our proofs about the good and the advantageous.

Now we call good what is chosen for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. It is what all things aim at, and what anything would choose if it acquired intelligence and practical wisdom. It is also what produces or preserves such things, or what such things follow. That for the sake of which something is done is the end, and the end is that for the sake of which the rest is done. What is good for a particular person is what stands in this relation to him. Given all this, more goods must be a greater good than one, or than fewer, provided the one or the fewer are counted among them. For the more exceed, and what is contained is exceeded.

And if the greatest member of one class exceeds the greatest member of another, the one class exceeds the other. And if one class exceeds another, its greatest member exceeds the other’s greatest. For instance, if the biggest man is bigger than the biggest woman, then men in general are bigger than women; and if men in general are bigger than women, then the biggest man is bigger than the biggest woman. For the superiorities of classes and of the greatest members within them are proportional. And a thing is greater when this follows that, but that does not follow this. One thing follows another either at the same time, or afterwards, or potentially; for the use of the thing that follows is contained in the use of the other. Life follows health at the same time, but health does not follow life. Knowledge follows learning afterwards. And cheating follows temple-robbing potentially, since a man who has robbed a temple would cheat as well.

And things that exceed the same thing by a greater amount are greater, since they must also exceed the greater. And things that produce a greater good are greater, since that is what we meant by producing something greater. The same holds for a thing whose producer is greater: if what is healthy is more choiceworthy than what is pleasant and a greater good, then health is also greater than pleasure. 1364a And what is choiceworthy in itself is greater than what is not, as strength is greater than what is healthy. The healthy is not chosen for its own sake, while strength is, and that, as we saw, is what the good is. And a thing is greater if it is an end and the other is not, since the other is for the sake of something else and it is for its own sake, as exercise is for the sake of physical fitness. And what needs less of another thing, or of other things, is greater, since it is more self-sufficient. A thing needs less when it needs fewer things, or things that are easier to get.

And a thing is greater when another cannot exist or come to be without it, but it can without the other. What does not need the other is more self-sufficient, and so it appears a greater good. The same holds, for the same reason, if one thing is a starting point and the other is not, or if one is a cause and the other is not; for without a cause and a starting point nothing can exist or come to be. And of two starting points, what comes from the greater starting point is greater; and of two causes, what comes from the greater cause is greater. Conversely, of two starting points, the starting point of the greater thing is greater; and of two causes, the cause of the greater thing is greater.

It is clear from what has been said, then, that a thing can be made to appear greater in both ways. If it is a starting point and the other is not, it will seem greater. And it will also seem greater if it is not a starting point and the other is, since the end is greater and is not a starting point. So Leodamas, prosecuting Callistratus, said that the man who planned the deed did more wrong than the man who carried it out, since it would not have been done if he had not planned it. But prosecuting Chabrias, he said the reverse: the man who carried it out did more wrong than the man who planned it, since it would not have happened without someone to carry it out, and the whole point of plotting is to get the thing done. And what is rarer is greater than what is plentiful, as gold is greater than iron, though less useful; possessing it is a greater thing because it is harder to get. In another way, what is plentiful is greater than what is rare, because its use goes further; “often” exceeds “seldom,” which is why it is said, “Best is water.” And in general what is harder is greater than what is easier, since it is rarer.note

In another way, what is easier is greater than what is harder, since it is as we want it. And a thing is greater when its opposite is greater, and when its loss is greater. And excellence is greater than what is not excellence, and vice greater than what is not vice, since excellence and vice are ends and the others are not. And things whose works are finer or more shameful are themselves greater. And things whose vices and excellences are greater also have greater works, since results correspond to their causes and starting points, and causes and starting points to their results. And things are greater when superiority in them is more choiceworthy or finer. For example, seeing sharply is more choiceworthy than smelling sharply, since sight is more choiceworthy than smell. 1364b And being exceptionally devoted to one’s friends is finer than being exceptionally devoted to money, so love of friends is finer than love of money. And, the other way around, excesses of better things are better, and excesses of finer things finer.

And things are greater when the desires for them are finer or better, since greater longings are for greater objects. For the same reason, desires for finer or better things are better and finer. And when the sciences of things are finer or more serious, the things themselves are finer and more serious; for as the science is, so is the truth it studies, and each science commands what belongs to it. By the same reasoning, the sciences of more serious and finer things are correspondingly more serious and finer. And whatever people of practical wisdom, or everyone, or most people, or the majority, or the best people would judge or have judged good or greater must be so, either absolutely or insofar as they judged by their practical wisdom. This applies to other things as well: what a thing is, how much it is and what sort it is are as knowledge and practical wisdom would say.

But we have stated it for goods, since good was defined as what each thing would choose if it acquired practical wisdom. Clearly, then, the greater is what practical wisdom says is more so. And what belongs to better people is greater, either absolutely or insofar as they are better, as courage is greater than strength. And so is what the better person would choose, either absolutely or insofar as he is better, such as suffering wrong rather than doing it, since that is what the more just person would choose. And the more pleasant is greater than the less pleasant, since all things pursue pleasure and desire enjoyment for its own sake, and these are the terms in which the good and the end were defined. The more pleasant is what is freer from pain and what lasts longer. And the finer is greater than the less fine, since the fine is either the pleasant or what is choiceworthy in itself.

And the things we most want to bring about for ourselves or our friends are greater goods, and those we least want to bring about are greater evils. And longer-lasting things are greater than shorter-lived ones, and more secure things than less secure ones. The use of the first exceeds in time, and the use of the second in our wishes, since the secure thing is more readily available whenever we want it. And the rest follows the same pattern as related words and their inflected forms. For example, if acting “courageously” is finer and more choiceworthy than acting “moderately,” then courage is more choiceworthy than moderation, and being courageous than being moderate. And what everyone chooses is greater than what not everyone chooses, and what more people choose than what fewer choose; 1365a for the good, as we saw, is what all aim at, so the greater is what they aim at more.

And so is what our opponents or enemies prefer, or the judges, or those whom the judges appoint to judge. The first is as though everyone said so; the second is the verdict of those with authority and knowledge. And sometimes what everyone shares in is greater, since not sharing in it is a disgrace; but at other times what no one or only a few share in, since it is rarer. And what is more praiseworthy is greater, since it is finer. Likewise things that carry greater honors, since honor is a kind of measure of worth; and things that carry greater penalties. And things greater than what is admittedly or apparently great are greater.

And the same things appear greater when divided into their parts, since they seem to exceed more things. That is why the poet says that Meleager was persuaded to rise up by hearing “all the woes that come to men whose city is taken: / the people perish, fire levels the town to dust, / and strangers lead off the children.” Combining and building up, as Epicharmus does, works the same way. Partly this is for the same reason as division (since combining shows a great superiority), and partly because the result appears to be the starting point and cause of great things.note

Since what is harder and rarer is greater, occasions, ages, places, times and abilities also make things great. If someone acts beyond his ability, beyond his age, beyond what people like him do, and if he acts in this way, or here, or at this time, his deeds will have greatness, whether they are fine, good and just or the opposite. Hence the epigram for the Olympic victor: “Once, with a rough yoke on my shoulders, / I used to carry fish from Argos to Tegea.” And Iphicrates praised himself by describing where he had started from. And what is innate is greater than what is acquired, since it is harder. Hence the poet says, “I am self-taught.” And the greatest part of something great is greater. So Pericles said in his funeral speech that the city’s youth had been taken from it as if the spring had been taken out of the year.note

And things useful in greater need are greater, such as those useful in old age and sickness. And of two things, the one nearer the end. And what is good for oneself as well as absolutely. And the possible over the impossible, since the possible is good for oneself and the impossible is not. And things at the end of life, since things near the end are more truly ends. 1365b And things aimed at reality over things aimed at appearances. The test of what is aimed at appearances is that one would not choose it if no one were going to notice. That is why receiving benefits would seem more choiceworthy than conferring them: a person will choose to receive them even if no one notices, but no one is thought likely to choose to confer them unnoticed. And whatever people want to be rather than to seem is greater, since it is aimed more at reality. That is why some say justice is a small thing, since seeming just is more choiceworthy than being just; but with health that is not so.

And what is useful for many purposes is greater, such as what is useful for living, for living well, for pleasure and for doing fine deeds. That is [also] why wealth and health are thought to be the greatest goods: they have all these. And what is freer from pain and what is accompanied by pleasure is greater, since that is more than one thing, so that both pleasure and freedom from pain are present as goods. And of two things, the one that makes a greater whole when added to the same thing. And things whose presence is noticed are greater than those that go unnoticed, since these tend toward reality. That is why being wealthy would appear a greater good than seeming to be. And what is cherished is greater, as when one person has it as his only one and another has it along with others. That is why the penalty is not the same for blinding a one-eyed man and a man with two eyes: the one-eyed man has been robbed of what he cherished.

We have now said, more or less, what sources one must draw proofs from when urging people to do something or dissuading them.

By education I mean the education laid down by law; for in an aristocracy those who have abided by the established customs hold office. These must appear to be the best people, which is where the constitution got its name. A monarchy, as the name says, is a constitution in which one man has authority over everything. 1366a Of monarchies, the one that follows some order is kingship, and the unlimited one is tyranny. One must not overlook the end of each constitution, since people choose what leads to the end. The end of democracy is freedom, of oligarchy wealth, of aristocracy what concerns education and the established customs ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ of tyranny, self-protection. Clearly, then, one must distinguish the characters, customs and interests that lead to the end of each, since people make their choices by referring to it.note

But proofs come not only through demonstrative argument but also through argument that reveals character. We trust the speaker because he appears to be a certain sort of person, that is, if he appears good, or well-disposed, or both. So we ought to know the character of each constitution, since the character of each is bound to be the most persuasive with it. These characters will be grasped by the same means; for character is revealed by choice, and choice is directed toward the end. We have now said, as far as suits the present occasion, what people must aim at when urging something as future or present, and what sources to draw proofs about the advantageous from. We have also said how, and by what means, we shall be well supplied regarding the characters and customs of the constitutions. For these matters are discussed in detail in the Politics.

If this is what the fine is, then excellence must be fine, since being good, it is praiseworthy. Excellence, it seems, is a capacity for providing and preserving goods, a capacity for conferring many great benefits, indeed all kinds of benefits on all occasions. ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ 1366b The parts of excellence are justice, courage, moderation, magnificence, greatness of soul, generosity, calmness, practical wisdom and wisdom. The greatest excellences must be those most useful to others, if excellence is a capacity for conferring benefits. That is why people honor the just and the courageous most: courage is useful to others in war, and justice in peace as well as in war. Next comes generosity, since generous people give freely and do not compete over money, which others desire most.

Justice is the excellence through which each person has what is his own, as the law prescribes; injustice is that through which people have what belongs to others, contrary to the law. Courage is the excellence through which people do fine deeds in the face of danger, as the law commands, and in the service of the law; cowardice is the opposite. Moderation is the excellence through which people are disposed toward bodily pleasures as the law commands; self-indulgence is the opposite. Generosity is doing good with money; stinginess is the opposite. Greatness of soul is the excellence that produces great benefits; [smallness of soul is the opposite]. Magnificence is the excellence that produces greatness in expenditure; smallness of soul and shabbiness are the opposites. Practical wisdom is an excellence of thought that enables people to deliberate well about the goods and evils we mentioned as bearing on happiness.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ Excellence and vice in general, then, and their parts have been discussed sufficiently for the present occasion, and the rest is not hard to see. Clearly what produces excellence must be fine (since it leads to excellence), and so must what comes from excellence; and of this kind are the signs of excellence and its works. And since signs, and things such as the actions or experiences of a good person, are fine, all deeds of courage, all signs of courage and all things done courageously must be fine. So must just things and things done justly (but not things suffered justly: this is the only excellence in which what is just is not always fine; when it comes to punishment, being punished justly is more shameful than being punished unjustly). And the same goes for the other excellences.

And things whose prize is honor are fine, and things done for honor rather than money. And choiceworthy things that someone does not for his own sake are fine; and things good absolutely, such as what someone has done for his country with no thought for his own interest; and things good by nature; and things that are not good for the doer, 1367a since what is good for him is done for his own sake. And things that can belong to a man when he is dead rather than alive, since what belongs to the living is more for their own sake. And deeds done for the sake of others, since they are less for one’s own sake. And successes that concern others rather than oneself. And those that concern one’s benefactors, since that is just. And benefactions, since they are not directed toward oneself.

And the opposites of the things people are ashamed of are fine. People are ashamed of shameful things when they say them, do them or are about to do them. So Sappho wrote, when Alcaeus said, “I want to say something, but I am held back / by shame”: “If you had a longing for good or fine things, / and your tongue were not stirring up something bad to say, / shame would not have taken hold of your eyes, / but you would speak about what is just.” And things people are anxious about without being afraid are fine, since people feel this way about goods that bring a good reputation. And the excellences and deeds of those who are by nature more serious are finer, as a man’s are finer than a woman’s. And excellences that benefit others more than their possessors are finer; that is why the just and justice are fine.note

And taking revenge on one’s enemies rather than being reconciled with them is fine. For paying back is just, and the just is fine, and refusing to be beaten is the mark of a courageous man. Victory and honor are also among fine things, since they are worth choosing even when they bring no profit, and they show superior excellence. So are things worth remembering, and the more memorable, the finer. So are things that follow a man after his death, things that honor attends, and things that are extraordinary; and things that belong to one person alone are finer, since they are more easily remembered. And so are possessions that bring in no profit, since they are more fitting for a free man. And what is distinctive of each people is fine, as is whatever is a sign of what each people praises. In Sparta, for example, long hair is fine, since it is a sign of a free man; it is not easy to do a hired laborer’s work with long hair. And not practicing any menial craft is fine, since it is the mark of a free man not to live in dependence on another.

For praise and blame alike, one should also treat qualities close to those a person actually has as if they were the same. Call the cautious man cold and scheming, the simpleton good-natured, the unfeeling man calm. In each case draw on the qualities that go along with it, always in the best light: call the hot-tempered and the frenzied man straightforward, and the stubborn man magnificent and dignified; 1367b and treat those who go to excess as if they had the corresponding excellences, calling the rash man courageous and the spendthrift generous. This will seem right to most people, and at the same time a fallacious inference can be drawn from the motive. If someone runs risks when there is no need, he will seem all the more likely to do so when it is fine; and if he is lavish with anyone at all, he will be lavish with his friends too, since doing good to everyone is an excess of excellence.

One should also consider the audience before whom the praise is given. As Socrates used to say, it is not hard to praise Athenians in front of Athenians. One should speak of whatever is valued by each audience—among Scythians, say, or Spartans, or philosophers—as being present. In general one should bring what is valued over into the fine, since the two are thought to be neighbors. And whatever is in keeping with what is fitting is fine, for example, if deeds are worthy of one’s ancestors and one’s earlier achievements; for adding to one’s honor brings happiness and is fine. So is going beyond what is fitting toward the better and finer, for example, if someone is moderate in good fortune and great-souled in misfortune, or becomes better and more conciliatory as he rises.note

Iphicrates’ remark is of this kind: “from what beginnings to what heights.” So is the Olympic victor’s line, “Before, bearing a rough yoke on my shoulders,” and Simonides’ “she whose father, husband, and brothers were tyrants.” Since praise is based on actions, and acting by choice is characteristic of the good person, we must try to show him acting by choice. It is useful for him to appear to have acted that way many times. That is why coincidences and strokes of luck should also be treated as if they were matters of choice. If many similar cases are brought forward, they will seem to be a sign of excellence and of choice. Praise is speech that brings out the greatness of excellence. So we must show that the actions are of that kind. Encomium is concerned with deeds. (The surrounding circumstances, such as good birth and education, serve to make the case credible: it is probable that good parents have good children, and that someone brought up in a certain way will turn out accordingly.) That is why we compose encomia for people who have actually done something.note

Deeds are signs of a person’s disposition. We would praise even someone who had done nothing, if we were convinced he was that sort of person. Calling someone blessed and calling someone happy are the same as each other, but not the same as praise and encomium. Rather, just as happiness includes excellence, calling someone happy includes them. Praise and counsel have a common form. What you would propose as advice in deliberation becomes encomium when the wording is changed. 1368a So, since we know what one ought to do and what sort of person one ought to be, we must take what we would say as advice and change and turn its wording. For example, “one should not take pride in what comes from luck, but in what comes from oneself.” Said this way, it has the force of advice. Said like this, it has the force of praise: “taking pride not in what [he has] from luck, but in what comes from himself.”

So whenever you want to praise, look at what you would advise. Whenever you want to advise, look at what you would praise. The wording will necessarily be reversed when you shift from prohibiting to not prohibiting, or the other way round. You should also make use of many of the devices of amplification: for example, if he alone, or first, or with few others, or more than anyone, has done something. All these are fine. So are points drawn from the times and the occasions, since these go beyond what was to be expected. Likewise if he has often achieved the same success. That is a great thing, and it would seem due not to luck but to himself. Likewise if incentives and honors were devised and established on his account. Likewise if he was the first to have an encomium composed for him, as with Hippolochus, or if he was the reason something was first done, as statues were first set up in the agora because of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The same goes for the opposites.note

If you don’t have enough to say about him on his own, compare him with others. Isocrates used to do this because he was unpracticed in forensic pleading. You should compare him with men of repute: it amplifies his merit, and it is fine if he is better than good men. Amplification naturally belongs to speeches of praise, since it consists in superiority, and superiority is among fine things. That is why, even if you can’t compare him with men of repute, you should compare him with others, since superiority is thought to reveal excellence. In general, of the forms common to all speeches, amplification is best suited to ceremonial speeches. These take the actions as agreed upon, so all that is left is to invest them with greatness and beauty. Examples are best suited to deliberative speeches, since we judge the future by divining it from the past. Enthymemes are best suited to forensic speeches, because what has happened is unclear, and so it most of all admits of causes and demonstration.

These, then, are the sources from which nearly all praise and blame are drawn, the points to keep in view when praising and blaming, and the materials of encomium and reproach. With these in hand, their opposites are evident, since blame is drawn from the opposites.

The reasons people choose to cause harm and to do bad things contrary to the law are vice and lack of self-control. If people have one vice or several, then it is in the area where they happen to be vicious that they are also unjust. The ungenerous man is unjust about money, the self-indulgent about bodily pleasures, the soft about matters of ease, the coward about dangers (out of fear, cowards abandon those who share the danger with them). The ambitious man does wrong for the sake of honor, the quick-tempered out of anger, the contentious for the sake of victory, the bitter for revenge, the foolish because he is mistaken about what is just and unjust, the shameless out of disregard for reputation. Likewise each of the others with regard to his particular object.

But all this is clear, partly from what was said about the excellences, partly from what will be said about the emotions. What remains is to say for what reasons people do wrong, in what state they are, and whom they wrong. First, then, let us set out what people are seeking and what they are avoiding when they set about doing wrong. Clearly the accuser must consider how many of these things, and which of them, apply to his opponent—the things whose pursuit leads everyone to wrong their neighbors. The defender must consider which of them, and how many, do not apply. Now, everything that anyone does is done either not because of themselves or because of themselves.

Of the things they do not because of themselves, some they do by chance and some by necessity. Of those done by necessity, some are done by force and some by nature. So everything people do not because of themselves is done either by chance or by nature or by force. The things they do because of themselves, and of which they themselves are the cause, 1369a are done either through habit or through desire, and some through rational desire, others through irrational desire. Wish is a desire for the good (no one wishes for anything unless he thinks it is good). The irrational desires are anger and appetite. So everything people do they must do for one of seven causes: chance, nature, force, habit, reasoning, temper, appetite.

To divide actions further by age, or by disposition, or by anything else, is superfluous. If young people happen to be prone to anger or appetite, they do such things not because of their youth but because of anger and appetite. Nor do people act because of wealth and poverty. It does happen that the poor, because of their want, desire money, and that the rich, because they can afford it, desire unnecessary pleasures. Yet these people too will act not because of wealth and poverty but because of appetite. Likewise the just and the unjust, and all the others who are said to act according to their dispositions, will act for these same causes: either through reasoning or through emotion. But some act from good characters and emotions, others from the opposite.

It does happen, though, that certain consequences follow certain dispositions, and other consequences follow others. Perhaps the moderate person, simply by being moderate, has good beliefs and appetites about pleasures, and the self-indulgent person the opposite about those same pleasures. So such divisions should be set aside, and we should instead consider what usually follows from what. If someone is pale or dark, tall or short, nothing of this kind is fixed to follow. But if he is young or old, just or unjust, it does make a difference. And in general, whatever circumstances make people’s characters differ: whether a man thinks himself rich or poor will make some difference, and whether he thinks himself fortunate or unfortunate. We will discuss these later. Now let us first speak about the rest.

Things that come about by chance are those whose cause is indeterminate, which happen for no purpose, and neither always nor for the most part nor in any regular way. This is clear from the definition of chance. Things that come about by nature are those whose cause lies in themselves and is regular, 1369b since they turn out the same way either always or for the most part. As for things contrary to nature, there is no need to go into detail about whether they happen according to some kind of nature or from some other cause. Chance too might seem to be the cause of such things. Things done by force are those that come about against the agents’ appetite or reasoning, yet through the agents themselves. Things done by habit are whatever people do because they have done them many times.

Things done through reasoning are those that seem advantageous, on the basis of the goods already discussed, either as an end or as a means to the end, when they are done because they are advantageous. Even the self-indulgent do some advantageous things, but not because they are advantageous—rather, for pleasure. Acts of revenge are done through temper and anger. Revenge and punishment differ: punishment is for the sake of the one who suffers it, revenge for the sake of the one who inflicts it, so that he may get satisfaction. What anger is will become clear in the discussion of the emotions. Done through appetite are whatever things appear pleasant. The familiar and the habitual are also among pleasant things, since people take pleasure in doing many things that are not naturally pleasant once they have grown used to them.

So, to sum up, everything people do because of themselves is either good or apparently good, pleasant or apparently pleasant. And since what they do because of themselves they do voluntarily, and what they do not because of themselves they do involuntarily, everything they do voluntarily will be either good or apparently good, pleasant or apparently pleasant. I count among goods also release from evils, or from apparent evils, and taking a lesser evil in place of a greater (these are, in a way, desirable). Likewise I count among pleasant things release from what is painful, or apparently painful, and taking lesser pains in place of greater. So we must grasp the advantageous and the pleasant: how many kinds there are and of what sort. The advantageous was discussed earlier, under deliberative speeches. Let us now discuss the pleasant.

We should regard the definitions as adequate if, on each subject, they are neither unclear nor overly precise.

What is not forced is also pleasant, since force is contrary to nature. That is why what is compulsory is painful, and it was rightly said, “Every compulsory thing is by nature irksome.” Exertions, efforts, and strains are painful, since they are compulsory and forced unless people grow used to them; in that case habit makes them pleasant. Their opposites are pleasant. That is why ease, freedom from toil, carefreeness, amusements, rest, and sleep are among pleasant things: none of them is a matter of compulsion. Whatever we have an appetite for is also pleasant, all of it, since appetite is a desire for the pleasant. Of appetites, some are irrational, others accompanied by reason.

By irrational I mean those appetites people have that do not come from forming some belief. Such are the ones called natural, like those that arise through the body: for example, the appetite for nourishment, thirst and hunger, and a particular kind of appetite for each particular kind of nourishment. So too the appetites concerned with taste and sex and in general things of touch, and with smell [of fragrance], hearing, and sight. Accompanied by reason are those that come from being persuaded: people have an appetite to see and to acquire many things after hearing about them and being persuaded. Since taking pleasure consists in perceiving some affection, and imagination is a kind of weak perception, someone who is remembering or hoping will always have some image of what he remembers or hopes for. If so, clearly pleasures also come to those who remember and hope, since there is perception there too.

So all pleasant things must lie either in perceiving what is present, or in remembering what has happened, or in hoping for what is to come. People perceive the present, remember the past, and hope for the future. 1370b Pleasant things to remember are not only those that were pleasant at the time, when they were present, but also some that were not pleasant, if what followed was fine and good. Hence the sayings, “Sweet it is, once safe, to remember toils,” and “For afterward a man delights even in his pains, / remembering, when he has suffered much and done much.” The reason is that not having an evil is also pleasant. Things hoped for are pleasant when, if present, they seem to give great delight or great benefit, and to benefit without pain.note

In general, things that delight us when present also delight us, for the most part, when we hope for them or remember them. That is why even being angry is pleasant, as Homer wrote of anger, “far sweeter than honey dripping down.” No one is angry with someone on whom it seems impossible to take revenge, and with those far more powerful than themselves people are either not angry or less angry. Some pleasure accompanies most appetites, too. People enjoy a certain pleasure either in remembering how they got something or in hoping they will get it. Those in a fever, gripped by thirst, enjoy remembering how they drank and hoping to drink. Lovers enjoy talking and writing about the beloved, and always doing something connected with him. In all such things, remembering, they think they somehow perceive the beloved.

This is how love begins for everyone: when they not only delight in the beloved’s presence but also, [as lovers] remembering him in his absence, feel pain because he is not there. Likewise some pleasure arises in mourning and lamentation. The pain is at the person’s no longer being there, but the pleasure lies in remembering him and somehow seeing him—what he did and what he was like. That is why this too was fittingly said: “So he spoke, and stirred in them all a longing for lament.” Revenge, too, is pleasant. Where failing to get something is painful, getting it is pleasant. Angry people suffer beyond measure when they don’t get revenge, but they rejoice when they hope for it. Winning, too, is pleasant, not only to the contentious but to everyone. There arises an impression of superiority, which everyone desires, some mildly, some more intensely.

Since winning is pleasant, games involving fighting and contest must be pleasant too 1371a (since winning often happens in them), including knucklebones, ball games, dice, and board games. The same goes for serious pastimes: some become pleasant once one is used to them, while others are pleasant from the start, such as hunting with hounds and every kind of hunting. Wherever there is rivalry, there is victory too. That is why forensic pleading and [the] art of disputation are pleasant to those who are used to them and good at them. Honor and good repute are among the most pleasant things, because each person gets the impression that he is like a good person, and all the more so when people he thinks are telling the truth say so.

Such people are those close at hand rather than those far off, acquaintances and fellow citizens rather than strangers, contemporaries rather than posterity, the sensible rather than the foolish, the many rather than the few. Those just mentioned are more likely to tell the truth than their opposites. When someone feels great contempt for people—small children or animals, say—he cares nothing for the honor or esteem they give, at least not for the sake of the esteem itself, but, if at all, for some other reason. A friend, too, is among pleasant things. Loving is pleasant (no one is a wine-lover without enjoying wine), and being loved is pleasant. Here too one gets the impression of being good oneself, which everyone capable of feeling desires. Being loved is being cherished oneself, for one’s own sake. Being admired is pleasant because of the honor itself.

Being flattered is pleasant, and so is the flatterer, since the flatterer is an apparent admirer and an apparent friend. Doing the same things often is pleasant, since the habitual, as we said, is pleasant. Change is pleasant too, since change means a return to nature; sameness all the time pushes a settled condition to excess. Hence the saying, “Change in all things is sweet.” For this reason things that come at intervals are pleasant, both people and things: they are a change from the present, and at the same time what comes at intervals is rare. Learning and wondering are also pleasant, for the most part. In wondering there is the desire [to learn], so the object of wonder is something desired; and in learning there is a settling into one’s natural state.

Doing good and receiving good are among pleasant things. Receiving good is getting what one desires, 1371b and doing good is having and having more, both of which people aim at. Because doing good is pleasant, it is also pleasant for people to set their neighbors back on their feet and to complete what is lacking. Since learning and wondering are pleasant, things of the following sort must be pleasant too: imitation, as in painting, sculpture, and poetry, and anything that has been well imitated, even if the thing imitated is not itself pleasant. One doesn’t delight in the thing itself; rather, there is an inference that this is that, so that one comes to learn something. Reversals of fortune and narrow escapes from danger are pleasant too, since all these are wondrous.

Since what is natural is pleasant, and things akin are natural to one another, all things akin and alike are, for the most part, pleasant to one another: human to human, horse to horse, young to young. Hence the proverbs, “Peer delights peer,” “Always like to like,” “Beast knows beast,” “Jackdaw by jackdaw,” and all the others of this sort. Since everything alike and akin is pleasant to itself, and each person stands in this relation most of all to himself, everyone must be a self-lover, more or less. All these things hold most of all in one’s relation to oneself. Since everyone is a self-lover, their own things must also be pleasant to everyone, such as their deeds and words.

That is why people are, for the most part, fond of flatterers [and fond of lovers], fond of honor, and fond of their children, since their children are their own work. Completing what is incomplete is pleasant, since the result then becomes their own work. Since ruling is most pleasant, seeming to be wise is also pleasant, since practical wisdom fits one to rule, and wisdom is knowledge of many wondrous things. Further, since people are for the most part ambitious, it must also be pleasant to rebuke one’s neighbors [and to rule]. And it is pleasant to spend one’s time on whatever one thinks one does best, as the poet says: “and to this he hurries, / giving the greatest part of every day, / to where he happens to be at his best.”

Likewise, since play and every kind of relaxation are pleasant, and laughter is pleasant, laughable things must be pleasant too—people, words, and deeds alike. 1372a The laughable has been treated separately in the work on poetics. So much, then, for pleasant things. Painful things are evident from their opposites.note

They think they can manage it most of all if they themselves have the qualities just mentioned. Failing that, they think so if they have friends or servants or partners of this kind, since through these they can act, escape notice, and avoid paying the penalty. They think so too if they are friends of their victims or of the judges. Friends are off their guard against being wronged, and they make it up before taking legal action. Judges do favors to their friends, and either let them off altogether or punish them lightly. Those likely to escape notice are people whose character is the opposite of the charge: for example, the weak on a charge of assault, and the poor and [the] ugly man on a charge of adultery. Also things done very openly and before everyone’s eyes, because no one guards against them, since nobody would ever think it possible.

Also things so great, and of such a kind, that no one at all would do them. These too go unguarded, because everyone guards against the usual ones, as with illnesses [and wrongs], but no one takes precautions against an illness nobody has ever yet had. Also those who have no enemy, or many. The first think they’ll escape notice because no one is on guard against them. The second do escape notice, because it seems they would never make an attempt on people who are on their guard, and because they have the defense that they would not have attempted it. Also those who have means of concealment, whether contrivances or hiding places, or easy ways of disposing of things. Also those who, if they don’t escape notice, have ways of getting the case thrown out, or postponed, or of bribing the judges. Also those who, if a penalty is imposed, have ways of evading payment or putting it off for a long time. Or those who, through poverty, will have nothing to lose.

Also those for whom the gains are evident, or large, or near at hand, while the penalties are small, or invisible, or remote. 1372b Also the person for whom no punishment can match the benefit, as seems to be the case with tyranny. Also those for whom the wrongs bring profit, while the penalties bring only disgrace. Also those for whom, conversely, the wrongs lead to some praise, while the penalties are a fine or exile or something of that kind. An example is if one happened in the same act to avenge one’s father or mother, as with Zeno. People do wrong for both reasons and in both conditions, though it is not the same people, but those of opposite characters. Also those who have often escaped notice or gone unpunished, and those who have often failed. In these matters too, as in war, there are some who are the sort to return to the fight.

Also those for whom the pleasure comes at once and the pain later, or the gain at once and the penalty later. People who lack self-control are like this, and lack of self-control concerns everything people desire. Also those for whom, conversely, the pain or the penalty is immediate, while the pleasure and the benefit come later and last longer. The self-controlled and the more sensible pursue things like this. Also those who can seem to have acted by chance, or under compulsion, or by nature, or by habit, and in general to have made a mistake rather than done wrong. Also those who can expect equitable treatment. Also those who are in need. There are two ways of being in need: of what is necessary, like the poor, or of excess, like the rich.

Also those of very high repute and those of very low repute. The first act as if they won’t be suspected, the second as if they can’t be any more disreputable than they already are. In this state of mind, then, people set about ⟨doing wrong⟩. They wrong people and things of the following kinds. They wrong those who have what they themselves lack, whether for necessities, for superiority, or for enjoyment. They wrong both those far away and those near at hand: with the near the taking is quick, and with the far the retaliation is slow, as with those who plunder the Carthaginians. They wrong those who are trusting rather than cautious or watchful, since it’s easy to escape the notice of all such people. They wrong the easygoing, since it takes diligence to prosecute. They wrong the bashful, since they won’t fight over gain. They wrong those who have been wronged by many and have not prosecuted, since these are, as the proverb has it, “Mysian plunder.”note

They wrong those who have never been wronged and those who often have been. Both are off their guard, the first because it has never happened, the second because they think it won’t happen again. They wrong those who have been slandered or are easy to slander. Such people neither choose ⟨to prosecute⟩, for fear of the judges, nor can they persuade them, since they are hated and envied. 1373a They wrong those against whom they have a pretext: that these people’s ancestors, or they themselves, or their friends did harm, or meant to, to the wrongdoers themselves, or their ancestors, or those they care about. As the proverb says, “Wickedness needs only a pretext.” They wrong both enemies and friends, since wronging the one is easy and the other pleasant. They wrong those without friends, and those not clever at speaking or acting. These either don’t attempt to prosecute, or they settle, or they get nowhere. They wrong those for whom it doesn’t pay to spend time waiting for a trial or for compensation, such as foreigners and those who work their own land.

These people settle for little and are easily put off. They wrong those who have done many wrongs, or wrongs of the same kind they are now suffering. It seems almost not to be wrongdoing when someone suffers the kind of wrong he used to commit himself. I mean, for example, if someone assaulted a man who habitually treats others with insolence. They wrong those who have done harm, or wished to, or wish to, or will. This is both pleasant and fine, and it appears close to not doing wrong. They wrong those by whose wronging they will gratify friends, or people they admire, or their beloveds, or their masters, or in general those they live their lives by. They wrong those in whose case they can expect equitable treatment. They wrong those against whom they have already brought complaints and with whom they have already broken, as Callippus did in the affair of Dion. Such acts too appear close to not doing wrong.note

They wrong those who are about to be wronged by others if not by themselves, since there is no longer time to deliberate. So Aenesidemus is said to have sent cottabus prizes to Gelon, who had enslaved ⁎ ⁎ ⁎, because Gelon had got there first, when Aenesidemus himself had been about to do it. They wrong those by whose wronging they will be able to do many just acts, thinking they will easily make amends. Jason of Thessaly said this, that one must do some wrongs in order to be able to do many just things as well. People also commit the wrongs that everyone, or many, are accustomed to commit, since they think they’ll be pardoned. They commit wrongs that are easy to hide. Such are things quickly consumed, like food. Or things easily altered in shape or color or by mixing. Or things easy to make disappear in many places, which are things easily carried and hidden in small spaces. And things of which the wrongdoer already had many that were similar and indistinguishable. And wrongs the victims are ashamed to mention, such as insolent assaults on the women of their household, or on themselves, or [on] their sons.note

And wrongs over which the prosecutor would seem litigious, which are small matters and those that are pardonable. These, then, are roughly the states of mind in which people do wrong, the kinds of wrongs they do, the kinds of people they wrong, and why.

Empedocles says the same about not killing living things. This is not just for some and unjust for others, “but what is lawful for all stretches unbroken through the wide-ruling / upper air and through the boundless earth.” Alcidamas says it too in his Messenian Speech ⁎ ⁎ ⁎. As for the persons concerned, the distinction is twofold. What one must and must not do is defined either in relation to the community or in relation to one of its members. That is why there are two ways of doing wrong and doing right: either toward one definite person or toward the community. The adulterer and the man who strikes someone wrong a definite person, while the man who doesn’t serve in the army wrongs the community.note

Now that all wrongs have been classified, some against the community and some against one or more others, let us go back and say what being wronged is. Being wronged is suffering unjust treatment from someone acting voluntarily, since doing wrong was defined earlier as voluntary. The person wronged must be harmed, and harmed against his will. The kinds of harm are clear from what was said before, since good and bad things in themselves were discussed earlier. Voluntary acts were also discussed, as those done knowingly. So all charges must concern either the community or the individual. And the act must be done either by someone ignorant and unwilling or by someone willing and knowing. Of the latter, some acts are done by choice and others from emotion.

Anger will be discussed in the treatment of the emotions. What people choose to do, and in what state of mind, has been discussed earlier. But people often admit to an act 1374a without admitting the name of the charge, or what the name refers to. For instance, they admit taking something but not stealing it, or striking first but not acting with insolence, or having intercourse but not committing adultery. Or they admit stealing but not committing sacrilege, since the thing wasn’t the god’s. Or they admit farming land, but not public land, or talking with the enemy, but not committing treason. For this reason we should define these things too: what theft is, what insolence is, what adultery is. Then, whether we want to show that the charge applies or that it doesn’t, we can bring out what is just.

In all such cases the dispute is about whether the act is unjust and bad, or not unjust. Wickedness and wrongdoing lie in the choice, and names like these, such as insolence and theft, also indicate the choice. If a man struck someone, he did not necessarily act with insolence. He did so only if he struck for some purpose, for example to dishonor the other man or for his own pleasure. Nor, if he took something secretly, did he necessarily steal it. He stole it only if he took it to harm ⟨the person he took it from⟩ and to appropriate it for himself. The other cases work the same way as these.

There were two kinds of just and unjust acts, some written and some unwritten. We have spoken about those the laws declare, and there are two kinds of the unwritten. One kind concerns an excess of excellence and of vice, which earns reproach and praise, dishonor and honor and rewards. Examples are being grateful to a benefactor, returning kindness for kindness, being ready to help one’s friends, and all such things. The other kind makes up for what is missing in the particular, written law. Equity seems to be just, and equity is what is just beyond the written law.

This happens partly with the lawgivers’ intent and partly without it. It happens without it when something escapes their notice. It happens with it when they cannot define precisely, but must speak universally, though the rule holds not universally but only for the most part. It also happens with things that are hard to define because they are endless, for example wounding with an iron instrument of what size and what kind. A lifetime would run out before one finished listing them. So if the matter is indeterminate, yet a law must be made, the lawgiver has to speak in general terms. As a result, if someone raises his hand while wearing a ring, or strikes with it, he will be liable and in the wrong under the written law. 1374b But in truth he is not in the wrong, and this is what equity is.

If equity is as described, it’s clear what sorts of things are equitable and not equitable, and what sort of people are not equitable. Things that call for pardon are equitable. It is equitable not to treat mistakes and wrongs as equal, nor misfortunes either. Misfortunes are what is unexpected and does not come from wickedness. Mistakes are what is not unexpected but does not come from wickedness. Wrongs are what is neither unexpected nor free of wickedness, since acts done from desire come from wickedness. It is equitable, too, to pardon human failings.

Equity looks not to the law but to the lawgiver, and not to the letter but to the lawgiver’s intention. It looks not to the act but to the choice, and not to the part but to the whole. It asks not what sort of person someone is now, but what sort he has always been, or usually. It also means remembering good treatment received rather than bad, and good received rather than good done. It means putting up with being wronged. It means being willing to settle a matter by words rather than by deeds. And it means preferring arbitration to the courts, since the arbitrator looks to equity and the juror to the law. Indeed, the arbitrator was invented for this purpose, so that equity might prevail. That will do for our account of what is equitable.

A wrong is also greater if the victim, having been wronged, punished himself severely, since then the doer deserves a still greater punishment. Sophocles, speaking on behalf of Euctemon, who had cut his own throat after being treated with insolence, 1375a said he would not assess the penalty at less than the victim had assessed against himself. A wrong is greater when someone committed it alone, or first, or with few others. Committing the same offense many times [is great]. So is a wrong that led people to seek and find measures to prevent and punish it. In Argos, for example, a man is punished on whose account a law was made, and so are those on whose account the prison was built. The more brutal wrong is greater, and so is the more premeditated one. So is the one that people who hear of it fear more than they pity. The rhetorical points are these: that the man has destroyed or overstepped many things, such as oaths, handshakes, pledges, rights of intermarriage. This makes it an accumulation of many wrongs.note

A wrong is also greater when it is committed in the very place where wrongdoers are punished, as perjured witnesses do. Where would a man not do wrong, if he does it even in the courtroom? Wrongs that bring the most shame are greater. So is wronging someone from whom one has received benefits, since one does more wrong, both by doing harm and by not doing good. So is a wrong that violates unwritten justice, since it takes a better man to be just without compulsion. The written laws compel, the unwritten do not. In another way, a wrong is greater if it violates the written laws, since a man who commits wrongs that are feared and carry penalties would also commit those that carry none. So much for greater and lesser wrongs.

We should argue that equity always remains and never changes, nor does the common law, since it is according to nature, while the written laws often change. Hence the lines in Sophocles’ Antigone. She defends herself by saying that she buried her brother contrary to Creon’s law but not contrary to the unwritten law: 1375b “Not of today or yesterday, but always . . . / These, then, I was not going to break for any man.” We should argue that the just is what is true and beneficial, not what merely seems so, so the written law is not law, since it doesn’t do the work of law. We should argue that the judge is like an assayer of silver, there to tell counterfeit justice from the genuine. And we should argue that it takes a better man to use and abide by the unwritten laws than the written ones.

We should point out if the law contradicts a law of good repute, or even contradicts itself. For example, sometimes one law orders that whatever agreements people make are binding, while another forbids making agreements contrary to the law. If the law is ambiguous, we should turn it about and see which interpretation fits justice or advantage, and then use that one. If the circumstances for which the law was enacted no longer hold but the law still does, we should try to make this clear and fight the law on that ground. But if the written law favors our case, we should say that “to the best of one’s judgment” is not there so that jurors may judge against the law. It is there so that a juror won’t perjure himself if he doesn’t know what the law says. We should also say that nobody chooses what is good absolutely, but what is good for himself.

We should argue that there is no difference between a law not existing and its not being used. We should say that, as in the other arts, it doesn’t pay to try to outsmart the doctor, since a doctor’s mistake does less harm than getting used to disobeying authority. And we should say that seeking to be wiser than the laws is exactly what the laws people praise forbid. So much for laws. As for witnesses, they are of two kinds, ancient and recent, and of the recent, some share the risk and some stand outside it. By ancient witnesses I mean the poets and any other well-known people whose judgments are on record. For example, the Athenians used Homer as a witness about Salamis, and the people of Tenedos recently used Periander of Corinth against the people of Sigeum.note

Cleophon, too, used Solon’s elegiac verses against Critias, saying that the family had long been dissolute. Otherwise Solon would never have written, “Tell red-haired Critias to listen to his father.” Witnesses of this kind, then, concern past events. 1376a For the future there are also the interpreters of oracles. Themistocles was one, when he said the wooden wall meant they must fight at sea. Further, proverbs too, as has been said, are testimonies. For example, if someone advises against making a friend of an old man, the proverb bears him witness: “Never do good to an old man.” Another proverb supports killing the sons of those whose fathers one has also killed: “Fool, who kills the father and leaves the sons.”note

Recent witnesses are well-known people who have given a judgment on something. Their judgments are useful to those disputing about the same matters. Eubulus, for example, used against Chares in the courts what Plato said to Archibius, that admitting to being wicked had become common in the city. Recent witnesses also include those who share the risk if they are judged to be lying. Witnesses like these testify only to whether something has happened [or not], or whether it is so or not. They are not witnesses to its quality, for example whether it is just or unjust, advantageous or not. But witnesses from outside are the most credible even about such matters. The ancient ones are the most credible of all, since they cannot be corrupted.note

As for arguments about testimony, someone who has no witnesses should argue that the case must be judged from probabilities, and that this is what “to the best of one’s judgment” means. He should argue that probabilities can’t be bribed to deceive, and that probabilities can’t be convicted of false testimony. Someone who has witnesses, against an opponent who doesn’t, should argue that probabilities can’t be put on trial. He should add that there would be no need of testimony if it were enough to examine the matter from arguments. Testimony may be about oneself or about one’s opponent, and about the facts or about character. So clearly one can never be at a loss for useful testimony. If there is none about the facts, either supporting oneself or against one’s opponent, there will still be testimony about character. It can show either that one is decent oneself or that one’s opponent is bad.

Other points about a witness must be argued from the same topics we use for enthymemes. These include whether he is a friend, an enemy, or neither, whether he is of good repute, ill repute, or neither, and all other such differences. As for contracts, argument is useful to the extent of amplifying or minimizing them, or making them credible or not. 1376b If they are on our side, we make them credible and binding, and if they are on our opponent’s side, the opposite. To establish their credibility or lack of it, the procedure is no different from the treatment of witnesses. Contracts are as credible as the people whose names are on them or who keep them in custody.

If the contract is admitted to exist and is on our side, we should amplify it. A contract is a private and particular law. Contracts do not make the law authoritative, but the laws make contracts authoritative when they are made in accordance with the laws. And in general the law itself is a kind of contract, so whoever distrusts or annuls a contract annuls the laws. Further, most transactions, and the voluntary ones in particular, are carried out by contract, so that if contracts lose their force, people’s dealings with one another are destroyed. The other points that fit here are plain to see. But if the contract is against us and on our opponents’ side, then first, the arguments one would use to fight a law that is against us apply. It is absurd if we think we need not obey laws that were not rightly laid down, where their makers went wrong, and yet must obey contracts.

Next, the juror is the umpire of what is just. So it is not the contract he should consider but what is more just. What is just cannot be perverted by deceit or by compulsion, since it is natural, whereas contracts are made even by people who have been deceived or compelled. In addition, one should consider whether the contract runs contrary to any of the written laws or the common ones, and among the written laws, to our own or to foreign ones. Then consider whether it runs contrary to other contracts, later or earlier. Either the later ones are authoritative, or the earlier ones were right and the later ones are a fraud, whichever line is useful. Further, look at advantage: does the contract somehow run counter to the judges’ interest? And there are other points of this kind, which are just as easy to see. Testimony under torture is a kind of testimony. It is thought to be credible because a kind of compulsion is involved.note

So it is not hard to say what can be said about this as well. If such testimony is on our side, we can amplify it by saying that it is the only true kind of testimony. 1377a If it goes against us and favors our opponent, one could refute it by telling the truth about the whole class of tortures. People under compulsion say what is false no less than what is true: some hold out stubbornly against telling the truth, and others lie readily so that it will stop sooner. One should be able to point to examples of such things having happened that the judges know of.

[One must say that testimony under torture is not true. Many who are thick-witted, thick-skinned and strong in soul hold out nobly under compulsion, while cowards and the timid turn on themselves before they have even seen the instruments of compulsion. So there is nothing trustworthy in tortures.] Oaths can be divided in four ways. One either offers an oath and accepts one, or does neither, or does one but not the other, and in the last case either offers but does not accept, or accepts but does not offer. Besides these there is a further question: whether an oath has already been sworn, by oneself or by the other party. You decline to offer the oath because people readily perjure themselves. Also, once your opponent has sworn he won’t pay back, whereas if he doesn’t swear you expect the jurors to condemn him, [and] the risk you run before the jurors is preferable, since you trust them but not him.note

You decline to accept because the oath is taken in exchange for money. And if you were a bad man you would have sworn it, since it is better to be bad for the sake of something than for nothing: by swearing you would have the money, and by not swearing you won’t. Your refusal, then, would come from excellence, not from fear of perjury. Xenophanes’ saying fits here: this challenge is not fair when an impious man makes it to a pious one. It is like a strong man challenging a weak one to strike or be struck. If you accept, it is because you trust yourself and not him. Reversing Xenophanes’ saying, you should say that the fair way is this: the impious man offers and the pious one swears. And it is outrageous for him to be unwilling to swear himself about matters on which he expects the jurors to swear before they give judgment.note

If you offer the oath, it is because it is pious to be willing to entrust the matter to the gods, and because your opponent has no need of any other judges, since you are handing the decision to him. Also, it is absurd to be unwilling to swear about matters on which they expect others to swear. Since it is clear how to argue each case singly, it is also clear how to argue when they are combined. Take the cases where one is willing to accept but not to offer, or offers but is unwilling to accept, or is willing both to accept and to offer, or neither. 1377b These must be composed of the cases already stated, so the arguments must also be composed of those already stated. If you yourself have sworn an oath that conflicts with your present case, say that this is not perjury. Wrongdoing is voluntary, and perjury is wrongdoing, but what is done through force or deceit is involuntary.

Here, then, you should also conclude that perjury lies in the mind and not in the mouth. If your opponent has sworn an oath that conflicts with his case, say that by not abiding by what he swore he overturns everything. That is the very reason people swear an oath before they administer the laws. “They expect you to abide by the oaths you swore before judging, and yet they themselves do not abide by theirs?” And so on, whatever else one might say by way of amplification. [So much, then, for the non-technical proofs.]

The speaker’s appearing to be a certain kind of person is more useful in deliberation, and the hearer’s being in a certain state of mind is more useful in lawsuits. Things do not look the same to those who love and those who hate, or to those who are angry and those who are calm. 1378a They look either altogether different or different in degree. To someone who loves the person he is judging, that person seems to do either no wrong or only a small one, and to someone who hates him it seems the opposite. To someone who desires something and is hopeful, if what is coming is pleasant, it appears both that it will happen and that it will be good. To someone who is indifferent or disgruntled, the opposite appears. There are three reasons why speakers themselves are believed, for there are three things, apart from demonstrations, that make us believe.

These are practical wisdom, excellence and goodwill. When speakers mislead us about what they say or advise, it is because they lack all of these or one of them. Either through folly they do not form correct opinions. Or they form correct opinions but through wickedness do not say what they think. Or they have practical wisdom and are decent but are not well disposed, so it is possible for them to know the best course and not advise it. There is nothing besides these. So the speaker who seems to have all three must be believed by his hearers.

How people might appear to have practical wisdom and to be good must be drawn from the analysis of the excellences, since the same sources would let one present either another person or oneself in that light. Goodwill and friendship must be discussed in the treatment of the emotions. The emotions are the things that change people so that they differ in their judgments, and that are accompanied by pain and pleasure: anger, pity, fear and all others like them, and their opposites. For each one we must make a threefold division. Take anger: we must ask in what state people are irascible, with whom they usually get angry, and over what sorts of things. If we had one or two of these but not all, it would be impossible to arouse anger, and the same goes for the other emotions.

So just as we set out the premises for the subjects discussed earlier, let us do the same for these, dividing them in the way described.

That is why it was well said of rage: “far sweeter than trickling honey, / it swells up in the breasts of men.” A kind of pleasure follows on anger, both for this reason and because people dwell in their minds on taking revenge. The picture that comes to them then produces pleasure, as dreams do.note

Slighting is an active opinion about something that appears worth nothing. We think bad and good things, and whatever contributes to them, worth taking seriously, but whatever is nothing or slight we take to be worth nothing. There are three kinds of slighting: contempt, spite and insolence. The contemptuous person slights, since people despise whatever they think worth nothing, and they slight what is worth nothing. And the spiteful person [appears to show contempt]. Spite is obstructing someone’s wishes, not to get something for oneself but so that the other won’t get it. Since he does it not to get something for himself, he is slighting. Clearly he supposes that the other will not harm him, or he would be afraid and would not slight him. Nor does he suppose that the other could benefit him in any way worth mentioning, or he would take care to be his friend.

The insolent person slights too. Insolence is doing and saying things that bring shame on the victim, not to gain anything for oneself beyond the act itself, but for the pleasure of it. Those who retaliate are not being insolent; they are taking revenge. The insolent take pleasure in it because they think that by treating others badly they show themselves all the more superior. That is why the young and the rich are insolent: they think insolence shows their superiority. Dishonor is part of insolence, and whoever dishonors someone slights him, because what is worth nothing has no value, good or bad. That is why Achilles says in his anger, “he has dishonored me; for he has taken my prize and keeps it himself,” and “as if I were some dishonored vagrant,” implying that this is why he is angry.note

People think they deserve to be highly regarded by those inferior to them in birth, power and excellence, 1379a and in general in whatever they greatly surpass them. In money, for instance, the rich man expects it of the poor man, in speaking the orator of someone who cannot speak, the ruler of the ruled, and the man who thinks himself fit to rule of the man fit to be ruled. That is why it has been said, “great is the rage of Zeus-nurtured kings,” and “but even afterwards he nurses his grudge.” They resent it because of their superiority. Further, they are angry at slights from those by whom they think they ought to be well treated. These are the people whom they have benefited or are benefiting, either themselves or through someone acting for them or one of their own, or whom they wish or once wished to benefit. From this, then, it is already clear in what state people get angry, with whom, and over what.note

People get angry themselves when they are in pain, because someone in pain desires something. Suppose someone directly opposes him in anything, as when someone stops a thirsty man from drinking. If the opposition is indirect, it appears to do the same thing. Whether someone works against him, or fails to help him, or annoys him in some other way while he is in that state, he gets angry with all of them.

That is why the sick, the poor, ⟨those at war⟩, lovers and the thirsty, and in general anyone who desires something and doesn’t get it, are irascible and easily roused. They are roused most of all against those who slight their present condition. The sick man is roused against those who slight his illness, the poor man against those who slight his poverty, the man at war against those who slight the war, the lover against those who slight his love, and so on with the others, ⟨or failing that, against anyone who slights anything else at all⟩. The emotion each one already has paves the way for his particular anger. People also get angry if they happen to have been expecting the opposite. What is very contrary to expectation pains us more, just as what is very contrary to expectation delights us more if what we want happens. This also makes clear which seasons, times, dispositions and ages are easily moved to anger, and where and when. The more people are in these states, the more easily they are moved.

People in this state, then, are easily moved to anger. They get angry with those who laugh at them, mock them and jeer at them, because such people are being insolent. They are angry with those who harm them in ways that are signs of insolence. Such harms must be ones done neither in return for anything nor for any benefit to those who do them, since then they seem to be done out of insolence. They are also angry with those who speak ill of, and show contempt for, the things they themselves care most about. People who pride themselves on philosophy, for instance, are angry if someone disparages philosophy, those who pride themselves on their looks if someone disparages their looks, and so on with the rest. They are much angrier if they suspect that they do not have these qualities, either at all or not to any great degree, or are not thought to have them. 1379b When they think they greatly excel in the things they are mocked for, they don’t care.

They are angrier with friends than with those who are not friends, since they think they have more right to good treatment from friends. They are angry with those who usually honor them or pay them attention, if they stop behaving that way. They think they are being despised by these people too, since otherwise they would be doing the same as before. They are angry with those who do not return a kindness or do not repay in equal measure, and with those who act against them, if these are their inferiors. All such people appear to despise them. Some treat them as inferiors, and others treat what they received as though it came from inferiors.

They are angrier with people of no account if these slight them at all. Anger at a slight is assumed to be directed at those who have no business slighting, and inferiors have no business slighting. With friends, they are angry if their friends do not speak well of them or treat them well, still more if they do the opposite, and also if they fail to notice that they need something, as Antiphon’s Plexippus is angry with Meleager. Failing to notice is a sign of slighting, because what we care about does not escape us. They are angry with those who rejoice at their misfortunes, or are cheerful in the middle of their misfortunes, since that is a sign either of an enemy or of someone who slights them. They are angry with those who don’t care if they cause them pain, which is why people get angry with bearers of bad news. And they are angry with those who listen to talk about their failings or watch them, because such people are like those who slight them or like enemies. Friends share our pain, and everyone feels pain when looking at his own failings.note

Further, people are angry with those who slight them in front of five groups: their rivals, those they admire, those by whom they want to be admired, those before whom they feel shame, and those who feel shame before them. If anyone slights them in front of these, they are angrier. They are angry with those who slight what it would be shameful for them not to defend: parents, children, wives, subjects. They are angry with those who do not return a kindness, since such a slight goes against what is fitting. They are angry with those who use irony on people who are in earnest, since irony is contemptuous. They are angry with those who do good to others but not to them as well. This too is contemptuous: not thinking someone worthy of what one thinks everyone else worthy of. Forgetting also produces anger, even forgetting names, small as that is. Forgetting too seems to be a sign of slighting, because forgetting comes from neglect, and neglect is a kind of slighting.

We have now covered, all together, with whom people get angry, in what state and for what reasons. Clearly one would need to use one’s speech to put the hearers into the state of people who are angry, and to show one’s opponents guilty of the things people get angry about, and as the sort of people they get angry with.

The reason is that denying what is obvious is shamelessness, and shamelessness is slighting and contempt. At any rate, we feel no shame before those we thoroughly despise. People are calm toward those who humble themselves before them and do not contradict them. Such people appear to admit that they are inferior, inferiors are afraid, and no one who is afraid slights. That anger stops toward those who humble themselves is shown even by dogs, which do not bite people who sit down. People are calm toward those who are serious with them when they are serious, since they feel taken seriously and not despised. They are calm toward those who have done them greater kindnesses, and toward those who beg and plead, since these are humbler. They are calm toward those who are not insolent, or mocking, or slighting toward anyone, or at least not toward good people or people like themselves. In general, one should look for what calms people by considering the opposites.

People are not angry with those they fear or feel shame before, as long as they feel that way, since it is impossible to be afraid and angry at the same time. With those who acted out of anger they are either not angry or less angry, because these do not appear to have acted out of slighting. No one who is angry slights, since slighting involves no pain, 1380b whereas anger is accompanied by pain. People are also calm toward those who feel shame before them. Clearly people are calm when they are in a state opposite to anger: in play, in laughter, at a festival, in good times, in success, in fulfillment, and in general in freedom from pain, in pleasure that is not insolent, and in reasonable hope. Further, they are calm when time has passed and their anger is no longer fresh, because time stops anger. Revenge taken earlier on someone else also stops even greater anger against another person. That is why Philocrates answered well when the people were angry with him and someone asked, “Why don’t you defend yourself?”note

“Not yet,” he said. “When, then?” “When I see someone else slandered.” People become calm once they have spent their anger on someone else, as happened with Ergophilus. They were more incensed with him than with Callisthenes, but they acquitted him because they had condemned Callisthenes to death the day before. People are calm if they have convicted the offender. They are calm if the offenders have suffered a greater harm than the angry people would have done to them, since they feel they have, as it were, had their revenge. They are calm if they think they themselves are in the wrong and are suffering justly. [Anger does not arise against what is just.] They no longer think they are suffering contrary to what is fitting, and that, we said, is what anger was. That is why one should punish in words first, since even slaves are less resentful when punished after that. People are also calm if they think the offender won’t perceive that the punishment comes from them and is in return for what they suffered, because anger is directed at the individual. This is clear from the definition.note

That is why the poet was right to have Odysseus say, “Tell him it was Odysseus, sacker of cities,” as though he would not have been avenged unless his victim had perceived both by whom and for what. So people are not angry with others who cannot perceive it. Nor are they angry any longer with the dead, since the dead have suffered the ultimate and will neither feel pain nor perceive, and that is what angry people aim at. That is why the poet spoke well about Hector, when he wanted to stop Achilles’ anger at the dead man: “for it is senseless earth he outrages in his fury.” ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ Clearly, then, those who want to calm people must argue from these topics. They must put the hearers themselves into this state, and present those the hearers are angry with as people to be feared or felt shame before, or as having done them kindnesses, or as having acted unwillingly, or as being deeply pained at what they have done.note

Friends, too, are those for whom the same things are good and bad, and those who are friends of the same people and enemies of the same people. They necessarily wish for the same things, so whoever wishes for another what he wishes for himself is evidently that person’s friend. People also love those who have done good to them or to those they care about, if the benefits were great, or given eagerly, or at critical moments of that sort, and for their own sake. They also love those they think want to do them good. And their friends’ friends, and those who love the people they themselves love. And those who are loved by the people they love. And those who are enemies of the same people, who hate those they themselves hate, and who are hated by those they hate. All these evidently take the same things to be good as they do themselves, and so wish what is good for them, which, as we said, is the mark of a friend.

Further, people love those who are ready to do them good with money or with protection. That is why they honor the generous and the brave, and the just. They take as just those who do not live off others. That means those who live by working, and among these especially farmers, and among the rest especially those who work with their own hands. And the moderate, because they do no wrong. And those who mind their own business, for the same reason. And those we want to be friends with, if they evidently want it too. Such are those who are good in excellence, and those who are well thought of by everyone, or by the best people, or by those we admire, or by those who admire us. Again, people love those who are pleasant to pass the time and spend the day with. Such are the good-tempered, who don’t point out our mistakes and are neither contentious nor quarrelsome, since all contentious people are combative, and combatants evidently want the opposite of what we want.

And those who are deft both at making a joke and at taking one. Both kinds are after the same thing as the person they are with, since they can take teasing and they tease in good taste. And those who praise the good qualities we have, especially those we are most afraid we lack. 1381b And those who are neat in their appearance, their dress, their whole way of life. And those who don’t throw in our faces either our mistakes or their own favors, since both are ways of censuring. And those who don’t bear grudges or keep a record of grievances, but are easy to make up with. People suppose that others will treat them the way they see them treating everyone else. And those who don’t speak ill of others, and who notice the good points of their neighbors and of ourselves rather than the bad, since that is what a good person does. And those who don’t resist us when we are angry or in earnest, since people who do that are combative.

And those who take us seriously in some way: who admire us, think us people of worth, and enjoy our company. This applies especially when they feel this way about the very things for which we most want to be admired, or thought worthy, or found pleasant. And those like us, who pursue the same activities, provided they don’t get in our way and don’t make their living from the same source. Otherwise it becomes “potter against potter.” And those who desire the same things as we do, if it is possible for both to share in them at once; if not, the same thing happens here too. And those with whom we are on such terms that we are not ashamed before them of things that are matters of mere opinion, provided this isn’t from contempt. And those before whom we are ashamed of things that are truly shameful. And those we compete with for honor, or by whom we want to be emulated and not envied: these we either love or want to be friends with. And those we help to gain good things, unless greater harm is going to come to us from it.note

And those who love their friends equally whether they are absent or present. That is why everyone loves those who are like this toward the dead. And, in general, those who are deeply devoted to their friends and don’t abandon them, since of good people, the ones people love most are those who are good at loving. And those who don’t put on an act with us. Such are those who tell us even their own weaknesses. We said that before our friends we are not ashamed of what is a matter of opinion. So if the one who feels shame does not love, the one who doesn’t feel it seems to be one who loves. And those who are not frightening, and those we feel confident with, since no one loves someone he fears. Kinds of friendship are companionship, intimacy, kinship, and the like. What produces friendship is doing a kindness, doing it unasked, and not making a show of it once it is done. Then it seems to be done for the person’s own sake and not for some other reason.

As for enmity and hating, clearly they can be studied from the opposites. What produces enmity is anger, spite, and slander. Anger arises from things done to oneself, but enmity can arise even without that. We hate someone simply if we suppose him to be a certain kind of person. Anger is always directed at individuals, such as Callias or Socrates, while hatred is directed at whole classes too: everyone hates a thief or a malicious prosecutor. Anger can be cured by time; hatred cannot. Anger aims at causing pain, hatred at causing harm. The angry person wants the other to feel it; to the one who hates, it makes no difference. Now, painful things can all be felt, while the greatest evils, injustice and folly, are the least felt, since the presence of vice causes no pain.

Anger is accompanied by pain, hatred is not. The angry person is pained, the one who hates is not. And the angry person might feel pity once many things have happened, the one who hates under no circumstances. The one wants the object of his anger to suffer in return, the other wants him not to exist. ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ It is clear from all this that one can show people to be enemies or friends when they are, make them so when they are not, and refute them when they claim to be. When they are in dispute through anger or enmity, one can bring them over to whichever side one chooses.

Such things include the enmity and anger of people able to do something, since clearly they want to, and so they are close to doing it. Injustice that has power is another, since the unjust person is unjust by choice. 1382b So is outraged excellence that has power. Clearly it always chooses to retaliate when it is subjected to insolence, and now it is able to. So is the fear felt by people able to do something, since such a person too must be ready to act. Most people are rather bad, unable to resist gain, and cowardly in danger. So it is generally frightening to be at someone else’s mercy, and those who share the secret of a terrible deed are frightening to the one who did it, since they may inform on him or desert him. Those able to do wrong are frightening to those who can be wronged, since as a rule people do wrong whenever they can. So are those who have been wronged, or think they have, since they are always watching for their chance.

Those who have done wrong are frightening too, if they have power, since they fear retaliation, and we assumed that this sort of thing is frightening. So are rivals for the same things, where it is impossible for both to have them at once, since people are always at war with such rivals. So are those who are frightening to people stronger than ourselves, since if they can harm the stronger they could harm us all the more. So are those whom people stronger than us fear, for the same reason. So are those who have destroyed people stronger than us. So are those who attack people weaker than us: they are either frightening already or will be once they have grown stronger. Among those who have been wronged, and among enemies or rivals, it is not the hot-tempered and outspoken who are frightening, but the calm, the dissemblers, and the unscrupulous. With them you can’t tell whether they are close to acting, so you can never be sure they are far from it. All frightening things are more frightening when a mistake cannot be put right. That may be because it is altogether impossible, or because it lies not in our power but in our opponents’.

So are things against which there is no help, or none easily had. To put it simply, things are frightening when they would be pitiable if they happened, or were about to happen, to others. These, then, roughly speaking, are the chief things that are frightening and that people fear. Now let us say in what state of mind people themselves feel fear. If fear is accompanied by an expectation of suffering something destructive, it is clear that no one who thinks nothing could happen to him feels fear. Nor do people fear things they don’t think they will suffer, or people they don’t think will make them suffer, or at a time when they don’t think so. Those who feel fear, then, must be those who think they might suffer something, from these particular people, these particular things, at this particular time.

People don’t think they might suffer when they are, and seem to be, in great good fortune. 1383a That is why such people are insolent, contemptuous, and reckless; wealth, strength, plenty of friends, and power make people like this. Nor do they think so when they believe they have already suffered every terrible thing and have grown numb to the future, like those already being put to death on the plank. There must be some lingering hope of rescue from what they are anxious about. Here is a sign of this: fear makes people deliberate, yet no one deliberates about hopeless matters. So when it is better that your audience feel fear, you must put them in the frame of mind of people who might suffer, since others greater than they have suffered. Show them people like themselves suffering or having suffered at the hands of those they never expected, suffering things they never expected, at a time they never expected.note

Since it is clear what fear is, what things are frightening, and in what state of mind people are afraid, it is also clear from this what confidence is, what people are confident about, and in what state of mind they are confident. ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ Confidence is the opposite of ⟨fear, and what inspires confidence the opposite of⟩ what is frightening. So confidence is a hope, accompanied by imagination, that the things that keep us safe are near, and that frightening things are either absent or far away. People are confident when dangers are far off and sources of confidence are near. They are also confident when there are ways of putting things right and means of help, many or great or both. They are confident when they have neither been wronged nor done wrong, and when they either have no rivals at all, or their rivals have no power, or, having power, are friends, or have done them good or received good from them.

They are confident, too, when those whose interests are the same as theirs are more numerous, or stronger, or both. As for their own state of mind, people are confident if they think they have often succeeded and not suffered, or if they have often faced danger and escaped. People become unaffected by danger in two ways: either by never having been tested, or by having resources to help them. In dangers at sea, those with no experience of storms are confident about what is coming, and so are those who have resources thanks to their experience. People are also confident when something holds no terror for their equals, or for their inferiors and those they think themselves superior to. They think themselves superior to those they have beaten, or whose superiors or equals they have beaten.

They are also confident if they think they possess more, and greater, of the advantages that make people formidable when they have the upper hand in them. 1383b These are plenty of money, physical strength, strength in friends, in territory, and in military resources, either all of them or the most important. They are confident, too, if they have wronged no one, or not many, or not those they fear. And, in general, they are confident if things stand well with them in relation to the gods, especially as shown by signs and oracles. Anger inspires confidence; being wronged rather than doing wrong produces anger; and the divine is supposed to help those who are wronged. Finally, they are confident when, as they undertake something, they think they cannot come to harm and will not, or that they will succeed. So much for what is frightening and what inspires confidence.

So is making a profit from petty or disgraceful things, or from the helpless, such as the poor or the dead. Hence the proverb “to rob even a corpse”; this comes from sordid greed and meanness. So is failing to help with money when one can, or helping less than one can, and accepting help from those less well off. So is borrowing when it will look like begging; begging when it will look like demanding repayment; demanding repayment when it will look like begging; praising so as to seem to be asking for something; and persisting all the same after being refused. All these are signs of meanness. Then there is praising people to their face, overpraising their good points and glossing over their faults, showing excessive grief in the presence of someone who grieves, and everything else of that kind, since these are signs of flattery. And there is failing to endure hardships that older people endure, 1384a or the pampered, or those in greater power, or in general those less capable, since all these are signs of softness.

So is accepting benefits from another, and doing so often, and reproaching someone with the good one has done him. All these are signs of smallness of soul and abjectness. So is talking about oneself all the time and making grand claims about oneself, and claiming what others have done as one’s own, which is boastfulness. The same goes for the actions, signs, and the like that come from each of the other vices of character, since they are disgraceful and shameless. In addition, it is shameful not to share in the fine things that everyone shares in, or all or most of one’s peers. (By “peers” I mean people of the same nation, fellow citizens, people of the same age, relatives, in general those on an equal footing.) For it is already disgraceful not to share, for example, in education to the same degree, and likewise with other things.

All these are more shameful if they appear to be one’s own fault. They then seem more to come from vice, if one is oneself responsible for what was, is, or will be the case. People are also ashamed when they are suffering, have suffered, or are going to suffer things that bring dishonor and reproach. These are things that involve putting one’s body at another’s service, or lending oneself to disgraceful acts, among them being subjected to insolent abuse. Those that involve self-indulgence are shameful whether one is willing or unwilling. Those that involve force are shameful when one is unwilling, since submitting and not defending oneself come from unmanliness or cowardice. These and things like them, then, are what people are ashamed of. Shame is an imagining of disgrace, felt for the disgrace itself and not for its consequences. And no one cares about reputation except because of the people who hold the opinion. So it follows that one feels shame before those whose opinion one takes into account.

One takes into account those who admire one, those one admires, those by whom one wants to be admired, those one competes with for honor, and those whose opinion one does not despise. People want to be admired by, and admire, those who have some good thing that is held in honor. They also want this from those who control something they badly need, as lovers do. They compete for honor with their equals. And they heed people of practical wisdom, as likely to speak the truth; such are older people and educated people. People feel more shame at things done before their eyes and in the open. Hence the proverb “shame dwells in the eyes.” That is why people feel more shame before those who will always be around them and those who pay attention to them, 1384b since in both cases they are under their eyes. They also feel shame before those who are not guilty of the same faults, since clearly these people take the opposite view.

They feel shame, too, before those who are unforgiving toward people who appear to do wrong. It is said that people don’t feel indignation at their neighbors for what they do themselves, so evidently they do feel indignation at what they don’t do. And before those who tell tales to many people, since it makes no difference whether a thing isn’t known or simply isn’t reported. Tale-tellers include those who have been wronged, because they keep an eye on us, and slanderers. If they slander even people who do no wrong, they will slander all the more those who do. Shame is also felt before those who spend their time on other people’s faults, like mockers and comic poets, since these are in a way slanderers and tale-tellers. It is felt before those in whose eyes one has never yet failed, since one is in the position of being admired. That is why people feel shame before those who ask them for something for the first time, since they have not yet lost face with them in any way. Such are those who have just begun wanting to be friends (they have seen only our best side;

that is why Euripides’ reply to the Syracusans was apt). So too are old acquaintances who know nothing against us. People are ashamed not only of the shameful things themselves, but also of their signs: not only of having sex, for example, but also of the signs of it. They are ashamed not only of doing disgraceful things, but also of talking about them. Likewise, they feel shame not only before the people mentioned, but also before those who will report to them, such as their servants and friends. In general, people feel no shame before those whose opinion, as to its truth, they utterly despise; no one feels shame before small children or animals. Nor are they ashamed of the same things before acquaintances and strangers. Before acquaintances they are ashamed of what seems truly shameful, before outsiders of what is shameful by convention. As for their own state of mind, people would feel shame, first, if there are people related to them in the way we described those before whom they feel shame.note

These, as we said, were those they admire, or who admire them, or by whom they want to be admired, or from whom they need some service they won’t get if they are in disgrace. And these people are either watching (as in the speech Cydias made to the assembly about the settlement on Samos, where he asked the Athenians to imagine the Greeks standing in a circle around them, seeing, and not merely going to hear about, whatever they voted), or near, or going to find out. That is why people in misfortune don’t want to be seen by those who once emulated them, 1385a since those who emulate are admirers. People also feel shame when they have deeds and circumstances to their name that disgrace them. These may be their own, or their ancestors’, or those of others with whom they have some close tie.note

And, in general, those of people for whom they themselves feel shame. These are the people mentioned, and those whose conduct reflects on them: those whose teachers or advisers they have been, or, if there are others like themselves, those with whom they compete for honor. Out of shame before such people they do many things and refrain from many. And they are more prone to shame when they are going to be seen by, and move about in public among, those who know. That is why the poet Antiphon, when he was about to be put to death on the plank by Dionysius, spoke as he did. He saw those who were to die with him covering their faces as they went through the gates. “Why are you covering your faces?” he said. “Is it for fear one of these people will see you tomorrow?” So much for shame. On shamelessness, clearly we shall be well supplied from the opposites.note

The help, then, must above all meet that same need, or failing that, an equal or greater one. It is clear to whom kindness is shown, for what, and in what state of mind. So it is clear that the speaker must work from these points. On one side, he shows that people are or have been in such pain and need. On the other, he shows that people have rendered, or are rendering, such a service in such a need. It is also clear how one can remove the kindness and make people out to be unkind. 1385b One can argue that they are helping, or helped, for their own sake (and that, we said, was not kindness), or that it happened by chance, or that they were forced into it. Or one can argue that they were paying back rather than giving, whether knowingly or not. Either way it is something in return for something, so in this case too it would not be kindness.

One should also consider the matter under all the categories. Something is a kindness because it is this particular thing, or of this quantity, or of this quality, or at this time, or in this place. It is a sign of unkindness if they did not render a smaller service. So is rendering the same, equal, or greater services to our enemies, since clearly these services too were not for our sake. So is knowingly giving something worthless, since no one admits to needing worthless things.

Those inclined to think they might suffer include people who have already suffered and escaped. They include older people, because of their good sense and their experience. They also include the weak, those who are rather cowardly, and educated people, since they reason well. Others are those who have parents, children, or wives, since these are one’s own and liable to suffer the evils mentioned. People feel pity when they are not in an emotion of courage, such as anger or confidence, since these take no account of what is to come. Nor can they be in an insolent frame of mind, since such people too take no account of the chance of suffering anything. Nor, on the other hand, can they be in great fear. The terrified do not pity, because they are absorbed in their own experience; it is those in between who pity. People also pity if they think some people are decent. Someone who thinks no one is will think everyone deserves misfortune.

And in general, people feel pity when they are in a state to remember such things having happened to themselves or their own, or to expect them to happen to themselves or their own. That covers the state people are in when they feel pity. What they pity is clear from the definition. All painful and distressing things that are destructive are pitiable, and all that are ruinous, and all evils of some magnitude for which chance is responsible. The distressing and destructive ones are deaths, bodily torments and injuries, old age, diseases, and lack of food. The evils for which chance is responsible are friendlessness and having few friends (which is why being torn away from friends and companions is pitiable), ugliness, weakness, deformity, and when something bad comes from a quarter where something good ought to have come. And when this happens often.

Also when some good comes after one has already suffered, as when the gifts from the king were sent down to Diopeithes after he was dead. And when no good has come at all, or when it has come there is no enjoying it. These, then, and things like them, are what people pity. They pity people they know, provided they are not very closely related to them; toward those who are, they feel as they would about themselves in danger. That is why Amasis, so they say, did not weep when his son was led away to be executed, but did weep for his friend who was begging. The second was pitiable, the first terrible. For the terrible is different from the pitiable: it drives out pity and is often useful for producing the opposite. ⟨For people do not⟩ feel pity any longer when the terrible is close to themselves.note

People also pity those like themselves in age, character, dispositions, rank, or birth, because in all these cases it seems more likely that the same thing could happen to them too. In general, here too we should take it that whatever people fear for themselves, they pity when it happens to others. Sufferings that appear close at hand are pitiable. Things that happened ten thousand years ago or will happen ten thousand years from now people neither expect nor remember, so they either do not pity them at all or not in the same way. It follows that those who heighten the effect with gestures, voice, dress, and acting in general are more pitiable. They make [the evil] appear close by putting it before our eyes, either as about to happen or as having happened.

Things that have just happened, or are about to happen soon, are more pitiable. That is also why signs move pity: the clothes of those who have suffered and things like that, and the actions and words and everything else of those in the midst of suffering, for instance of those already dying. Most pitiable of all is when good people are caught in such moments. All these things increase pity because they make the suffering seem close, and because it is undeserved and appears before our eyes.

In all these cases alike, the feeling must arise not because something different will happen to oneself, but on account of the neighbor himself. If the pain and disturbance arise because something bad will come to oneself from the other’s good fortune, it will no longer be envy in the one case and indignation in the other, but fear. The opposite emotions will clearly go along with these. The person who is pained at those who fare badly undeservedly will be pleased, or at least not pained, at those who fare badly in the opposite way. No decent person, for instance, would be pained when parricides and murderers meet their punishment. One ought to rejoice at such things, and likewise at those who fare well deservedly. Both are just, and both make the decent person glad, since he can’t help hoping that what has come to someone like him might come to him too.

All these feelings belong to the same character, and their opposites to the opposite character. The same person both gloats over others’ misfortunes and envies. 1387a If someone is pained when a thing comes to be and is present, he must be glad at its loss and destruction. So all these feelings are obstacles to pity. They differ for the reasons given, but all are equally useful for making things seem not pitiable. First, then, let us discuss indignation: at whom people feel it, at what, and in what state they themselves are. After that we will discuss the others.

This is clear from what has been said. If indignation is being pained at someone’s apparently undeserved good fortune, then first of all it is clear that one cannot feel indignation at every good. No one will feel indignation at a man because he is just or brave, or because he acquires excellence (nor is pity felt at the opposites of these). People feel it at wealth, power, and the like, the things that, roughly speaking, are deserved by good people and by those who have the natural goods, such as good birth, beauty, and the like.

Since what is long-established seems close to what is natural, people must feel more indignation at those who have the same good if they happen to have it newly and are prospering because of it. The newly rich give more offense than those who have been rich a long time and by inheritance. The same goes for those who hold office, have power, have many friends, have fine children, and anything of that sort. The same is true if some other good comes to them because of these. Here too the newly rich who hold office because of their wealth give more offense than those of old wealth. And similarly in the other cases. The reason is that the old rich seem to have what is their own and the new rich do not. What has always appeared to be so seems to be truly so, and so the others seem not to have what is their own.

Each good is not deserved by just anyone; there is a certain proportion and fitness. Beautiful arms, for instance, befit not the just man but the brave one, and distinguished marriages befit not the newly rich but the well-born. So if a good man fails to get what befits him, this provokes indignation. So does an inferior contending with a superior, especially within the same field. Hence the lines: “He shunned battle with Ajax, son of Telamon; / for Zeus would be indignant with him if he fought a better man.” 1387b Even outside the same field, it provokes indignation when the inferior contends with the superior in any way at all, as when the musician contends with the just man, since justice is better than music. At whom people feel indignation, then, and why, is clear from this: these people and those like them.note

People themselves are prone to indignation if they happen to deserve the greatest goods and also possess them, since it is not just for those who are not alike to be thought worthy of the same things. Second, if they happen to be good and excellent people, because they judge well and hate what is unjust. They are also prone to it if they are ambitious and want certain things, especially if their ambition is for things that others, undeserving, are getting. In general, those who think themselves worthy of what they think others unworthy of are prone to indignation at those others and over those things. That is why the servile, the base, and the unambitious are not prone to indignation: there is nothing they think themselves worthy of.

From this it is clear at whose misfortunes, failures, or lack of success one should be glad, or at least not pained, since the opposites are clear from what has been said. So if the speech puts the judges into such a state, and shows that those who claim to be pitied, and the things they claim pity for, are undeserving of it and deserve not to get it, then pity is impossible.

So are the small-souled, since everything seems great to them. As for what people envy, the goods have already been stated. 1388a Nearly everything over which people seek reputation and honor, in deeds or in possessions, and crave glory, and all the gifts of good fortune, are objects of envy. This is especially true of the things they themselves desire or think they ought to have, or the possession of which puts them a little ahead or a little behind. Whom people envy is also clear, since it has been said along the way. They envy those close to them in time, place, age, reputation, and ⟨birth⟩. Hence the line: “Kinship knows how to envy too.” They also envy those they compete with for honor. They compete with the people just mentioned. No one competes with those who lived ten thousand years ago, or with those yet to be born or the dead, or with those who live at the Pillars of Heracles.note

Nor do they compete with those they think they fall far short of, in their own eyes or in others’, or with those they far surpass. The same holds for those concerned with such things. People compete for honor with their rivals in contests and in love, and in general with those who aim at the same things, so they must envy these most of all. Hence the saying, “Potter against potter.” They also envy those whose possessions or successes are a reproach to them. These too are people close to them and like them, since it is clear that it is their own fault they do not have the good, and the pain of this produces envy. They also envy those who have or have acquired what properly belonged to them, or what they once had. That is why older people envy younger ones, and those who have spent a lot envy those who spent little on the same thing. And those who have not yet got something, or have not got it at all, envy those who got it quickly.

It is also clear at what such people are glad, over whom, and in what state. In whatever state they are pained, in that same state they will be pleased at the opposite things. So if these people themselves are put into such a state, and those who claim to deserve pity or some good are such as described, it is clear that they will get no pity from those who have the power to decide.

So are those who have the kinds of goods that befit men held in honor: wealth, many friends, offices, and the like. Since they think it fitting for them to be good, because it is fitting for those who are well provided with goods, they emulate goods of this kind. So are those whom others think deserving. So are those whose ancestors, relatives, household, people, or city are held in honor; they are prone to emulation in these things, since they think these things belong to them and that they deserve them. If honored goods are objects of emulation, then the excellences must be so too, and everything that benefits others and does them good, since people honor benefactors and the good. So are the goods whose enjoyment extends to one’s neighbors, such as wealth and beauty rather than health. Who are the objects of emulation is also clear: those who possess these things and things like them are emulated.

These are the things we have mentioned, such as courage, wisdom, and office. Those in office, such as generals and orators and all who have that kind of power, can do good to many. People also emulate those whom many want to resemble, or to know, or to have as friends. They emulate those whom many admire, or whom they themselves admire. They emulate those about whom praises and encomia are composed by poets or prose writers. People feel contempt for the opposites of these, since contempt is the opposite of emulation, and despising of emulating. Those disposed to emulate others or to be emulated must be inclined to despise those who have the evils opposite to the goods that are emulated, and to despise them for those evils. That is why people often despise the fortunate, when their good fortune comes without the honored goods. We have now stated what makes the emotions arise and what dissolves them, and these are the sources from which proofs concerning them are drawn.

They are changeable in their desires and quickly sated. They desire intensely but soon stop, because their wishes are sharp but not great, like the thirst and hunger of the sick. They are passionate and quick-tempered and apt to follow their anger. Their temper gets the better of them. Because they love honor, they cannot bear being slighted, and they are aggrieved if they think they are wronged. They love honor, but they love victory more, since youth desires superiority and victory is a kind of superiority. They are both of these rather than lovers of money. They care least of all for money because they have not yet experienced want, as Pittacus’ saying about Amphiaraus has it. They are not ill-natured but good-natured, because they have not yet seen much wickedness. They are trusting, because they have not yet been deceived often.note

They are hopeful. The young are heated by nature, as people are by wine, and at the same time they have not yet failed much. They live mostly in hope, since hope is of the future and memory of the past, and for the young the future is long and the past short. On the first day of life one can remember nothing but can hope for everything. They are easily deceived for the reason given, since they hope readily. They are braver, because they are hot-tempered and hopeful. The first makes them unafraid and the second makes them confident, since no one is afraid while angry, and hoping for some good gives confidence. They are prone to shame, because they do not yet suppose that other things are fine; convention alone has educated them.

They are great-souled. Life has not yet humbled them, and they have no experience of its necessities. Greatness of soul is thinking oneself worthy of great things, and that is the mark of a hopeful person. They prefer to do fine deeds rather than advantageous ones, because they live by character more than by calculation; calculation aims at the advantageous, excellence at the fine. They are fonder of their friends and companions than people of other ages are, 1389b because they enjoy spending time together and do not yet judge anything by advantage, and so they do not judge their friends that way either. In everything they err on the side of excess and vehemence, against Chilon’s maxim. They do everything too much: they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else. They think they know everything, and they insist on it, and this is also why they do everything too much. The wrongs they commit come from insolence, not villainy.note

They are inclined to pity, because they assume everyone is decent and better than they really are. They measure their neighbors by their own innocence, and so they suppose that their neighbors suffer undeservedly. They love laughter, which is why they are also witty, for wit is educated insolence.

They are small-souled, because life has humbled them. They desire nothing great or out of the ordinary, only what they need to live. They are ungenerous, because property is one of the necessities, and at the same time experience has taught them how hard it is to acquire and how easy to lose. They are cowardly and fearful of everything in advance, because their condition is the opposite of the young: they are chilled, while the young are hot. So old age has paved the way for cowardice, since fear is a kind of chilling. They love life, and all the more on their last day, because desire is for what is absent and people desire most what they lack. They are more self-loving than they should be, since this too is a kind of smallness of soul.

They live for the advantageous and not for the fine, more than they should, because they are self-loving. 1390a The advantageous is good for oneself; the fine is good without qualification. They are shameless rather than prone to shame. Because they do not care for the fine as much as for the advantageous, they think little of how things look. They are despondent because of their experience, since most things that happen are bad and most things turn out for the worse; and also because of their cowardice. They live by memory rather than by hope, since what remains of their life is short and what is past is long, and hope is of the future, memory of the past. This is also why they are garrulous: they keep talking about what has happened, because they enjoy remembering.

Their fits of temper are sharp but weak. Some of their desires have failed and the rest are weak, so they are neither given to desire nor apt to act on their desires, but rather for the sake of gain. That is why people of that age appear moderate: their desires have slackened, and they are slaves to gain. They live by calculation more than by character, since calculation is of the advantageous and character of excellence. The wrongs they commit come from villainy, not insolence. The old are inclined to pity too, but not for the same reasons as the young. The young pity out of humanity, the old out of weakness. They think every suffering is close at hand for them, and this, as we saw, is what makes people inclined to pity. So they are given to lamenting, and they are neither witty nor fond of laughter, since lamenting is the opposite of loving laughter.

Such, then, are the characters of the young and the old. Everyone accepts speeches spoken in their own character, and speakers who are like themselves. So it is not hard to see how we should use our speeches so that both we and our speeches appear to be of that kind.

To put it generally, whatever advantages youth and age have divided between them, those in their prime have both. Where the young and the old exceed or fall short, those in their prime have the moderate and fitting amount. The body is in its prime from thirty to thirty-five, the soul at about forty-nine. So much for youth, old age and the prime of life, and the kind of character that goes with each.

To be well-born is a matter of the excellence of one’s family; to be noble is a matter of not degenerating from one’s nature. For the most part this does not happen with the well-born: most of them are worthless. There is a kind of harvest in families of men, as there is in what the land produces. Sometimes, if the family is good, exceptional men are born in it for a while, and then it falls off again. Gifted families degenerate into rather manic characters, like the descendants of Alcibiades and of the elder Dionysius; steady ones into stupidity and sluggishness, like the descendants of Cimon, Pericles and Socrates.note

Hence the remark of Simonides about the wise and the rich, made to Hiero’s wife when she asked whether it was better to become rich or wise. “Rich,” he said, “for one can see the wise spending their time at the doors of the rich.” The rich also think themselves worthy to rule, because they think they have what makes one worthy of ruling. In sum, the character of wealth is that of a fortunate fool. The characters of the newly rich and of those rich for a long time differ in that the newly rich have all the faults to a greater and worse degree; being newly rich is a sort of lack of education in wealth. The wrongs they commit are not malicious but either insolent or due to lack of self-control, such as assault and adultery.note

Good fortune makes people more arrogant and more thoughtless, but one excellent trait of character does go with it: the fortunate love the gods and stand in a certain relation to the divine, trusting in it because of what fortune has brought them. So much for the characters that go with age and fortune. The opposite characters are clear from the opposites of what has been said, such as the character of the poor, the unfortunate and the powerless.

The characters that go with the different constitutions were discussed earlier, in the treatment of deliberative speeches, so it should now be settled how, and by what means, we are to make our speeches reveal character. Each kind of speech, as we saw, had a different end. For all of them we have covered the opinions and premises from which people draw their proofs when deliberating, when giving displays and when disputing, as well as those from which it is possible to make speeches reveal character. It remains for us to go through what is common to all of them. Everyone must make additional use in their speeches of the possible and the impossible, and try to show, some that a thing will be, others that it has happened.

Further, magnitude is common to all speeches: everyone diminishes and amplifies, whether deliberating, praising or blaming, accusing or defending. 1392a Once these have been defined, let us try to say something about enthymemes in general, if we have anything to say, and about examples, so that by adding what remains we may complete our original plan. Of the common elements, amplification is most at home in ceremonial speeches, as has been said; the past in forensic ones (since the judgment is about past events); and the possible and the future in deliberative ones.

If what is later in being or in coming-to-be can come to be, so can what is earlier: if a man can come to be, so can a boy, since the boy comes first; and if a boy, then a man, since the boy is a beginning too. Things for which there is a natural love or desire are possible, since as a rule nobody loves or desires what is impossible. Things that are the objects of sciences and arts are possible: they both are and come to be. So are things whose coming-to-be begins with what we could compel or persuade, that is, with people we are stronger than, or masters of, or friends with.

Where the parts are possible, so is the whole; and where the whole is possible, so, as a rule, are the parts. If a vamp, a toecap and an upper can be made, shoes can be made; and if shoes, then vamp and toecap. If the whole genus 1392b is among the things that can come into being, so is the species; and if the species, the genus: if a boat can come into being, so can a trireme, and if a trireme, a boat. If one of two naturally correlated things is possible, so is the other: if double, then half, and if half, then double. And if something can come about without art or preparation, it is all the more possible through art and care. Hence Agathon’s lines: “Indeed, some things are achieved by art, while others / come to us by necessity and chance.”note

If something is possible for people who are worse, weaker and more foolish, it is all the more possible for their opposites. As Isocrates said, it would be outrageous if Euthynus had learned something and he himself couldn’t discover it. As for the impossible, it obviously follows from the opposites of what has been said. Whether something has happened is to be examined from the following. First, if what is less naturally likely to happen has happened, then what is more likely would have happened too. If what usually happens later has happened, what comes earlier has happened too: if someone has forgotten something, he also once learned it. If he was able and wanted to, he did it; everyone acts when they are able and want to, since nothing stands in the way.

Again, if he wanted to and nothing outside him prevented him; if it was possible and he was angry; if he was able and had the desire. As a rule people do what they long for, if they can: bad people from lack of self-control, decent people because what they desire is decent. Also if something was about to happen, or he was about to do it, since it is probable that someone who was about to do something did it. Also if what naturally comes before something, or is for its sake, has happened: if there was lightning, there was also thunder, and if he attempted it, he also did it. And if what naturally happens later, or that for the sake of which something happens, has happened, then the earlier thing, and what is for its sake, has happened too: if it thundered, there was lightning, and if he did it, he attempted it. Of all these, some hold of necessity, others only as a rule.

That something has not happened is clear from the opposites of what has been said. 1393a What will be is also clear from the same considerations. What is within someone’s power and wish will be; and what lies in desire, anger or calculation, combined with power, will be too, once there is an impulse or an intention to act. As a rule, what is about to happen happens more often than what is not. Also if what naturally happens earlier has already happened: if it is cloudy, it will probably rain. And if what is for the sake of something has happened, that thing too will probably happen: if there is a foundation, there will be a house. As for the greatness and smallness of things, the greater and the lesser, and great and small things generally, all this is clear to us from what was said before.

In the discussion of deliberative speeches we spoke both about the magnitude of goods and about the greater and the lesser in general. Since in each kind of speech the proposed end is a good, namely the advantageous, the fine and the just, it is clear that everyone must draw their amplifications from these. To go on, beyond these, to inquire into magnitude and superiority in the abstract is idle talk, since in practice particulars count for more than universals. So much, then, for the possible and the impossible, whether something has or has not happened and will or will not be, and the greatness and smallness of things.

Citing things that have happened is something like this. Suppose someone says that we must prepare against the King and not let him subdue Egypt: in the past Darius did not cross over until he had taken Egypt, 1393b but once he had taken it, he crossed; and again Xerxes did not attack until he had taken it, but once he had taken it, he crossed; so this king too will cross if he takes it, and we must not allow it. Comparison is the Socratic kind of thing. Suppose someone says that officials should not be chosen by lot. That is like choosing athletes by lot, not those able to compete but whoever the lot falls on, or choosing by lot which of the sailors should steer, as if it should be the one the lot falls on and not the one who knows how. A fable is like Stesichorus’ fable about Phalaris, or Aesop’s on behalf of the demagogue.note

When the people of Himera had chosen Phalaris as general with absolute power and were about to give him a bodyguard, Stesichorus, after making his other points, told them a fable. A horse had a meadow to himself. A stag came and ruined his pasture, and the horse, wanting to take revenge on the stag, asked a man whether he could help him get revenge on it. The man said yes, if the horse would take a bridle and let him mount it with javelins in hand. The horse agreed, the man mounted, and instead of getting his revenge the horse became the man’s slave. “So you too,” he said, “take care that, in your wish to take revenge on your enemies, you don’t suffer the same fate as the horse. You already have the bridle, since you have chosen a general with absolute power. If you give him a bodyguard and let him mount you, you will be Phalaris’ slaves from then on.”note

Aesop, speaking before the assembly in Samos when a demagogue was on trial for his life, said that a fox crossing a river was swept into a ravine. Unable to climb out, she suffered for a long time, and many dog-ticks fastened onto her. A hedgehog wandering by saw her, took pity on her and asked whether he should pull the ticks off her. She refused. When he asked why, she said, “These are already full of me and draw little blood; if you take them off, others will come hungry and drink up the rest of my blood.”

“So with you too, men of Samos: this man will do you no more harm, since he is rich. But if you put him to death, 1394a others will come who are poor, and they will steal and spend what you have left.” Fables are suited to speaking in the assembly, and they have this advantage: it is hard to find similar things that have actually happened, but fables are easier. One has to make them up, as with comparisons, if one can see the likeness, and philosophy makes that easier. So material from fables is easier to come by, but material from actual events is more useful for deliberation, since as a rule the future resembles the past.

When one has no enthymemes, one should use examples as demonstrations, since that is where the proof lies. When one has them, one should use examples as testimony, as a supplement to the enthymemes. Placed first, they resemble induction, and induction is not suited to rhetoric except in a few cases; placed after, they resemble testimony, and a witness is persuasive everywhere. That is why, if you put them first, you have to cite many, but if you put them after, even one is enough, since even a single good witness is useful. We have now said how many kinds of examples there are, and how and when to use them.

That, then, is a maxim. But when the cause and the reason why are added, the whole is an enthymeme. For instance: “For besides the idleness they are guilty of, / they earn hostile envy from their fellow citizens.” 1394b Again, “There is no man who is happy in all things” and “There is no man who is free” are maxims, but with the line that follows, the latter becomes an enthymeme: “For he is a slave either to money or to fortune.” If a maxim is what we have said, there must be four kinds of maxim, since a maxim will come either with an added reason or without one. Those that need demonstration are the ones that say something paradoxical or disputed; those that say nothing paradoxical go without an added reason.

Of these, some necessarily need no added reason because they are already known, such as “For a man, health is best, as it seems to us at least” (since that is how most people see it). Others are clear as soon as they are said, to anyone who looks at them, such as “No one is a lover who does not love forever.” Of those with an added reason, some are part of an enthymeme, such as “No man who is sensible”; others are enthymematic but not part of an enthymeme, and these are the most highly regarded. They are the ones in which the cause of what is said shows through, as in “Do not, being mortal, keep your anger immortal.” To say that one should not keep it is a maxim; the addition “being mortal” is the reason why. Similarly: “A mortal should think mortal thoughts, not immortal ones.”

It is clear, then, from what has been said, how many kinds of maxim there are and what each is suited to. On disputed or paradoxical matters, do not use one without an added reason. Either state the reason first and use the maxim as the conclusion, as if someone were to say, “For my part, since one should neither be envied nor be idle, I say that children should not be educated”; or say the maxim first and then add what came before. On matters that are not paradoxical but are unclear, add the reason as tersely as possible. In such cases Laconian sayings and riddling ones are also fitting, 1395a as when someone says what Stesichorus said in Locri: that they should not be insolent, or their cicadas would sing from the ground.note

Uttering maxims suits older people, and on subjects in which one is experienced. For someone who is not that age, uttering maxims is inappropriate, like telling stories; and to do it on subjects in which one is inexperienced is foolish and uneducated. There is good evidence for this: country people are the greatest coiners of maxims and readily declare their views ⟨in general terms⟩. To speak in general terms about what is not general is most fitting in complaint and indignant exaggeration, and in these either at the beginning or after the demonstration. One should also use hackneyed and common maxims, if they are useful. Because they are common, they seem right, as though everyone agreed with them. For instance, when urging people to face danger without having sacrificed: “One omen is best, to fight for one’s country”; or to face danger when they are weaker: “The war god favors neither side”; or to kill the enemy’s children even though they have done nothing wrong: “Foolish is he who kills the father and leaves the children.”note

Further, some proverbs are also maxims, for instance the proverb “An Athenian for a neighbor.” One should also utter maxims that go against well-known sayings (by well-known I mean the likes of “Know yourself” and “Nothing in excess”) when one’s character is going to appear better, or when the maxim is spoken with emotion. An emotional one would be, for instance, if someone in anger said it is false that one should know oneself: this man at any rate, if he had known himself, would never have thought himself fit to be general. Character appears better if one says that we should not, as people say, love as though we were going to hate, but rather hate as though we were going to love.note

One should make one’s choice clear through the wording, or failing that, add the reason. For instance, by saying, “One should love not as people say, but as someone who will love forever, since the other way is a schemer’s”; or like this: “I don’t like the saying; a true friend should love as one who will love forever.” And “Nor do I like ‘Nothing in excess,’ since bad people, at least, ought to be hated in excess.” 1395b Maxims are a great help to speeches. One reason is the vulgarity of the audience: they are pleased when someone speaking in general terms hits upon the opinions they hold about particular cases. What I mean will be clear from the following, and at the same time how one should hunt for maxims.

A maxim, as has been said, is a general statement, and people are pleased when something they already happen to assume about particular cases is stated in general terms. For instance, someone who happens to have bad neighbors or bad children would welcome the remark “Nothing is more troublesome than neighbors” or “Nothing is more foolish than having children.” So one should guess what sorts of assumptions people happen to hold, and in what way, and then speak generally about those things. This, then, is one use of maxims, and there is another, more important one: they give speeches character. Speeches have character when the speaker’s choice is clear. All maxims do this, because whoever utters a maxim makes a general statement about matters of choice; so if the maxims are good, they also make the speaker appear to be of good character.

So much, then, for the maxim: what it is, how many kinds there are, how it should be used, and what benefit it offers.

This is also why uneducated people are more persuasive than educated ones before crowds, just as the poets say that the uneducated speak “more musically” to a crowd. The educated speak of what is common and general; the uneducated speak from what they know, and of what is close at hand. So we must argue not from every opinion but from defined ones, for instance those of the judges or of people whose authority they accept, 1396a and it must be clear to everyone, or to most people, that this is how things appear. And we must draw conclusions not only from what is necessary but also from what holds for the most part. First, then, we must grasp that whatever we have to speak and reason about, whether by a political syllogism or any other kind, we must also have the facts that belong to it, either all of them or some. If you had none, you would have nothing to draw a conclusion from.

I mean, for instance: how could we advise the Athenians on whether to go to war [or not go to war] without knowing what their power is? Is it naval, or on land, or both, and how great is it? What are their revenues, who are their friends and enemies? What wars have they fought, and how? And other such things. Or how could we praise them if we didn’t have the sea battle at Salamis, or the battle at Marathon, or what they did for the Heraclidae, or something else of that kind? For everyone praises on the basis of the fine things that belong, or seem to belong, to the subject. Likewise people blame from the opposites, looking at what of this kind belongs, or seems to belong, to them: for instance, that the Athenians enslaved the Greeks, and reduced to slavery the Aeginetans and Potidaeans, who had fought on their side and distinguished themselves against the barbarians, and all other such things, and any other such fault that may belong to them.note

In the same way, accusers and defenders alike accuse and defend by looking at the facts that belong to the case. It makes no difference whether the subject is Spartans or Athenians, a human being or a god; we do this same thing. If we are advising Achilles, or praising or blaming him, or accusing or defending him, we must take what belongs, or seems to belong, to him, so that we can argue from these facts: in praise or blame, from whatever fine or shameful thing belongs to him; in accusation or defense, from whatever is just or unjust; in advice, from whatever is advantageous or harmful. Similarly with any subject at all, such as justice, whether it is a good [or not a good]: we argue from what belongs to justice and to the good.

Everyone evidently proves things this way, whether they reason more rigorously 1396b or more loosely, since they take their premises not from everything but from what belongs to each subject. Argument itself also makes clear that it is impossible to prove things any other way. So it is obvious that, as in the Topics, we must first have, on each subject, a selection of premises about what is possible and most opportune. For questions that come up on the spur of the moment we must search in the same way, looking not at indefinite things but at what belongs to the subject of the speech, and marking off as many facts as possible, and those closest to the matter. For the more of the facts we have, the easier it is to prove; and the closer they are to the matter, the more specific and the less common they are.

By “common” I mean, for instance, praising Achilles because he is a human being, or one of the demigods, or because he joined the expedition against Troy. These belong to many others too, so that such a speaker praises Achilles no more than Diomedes. “Specific” are things that have happened to no one but Achilles: that he killed Hector, the best of the Trojans, and Cycnus, who was invulnerable and kept the whole army from landing; that he went to war as the youngest, and without being bound by oath; and all other such things. This, then, is one method of selection, and the first: the one based on topics. Now let us discuss the elements of enthymemes. By the “element” and the “topic” of an enthymeme I mean the same thing. But first let us speak of what has to be said first.note

There are two kinds of enthymemes. Some are demonstrative, showing that something is or is not so; others are refutative. They differ as refutation and syllogism do in dialectic. The demonstrative enthymeme draws its conclusion from premises that are agreed; the refutative one draws conclusions that are inconsistent with them. We already have the topics on pretty well each of the kinds that are useful and necessary, since the premises on each subject have been selected. So the topics from which enthymemes are to be drawn about good or bad, fine or shameful, just or unjust, and likewise about characters, emotions and dispositions, have already been gathered by us.

Let us now take them up in another way, in general and covering everything. Let us discuss them, noting separately the refutative and the demonstrative topics, and those of apparent enthymemes, which are not really enthymemes, since they are not really syllogisms either. Once these have been made clear, let us define the solutions and objections: where they are to be found for answering enthymemes.

Another is from similar inflections of a word: the same thing must belong, or not belong, to them alike. For instance, that what is just is not always good; for then what is done justly would be good too, but as it is, to be put to death justly is not desirable. Another is from correlatives. If it belongs to one party to have acted finely or justly, then it belongs to the other to have been treated so; and if one ordered something, the other carried it out. So Diomedon the tax-farmer said about taxes: “If it isn’t shameful for you to sell, it isn’t shameful for us to buy.” And if fine or just treatment belongs to the one who suffered something, it belongs also to the one who did it. But here there is room for a fallacy: if someone suffered something justly, [he has suffered justly,] but perhaps not at your hands.note

So you must look separately at whether the one who suffered deserved to suffer 1397b and the one who did it deserved to do it, and then use whichever fits. For sometimes the two don’t agree, and nothing prevents that, as in Theodectes’ Alcmaeon: “Did no one among mortals loathe your mother?” He answers: “Well, you must look at it by making a distinction.” And when Alphesiboea asks how, he replies: “They judged that she should die, but not that I should kill her.” Again, the trial of Demosthenes and those who killed Nicanor: since they were judged to have killed him justly, he was thought to have died justly. And the case of the man who was killed at Thebes, about whom the defendant asks the court to decide whether he deserved to die, on the ground that it cannot be wrong to kill a man who died justly.note

Another is from the more and the less. For instance, if not even the gods know everything, human beings hardly do. That is: if something does not hold where it would be more likely to hold, clearly it does not hold where it is less likely either. And the argument that a man who strikes even his father [strikes, from the principle that if the less holds, the more holds too, whichever needs to be shown,] strikes his neighbors too comes from the principle that if the less holds, the more holds too; for people strike their fathers less than they strike their neighbors. So one argues either this way, or that it does not hold where it is more likely to, or that it holds where it is less likely to, depending on which you need to show, that it holds or that it doesn’t.

Again, if it is neither more nor less. Hence the lines: “Your father is pitiable, having lost his children; / and is Oeneus not, who lost [Greece’s] famous son?” And: if not even Theseus did wrong, neither did Alexander; and if not even the sons of Tyndareus did wrong, neither did Alexander; and if Hector did no wrong to Patroclus, neither did Alexander to Achilles. And if other practitioners of an art are not bad, neither are philosophers. And if generals are not bad because they are often put to death, neither are sophists. And: “If a private citizen must care about your good name, you must care about that of the Greeks.” Another is from considering the time. So Iphicrates, in his speech against Harmodius: “If before doing the deed I had asked to receive the statue in case I did it, you would have given it. Now that I have done it, won’t you give it?”note

“Don’t, then, make promises while you are waiting for something and take them back once you have had it.” And again, on letting Philip pass through Theban territory into Attica: 1398a “If he had asked this before he helped them against the Phocians, they would have promised. So it would be absurd if, because he let that chance go and trusted them, they don’t let him through.” Another is from things said against oneself, turned against the person who said them. The method varies, as in the Teucer. Iphicrates used it against Aristophon: he asked him whether he would betray the fleet for money, and when Aristophon said no, he replied: “So you, being Aristophon, wouldn’t betray it, but I, being Iphicrates, would?” But the opponent must be someone more likely to be thought to have done the wrong. Otherwise it would look ridiculous, if someone said this to Aristides when Aristides was accusing him, in order to discredit the accuser. For in general the accuser claims to be better than the defendant, and this is what has to be refuted.note

In general it is absurd when someone criticizes others for what he does himself or would do, or urges others to do what he does not do and would not do. Another is from definition. For instance: what is the divine sign? Is it a god, or the work of a god? And yet whoever thinks it is the work of a god must think there are gods. And as Iphicrates argued that the best man is the most noble: Harmodius and Aristogeiton had nothing noble about them until they did something noble. And that he himself was more akin to them than his opponent: “At any rate my deeds are more akin to those of Harmodius and Aristogeiton than yours are.” And as in the Alexander: everyone would agree that men of disorderly habits are not content with enjoying one body.

And the reason Socrates gave for not going to Archelaus: he said it was insolence to be unable to repay good treatment, just as it is to be unable to repay bad. All these people define and grasp what a thing is, and then reason about the subject they are discussing. Another is from the different senses of a word, as in the Topics about “correctly.” Another is from division. For instance: if everyone does wrong for one of three reasons (this one, or this, or this), and for two of them it is impossible, while the third not even the accusers allege.note

Another is from induction. For instance, from the Peparethian Speech: that women everywhere settle the truth about children. 1398b At Athens, when the orator Mantias was in dispute with his son, the mother made the truth plain; and at Thebes, when Ismenias and Stilbon were in dispute, the woman of Dodona proved that the son was Ismenias’, and for that reason people regarded Thettaliscus as Ismenias’ son. And again, from Theodectes’ Law: if people don’t hand over their own horses to those who have taken bad care of other people’s horses, nor ⟨their own ships⟩ to those who have capsized other people’s ships, then, if it is the same in every case, we must not employ, for our own safety, those who have guarded other people’s safety badly.

And as Alcidamas argued that everyone honors the wise: the Parians, at any rate, have honored Archilochus, abusive as he was; the Chians honored Homer, though he was not their citizen; the Mytilenaeans honored Sappho, though she was a woman; the Spartans, the least literary of people, made Chilon one of their elders; the Greeks of Italy honored Pythagoras; and the people of Lampsacus buried Anaxagoras, a foreigner, and honor him even now ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ that the Athenians prospered by using Solon’s laws, and the Spartans by using Lycurgus’, and at Thebes, as soon as the leaders became philosophers, the city prospered.

Another is from a judgment about the same thing, or a similar or opposite one. It is best if everyone has always judged so; if not, then at least most people; or the wise, all or most of them; or the good; or the judges themselves, or those whose authority the judges accept, or those whose judgment cannot be contradicted, such as those in power, or those whom it is not honorable to contradict, such as gods, a father, or teachers. So Autocles said against Mixidemides: if it was right for the Venerable Goddesses to submit to justice before the Areopagus, was it not right for Mixidemides? Or as Sappho said that dying is an evil: the gods have judged it so, or else they would die. Or as Aristippus said to Plato, when Plato had said something rather too pretentious, as Aristippus thought: “Well, our friend, at any rate, never spoke like that,” meaning Socrates.note

And Hegesippus, having first consulted the oracle at Olympia, asked the god at Delphi whether his opinion was the same as his father’s, 1399a implying that it would be shameful to contradict him. And about Helen, as Isocrates wrote that she was a woman of worth, since Theseus judged her so; and about Alexander, whom the goddesses preferred; and about Evagoras, that he was a man of worth, as Isocrates says: at any rate Conon, when he met with misfortune, passed over everyone else and went to Evagoras. Another is from the parts, as in the Topics: what kind of motion is the soul? It must be this one or this one. An example from Theodectes’ Socrates: “What temple has he committed impiety against?”note

“Which of the gods the city recognizes has he failed to honor?” Another: since in most cases it happens that something good and something bad both follow from the same thing, you can urge or dissuade, accuse or defend, praise or blame, from the consequences. For instance, education is followed by an evil, being envied, and by a good, being wise. So one shouldn’t be educated, since one shouldn’t be envied; or rather one should be educated, since one should be wise. This topic is the Art of Callippus, with the addition of the possible and the rest, as has been said. Another: when you have to urge or dissuade about two opposed things, use the method just described on both. The difference is that there any two things are set against each other, here opposites.

For instance, a priestess would not let her son speak in the assembly. “If you say what is just,” she said, “people will hate you; if you say what is unjust, the gods will.” On the contrary, you should speak in the assembly: “If you say what is just, the gods will love you; if you say what is unjust, people will.” This is the same as the saying, “to buy the marsh along with the salt.” And this is what “bow-legging” an argument is: when good and bad follow each of two opposites, each opposite to each. Another: since people don’t praise the same things in public and in private, but in public praise above all what is just and fine, while in private they rather want what is advantageous, you should try to infer from these the other of the two. Of the topics for paradoxes, this is the most effective.note

Another is from the analogy between results. For instance, when people were trying to force Iphicrates’ son, who was under age, to perform a public service because he was tall, Iphicrates said that if they count tall boys as men, they will be voting that short men are boys. 1399b And Theodectes in the Law: “You make citizens of mercenaries like Strabax and Charidemus because of their decency; won’t you make exiles of those among the mercenaries who have done irreparable harm?” Another: if the result is the same, the things it results from are the same. For instance, Xenophanes said that those who claim the gods were born are just as impious as those who say they die; for either way it follows that at some time the gods do not exist.note

And in general, take the result of each thing as always the same: “You are about to judge not about Isocrates but about a way of life: whether one ought to practice philosophy.” And that giving earth and water [is] slavery, and that sharing in the common peace is doing what you are told. You must take whichever is useful. Another is from the fact that people don’t always choose the same thing later as earlier, but the reverse. For instance, this enthymeme: if, when we were in exile, we fought to come home, are we now that we have come home to go into exile so as not to fight? At one time they chose to stay home at the cost of fighting; at another, not to fight at the cost of not staying.note

Another is to say that the purpose for which something might exist or happen is the reason it exists or has happened. For instance, that someone would give a person something in order to cause him pain by taking it away. Hence this saying: “To many the god, from no goodwill of heart, / grants great good fortune, but so that / the disasters they meet may be more conspicuous.” And the lines from Antiphon’s Meleager: “Not so that they might kill the beast, but that they might be / witnesses to Meleager’s excellence before Greece.” And the passage from Theodectes’ Ajax, that Diomedes chose Odysseus not to honor him but so that his companion would be his inferior; for it is possible that he did it for that reason.note

Another, common to litigants and to those giving advice, is to look at what encourages and what deters, and at the reasons for which people act or avoid acting. For these are the things which, if they are present, mean one should act ⟨and if they are not present, not act⟩: for instance, if a thing is possible and easy and beneficial either to oneself or to one’s friends, or harmful to one’s enemies; and even if it involves a loss, if the loss is smaller than the gain. People are urged on by these considerations and deterred by their opposites. 1400a From these same considerations they also accuse and defend: they defend from what deters, and accuse from what encourages. They defend ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ This topic is the whole Art of Pamphilus and of Callippus. Another is from things that are thought to happen but are incredible: that people would not have thought so unless they were true or close to true.

And all the more so: for people believe either what is true or what is probable. So if something is incredible and not probable, it must be true; for it is certainly not because of its probability and persuasiveness that it is thought so. For instance, Androcles of Pitthus, speaking against the law, said when they shouted him down: “The laws need a law to correct them; so too fish need salt, and yet it is neither probable nor persuasive that creatures raised in brine should need salt; and pressed olives need oil,”

“and yet it is incredible that what oil comes from should need oil.” Another, refutative, is to look for inconsistencies: whether anything is inconsistent among all the dates, actions and words. Do it separately for the opponent, as in “He says he loves you, but he conspired with the Thirty”; separately for yourself, as in “He says I am litigious, but he can’t show that I have ever brought a single lawsuit”; and separately for yourself and the opponent together, as in “This man has never lent anything to anyone, while I have ransomed many of you.” Another, for people and things that have been slandered beforehand, or seem to have been, is to state the reason for the paradox; for there is some reason why it appears so.note

For instance, a woman had passed off her own son as someone else’s, and because she kept embracing him she was thought to be sleeping with the young man; but once the reason was stated, the slander was dispelled. And as in Theodectes’ Ajax, Odysseus tells Ajax why, though he is braver than Ajax, he is not thought to be. Another is from the cause: if the cause is present, the thing exists; if it is not, it doesn’t. For the cause and what it causes go together, and nothing exists without a cause. For instance, Leodamas, in his defense, when Thrasybulus accused him of having had his name posted on a pillar of disgrace on the Acropolis and of having chiseled it out under the Thirty, said it was not possible: the Thirty would have trusted him more if his enmity toward the people had stayed inscribed.note

Another is to look at whether it was, or is, possible to do better in some other way than what the person is advising, doing or has done. For it is clear that 1400b if that is not the case, he has not done it; for no one willingly and knowingly chooses what is bad. But this is false: it often becomes clear only later how one could have acted better, though it was unclear before. Another, when something is about to be done that is contrary to what has already been done, is to look at the two together. For instance, when the people of Elea asked Xenophanes whether or not they should sacrifice to Leucothea and mourn her, he advised them that if they regarded her as a goddess they should not mourn her, and if as a human being they should not sacrifice to her. Another topic is to accuse or defend on the basis of mistakes made. For instance, in Carcinus’ Medea the accusers say that she has killed her children; at any rate, they are nowhere to be seen.note

For Medea had made a mistake in sending the children away. She defends herself by saying that she would have killed not the children but Jason; for it would have been a mistake not to do that, if she had done the other. This topic, and this kind of enthymeme, is the whole of Theodorus’ earlier Art. Another is from the name. So Sophocles: “Clearly like iron, and bearing the name.” And as people usually say in praising the gods…; and as Conon called Thrasybulus “bold-in-counsel,” and Herodicus said to Thrasymachus, “You’re always bold in battle,” and to Polus, “You’re always a colt,” and said of Draco the lawgiver that his laws were not those of a human being but of a dragon, since they were harsh. And as Euripides’ Hecuba says of Aphrodite, “And the goddess’s name rightly begins like ‘folly’”; and as Chaeremon says, “Pentheus, named for the grief to come.”note

Refutative enthymemes are better received than demonstrative ones, because a refutative enthymeme brings opposites together in a small space, and things set side by side are clearer to the hearer. But of all syllogisms, refutative and demonstrative alike, those that win the most applause are the ones whose outcome the audience foresees from the start, provided this is not because they are superficial (for at the same time the hearers are pleased with themselves for seeing it coming), and those which they lag behind only so far as to grasp them the moment they are stated.

To speak syllogistically by wording alone, it is useful to state the headings of many syllogisms: “he saved some, avenged others, and freed the Greeks.” Each of these was proved from other premises, but put together they make it seem that something follows from them too. Another topic depends on homonymy: saying that the mouse is a worthy creature, since the most revered of all rites is named after it, for the mysteries are the most revered of all rites. Or if someone praising the dog were to bring in the dog in the sky, or Pan, because Pindar said: “Blessed one, whom the Olympians call / the many-shaped dog of the great goddess.” Or saying that being no dog is the greatest disgrace, so clearly being a dog is an honor. Or saying that Hermes is the most sharing of the gods, since he alone is called “common Hermes.”note

Or saying that an account is the worthiest thing, since good men are worthy not of money but of account; but “worthy of account” is not meant in the plain sense. Another topic is to state as combined what is separate, or as separate what is combined. Since what is not the same often seems to be the same, you should do whichever is more useful. This is Euthydemus’ argument. An example is that a man knows there is a trireme in Piraeus, since he knows each of them. Or that someone who knows the letters knows the word, since the word is the same thing. Or, since a double dose of something is unhealthy, saying that a single dose isn’t healthy either, since it would be absurd if two goods made one bad. Put this way it refutes; put the other way it demonstrates: one good is not two bads. The whole topic is fallacious.note

Again, Polycrates’ claim about Thrasybulus, that he overthrew thirty tyrants: he adds them together. Or the argument in Theodectes’ Orestes, which depends on division: “It is just that a woman who kills her husband should die,” and “that the son should avenge his father”; 1401b “so then these are [also] the things that have been done.” But put together they may no longer be just. It could also depend on omission, since it leaves out by whom. Another topic is to build up or demolish a case by exaggeration. This is when someone amplifies the deed without having shown that it was done. It makes it look either as though he hasn’t done it, when the accused is the one amplifying, or as though he has, when the accuser is angry. So it is not an enthymeme, because the hearer falsely infers that he did it or didn’t, though nothing has been shown. Another is the topic from a sign, for this too is invalid.note

For example, if someone said, “Lovers are useful to cities, for the love of Harmodius and Aristogeiton overthrew the tyrant Hipparchus.” Or if someone said that Dionysius is a thief, since he is a bad man. That is plainly invalid: not every bad man is a thief, but every thief is a bad man. Another topic depends on the accidental. An example is what Polycrates says about the mice, that they came to the rescue by gnawing through the bowstrings. Or if someone said that being invited to dinner is the highest honor, since it was because he was not invited that Achilles was angry with the Achaeans at Tenedos. In fact he was angry because he was being dishonored, and that happened to come about through not being invited. Another depends on the consequent. For example, in the Alexander it is argued that he was great-souled, since he scorned the company of the many and spent his time on Ida by himself. Because great-souled people are like this, he too would seem great-souled.note

Or, since he’s a dandy and roams around at night, he’s an adulterer, for that is what adulterers are like. Similar is saying that beggars sing and dance in the temples, and that exiles can live wherever they like. Since these things belong to those who are thought happy, those who have them would seem happy too. But how they have them makes a difference, so this also falls under omission. Another topic treats what is not a cause as a cause, on the ground that it happened at the same time or after. People take “after this” as “because of this,” especially those in political life. For example, Demades held Demosthenes’ policy to be the cause of all the evils, since the war came after it. Another depends on omitting when and how. An example is the claim that Alexander took Helen justly, since her father had given her the choice.note

But presumably the choice wasn’t for all time, only the first time, since the father’s authority extends only that far. 1402a Or if someone said that striking free men is insolence. It isn’t in every case, only when one strikes the first, unprovoked blow. Again, in eristic arguments an apparent syllogism arises from confusing what holds absolutely with what holds not absolutely but in a particular respect. In dialectic, for example, it is argued that what is not, is, since what is not is not-being. Or that the unknown is knowable, since it is knowable that the unknown is unknown. So too in rhetoric there is an apparent enthymeme that confuses what is probable not absolutely but in a particular respect. But this is not universal, as Agathon says: “One might perhaps say that this itself is probable: / that many improbable things happen to mortals.”

For what is contrary to probability does happen, so that what is contrary to probability is also probable. If so, the improbable will be probable. But not absolutely. In eristic arguments the trick comes from failing to add “in what respect,” “in relation to what,” and “in what way.” Here, likewise, it comes from the probable being probable not absolutely but in a particular respect. Corax’s art is put together from this topic. Suppose a man is not open to the charge, for example a weak man prosecuted for assault: his defense is that it isn’t probable. Suppose he is open to it, for example because he is strong: his defense is that it isn’t probable either, since it was bound to look probable.note

So too in other cases, for a man must either be open to the charge or not. Both, then, look probable. But one is probable, and the other is probable not absolutely, only in the way described. This is what making the weaker argument the stronger amounts to. That is why people rightly took offense at what Protagoras professed to teach: it is a falsehood, a probability that is not real but apparent, and it has a place in no art except rhetoric and eristic.note

An objection is brought from the contrary. For example, if the enthymeme was that a good man does good to all his friends, the objection is, “But a bad man doesn’t do harm to all his friends either.” From the similar: if the enthymeme was that people who have been badly treated always hate, the objection is, “But people who have been well treated don’t always love either.” The judgments are those of well-known men. For example, if someone stated the enthymeme that one should forgive the drunk, since they do wrong in ignorance, the objection is that Pittacus, then, deserves no praise, for otherwise he wouldn’t have laid down greater penalties for wrongs done while drunk.note

Enthymemes are said to be drawn from four sources: probability, example, sure sign, and sign. Enthymemes drawn from what is, or seems to be, true for the most part are from probabilities. Those drawn [by induction] through the similar, whether one case or several, when one takes the universal and then reasons to the particulars, are through example. Those drawn through what is necessary and ⟨always⟩ so are through sure signs. Those drawn through what is universal or partial, whether it is so or not, are through signs. And the probable is not what always holds but what holds for the most part. It is clear, then, that enthymemes of this kind can always be refuted by bringing an objection, but the refutation is apparent and not always genuine. For the objector shows not that the conclusion is improbable but only that it is not necessary.

That is why, through this fallacy, the defendant always has an advantage over the accuser. The accuser proves his case by probabilities. Refuting a conclusion by showing it is improbable is not the same as showing it is not necessary, and what holds for the most part is always open to objection, since otherwise it would not be ⟨something that holds for the most part and⟩ probable, but something that always holds and is necessary. Yet if the argument is refuted in this way, the judge thinks either that it isn’t probable or that it isn’t for him to judge. He reasons falsely, as we said, for he should judge not only from what is necessary but also from what is probable. That is what it means to judge “by one’s best judgment.” So it isn’t enough to refute by showing it is not necessary; one must refute by showing it is not probable. This will happen if the objection itself is more in line with what holds for the most part.

An objection can be like this in two ways, in time or in the facts, and most decisively in both. 1403a For if things are so ⟨in more cases and⟩ more often, that is more probable. Signs, too, and enthymemes stated through a sign, can be refuted even if the facts are true, as was said at the beginning, for the Analytics make it clear to us that every sign is invalid. Against arguments from example the refutation is the same as against probabilities. If we have a ⟨single⟩ case that is otherwise, the argument is refuted as not necessary, even if more cases, or more often, go the other way. But if more cases and more often are as claimed, one must contend that the present case is not similar, or not similar in the same way, or that it differs in some respect.

Sure signs and the enthymemes based on them cannot be refuted on the ground that they are invalid (the Analytics make this clear to us too). What remains is to show that the alleged fact is not so. If it is evident both that the fact is so and that it is a sure sign, the argument becomes irrefutable, for it then becomes a demonstration plain in every respect.

So this would not be the difference, since both sides use the same means: both bring enthymemes to show that something is not so, or is so. And the objection is not an enthymeme. As in the Topics, it consists in stating some opinion that will make it clear that the opponent has not reasoned validly or has assumed something false. There are three things that must be dealt with concerning a speech. On examples, maxims, enthymemes, and in general on matters of thought, 1403b where to find a supply of them and how to refute them, let this be enough; it remains to go through style and arrangement.

The first question investigated was, as nature dictates, what comes first by nature: the sources from which the facts themselves get their persuasiveness. Second is how to set these out in words. Third comes something that has very great power but has not yet been attempted: delivery. Even in tragedy and rhapsody it came late, for at first the poets acted their tragedies themselves. Clearly, then, there is something of this kind in rhetoric as in poetry, and certain people have dealt with it, among them Glaucon of Teos. Delivery lies in the voice: how it should be used for each emotion, when loud, when soft, when in between; how the pitches should be used, high, low, and middle; and what rhythms suit each subject.note

There are three things they look to: volume, modulation, and rhythm. Those who master these carry off nearly all the prizes in the contests. Just as there actors now count for more than poets, so it is in political contests too, because of the corrupt state of the constitutions. But no art of these things has yet been composed, since even the study of style came late. 1404a And, rightly regarded, it seems vulgar. But since the whole study of rhetoric is aimed at appearance, we must attend to it, not because it is right, but because it is necessary. In justice, one should look for nothing more in a speech than that it neither pain nor please the audience. The just thing is to fight one’s case on the facts alone, so that everything outside demonstration is superfluous. All the same, as has been said, delivery has great power, because of the corruption of the audience.

Still, style has some small necessary place in all teaching. Saying something this way or that makes some difference to clarity, though not that much. All these things are show, aimed at the hearer. That is why no one teaches geometry this way. When an art of delivery does arrive, it will have the same effect as the art of acting. Some have tried to say a little about it, Thrasymachus for example in his Appeals to Pity. Skill in delivery is a gift of nature and less a matter of art, while style is a matter of art. So those who are good at it win prizes in their turn, just as orators skilled in delivery do. Written speeches owe more of their effect to style than to thought.note

It was the poets, naturally enough, who first set things going. Words are imitations, and the voice, too, is the most imitative of all our parts. That is why the arts of rhapsody and acting, and others besides, came into being. And since the poets, though saying simple-minded things, seemed to have won [this] reputation through their style, the first prose style was poetic, like Gorgias’. Even now most uneducated people think speakers of that sort talk most beautifully. They don’t: the style of prose is different from that of poetry.note

What is happening shows this. Even the writers of tragedy no longer use poetic style in the same way. They switched from the tetrameter to the iambic because it is the most like speech of all the meters, and in the same way they have given up all words that depart from ordinary conversation, [and] with which the early poets used to adorn their work, as writers of hexameters still [have given up] even now. So it is ridiculous to imitate people who no longer use that manner themselves. It is clear, then, that we need not go into precise detail about everything that can be said about style, only about the kind we are discussing. The other kind has been dealt with in the Poetics.

In verse many things produce this effect, and it suits verse, since the subjects and persons it deals with are further removed from the ordinary. In prose far fewer such devices are fitting, since the subject matter is humbler. Even in verse it would be rather inappropriate for a slave or a very young man to use fine language, or to use it about very trivial matters. Even here, what is appropriate is a matter of scaling down and scaling up. So you must do it without being noticed and seem to speak not artificially but naturally. The natural is persuasive, the artificial the opposite: people get suspicious, as if someone were plotting against them, just as they are of doctored wine. It should be like the effect of Theodorus’ voice compared with those of the other actors: his seems to belong to the character speaking, theirs to someone else. The art is well concealed if you compose by selecting from ordinary speech. Euripides does this, and he was the first to show the way.note

Speech is made of nouns and verbs, and nouns come in as many kinds as were studied in the work on poetry. Of these, rare words, compounds, and coined words should be used seldom and in few places (where, we will say later; why, we have already said: they depart from the appropriate toward excess). Only the standard word, the proper word, and metaphor are useful for the style of prose. A sign of this is that these are the only ones everybody uses, since everyone talks in metaphors and in proper and standard words. So it is clear that if you do this well, the style will have an unfamiliar air, the art can go unnoticed, and it will be clear. This, we said, was the excellence of rhetorical speech.

⁎ Of words, homonyms are useful to the sophist, since they are how he works his mischief, and synonyms to the poet. 1405a By words that are standard and synonymous I mean, for example, “to proceed” and “to walk”: these are both standard and synonymous with each other. ⁎ What each of these is, how many kinds of metaphor there are, and that this has the greatest power in both poetry and prose [metaphors], has been said, as we mentioned, in the Poetics. But in prose you must take all the more pains over them, because prose has fewer resources than verse. Metaphor above all has clarity, pleasure, and an unfamiliar air, and it cannot be borrowed from someone else. Epithets and metaphors alike should be fitting.note

This will come from analogy; otherwise it will look inappropriate, because opposites are most conspicuous side by side. You must ask: as scarlet suits a young man, what suits an old man? For the same clothing is not appropriate. If you want to adorn, take the metaphor from the better things in the same genus; if you want to disparage, from the worse. I mean, for example, since opposites belong to the same genus, saying that a beggar “prays” and that someone praying “begs,” since both are requests, is doing what was described. So Iphicrates called Callias a begging priest of the Mother [rather than a torchbearer]. Callias replied that Iphicrates must be uninitiated, or he wouldn’t call him a begging priest but a torchbearer. Both have to do with a god, but one is honored and the other dishonored.note

Again, one man calls them “Dionysus-flatterers,” while they call themselves “artists.” Both are metaphors, one from people who sully things, the other the opposite. Robbers, too, now call themselves “providers.” So you can say that someone who did wrong “made a mistake,” or that someone who made a mistake “did wrong,” and that a thief both “took” and “plundered.” But what Euripides’ Telephus says, “Lord of the oar, and landing in Mysia,” is inappropriate, since “lord” is grander than the subject deserves; so the art is not concealed. There is a fault in the syllables too, if they don’t suggest a pleasant sound. For example, Dionysius the Brazen in his elegies calls poetry “Calliope’s screech,” since both are sounds; but the metaphor is poor, drawn as it is from sounds without meaning.note

Further, in naming what has no name, you should take metaphors not from far off but from things that are related and of the same kind, so that as soon as it is said it is clear that they are related. 1405b An example is the celebrated riddle: “I saw a man who with fire welded bronze upon a man.” The process has no name, but both are a kind of application, so he called the applying of the cupping-glass “welding.” In general, good metaphors can be taken from well-made riddles, since metaphors are riddles, and so clearly the transfer is apt. And metaphors should be drawn from beautiful things. A word’s beauty, as Licymnius says, lies in its sounds or in its meaning, and so does its ugliness.note

Further, a third point ⁎ ⁎ ⁎, which refutes the sophistic argument. It is not true, as Bryson said, that nobody uses foul language, since saying this word instead of that means the same thing. That is false. One word is more proper than another, closer to the likeness, and better suited to putting the thing before the eyes. Moreover, two words do not signify the thing in the same light, so on this ground too one must count one word as more beautiful or uglier than another. Both signify the beautiful or the ugly thing, but not insofar as it is beautiful or ugly; or if they do, then more or less so. Metaphors should be taken from there: from things beautiful in sound, in meaning, to the sight, or to some other sense. It makes a difference whether you say, for example, “rosy-fingered dawn” rather than “crimson-fingered,” or, worse still, “red-fingered.”note

With epithets, too, you can form them from what is base or ugly, like “mother-slayer,” or from what is better, like “avenger of his father.” When the winner of the mule race offered Simonides a small fee, he refused to write a poem, as if he balked at writing about mules. But when he was paid enough, he wrote: “Hail, daughters of storm-footed mares!” Yet they were daughters of donkeys too. The same can be done with diminutives. A diminutive is what makes both bad and good smaller, as Aristophanes does in jest in the Babylonians: “goldlet” for gold, “cloaklet” for cloak, “insultlet” for insult, and “diseaselet.” But in both you must be careful and keep within measure.note

The third way is in epithets: using them long, out of place, or crowded together. In poetry it is appropriate to say “white milk.” In prose, though, some epithets are less appropriate, and others, if overdone, give the game away and make it plain that this is poetry. Still, some use of them is needed, since they vary the familiar and give the style an unfamiliar air. But one must aim at the mean, because overdoing it does more harm than speaking carelessly. Careless speech lacks merit; overdone speech has an actual fault.

This is why Alcidamas’ style seems frigid. He uses epithets not as a seasoning but as the main dish, so crowded are they, so overlong, and so obvious. He says not “sweat” but “the moist sweat”; not “to the Isthmian games” but “to the festal gathering of the Isthmian games”; not “laws” but “the laws, the kings of cities”; not “at a run” but “with the running impulse of the soul”; not “a seat of the Muses” but “having received nature’s seat of the Muses”; and “the scowling care of the soul”; and not “craftsman of charm” but “craftsman of universal charm and steward of his hearers’ pleasure”; and not “with branches” but “with the branches of the forest [he hid]”; and not “he covered his body” but “he covered his body’s shame”; and “the counter-imitating desire of the soul” (this is at once a compound and an epithet, so that it becomes a poem); and “so outlandish the excess of his wickedness.”

So by speaking poetically, these writers produce absurdity and frigidity through inappropriateness, and obscurity through wordiness. When someone piles words on a hearer who already understands, he destroys clarity by darkening it. People use compounds when a thing has no name and the word combines easily, like “time-wasting”; but if this is done much, it is wholly poetic. 1406b That is why compound diction is most useful to dithyrambic poets, since they are sonorous; rare words to epic poets, since rare words are dignified and self-assured; ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ metaphor to iambic verse, since that is what iambic poets use nowadays, as has been said. ⁎ And the fourth kind of frigidity arises in metaphors. For metaphors can be inappropriate too: some because they are ridiculous (comic poets also use metaphors), others because they are too grand and tragic. And they are obscure if far-fetched.note

For example, Gorgias’ “green and bloody affairs,” and “you [both] sowed these things shamefully and reaped them badly”: too poetic. And Alcidamas calling philosophy “a fortress planted against the laws” and the Odyssey “a fine mirror of human life,” and “bringing no such plaything to poetry.” All these are unpersuasive, for the reasons given. But Gorgias’ remark to the swallow, when it flew over him and let its droppings fall on him, is the best of the tragic style. He said, “Shame on you, Philomela!” If a bird did this, it was not shameful; for a maiden it was. So he rebuked it well by calling it what it was, not what it is.note

And the one in Plato’s Republic, that those who strip the dead are like puppies that bite the stones but don’t touch the person throwing them. And the one about the people, that they are like a ship’s captain who is strong but a little deaf. And the one about poets’ verses, that they are like those who have youthful bloom without beauty: when the bloom has faded from the one, and the other is broken up, 1407a they no longer look the same. And Pericles’ about the Samians, that they are like children who accept the morsel but keep crying. And the one about the Boeotians, that they are like holm oaks: holm oaks are cut down by their own wood, and the Boeotians by fighting one another.note

And Demosthenes’ about the people, that they are like the seasick on ships ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ And as Democrates likened the orators to nurses who swallow the morsel themselves and smear the children’s lips with the spittle. And as Antisthenes likened skinny Cephisodotus to incense, because he gives pleasure by wasting away. All these can be expressed either as similes or as metaphors, so that any that are well liked when spoken as metaphors will plainly be similes as well, and similes are metaphors that need a word of explanation. The proportional metaphor must always be reversible, applying also to the other one [and to the other] of two things of the same kind. For instance, if the cup is the shield of Dionysus, then the shield may fittingly be called the cup of Ares.

Third, avoid ambiguous words—unless you deliberately want the opposite, as people do when they have nothing to say but pretend to be saying something. Such people say these things in verse, Empedocles for example: the long circumlocution deceives, and the audience feel what most people feel with seers. When seers say ambiguous things, people nod along: “Croesus, crossing the Halys, will destroy a great empire.” 1407b And since the chance of error is smaller overall, seers speak in general terms about the matter. In playing odds and evens, you are more likely to be right if you say “even” or “odd” than if you say how many; and if you say that something will happen rather than when—which is why oracle-mongers don’t add the when. All these are alike, so unless it is for some such purpose, they should be avoided.note

Fourth, keep the genders of nouns as Protagoras distinguished them—masculine, feminine, and things—for these too must be made to agree correctly: “She, having come and having talked, went away.” Fifth, name correctly the many, the few, and the one: “They, having come, began beating me.” In general, what is written should be easy to read and easy to deliver, which is the same thing. Many connectives destroy this, and so does what is hard to punctuate, like the writings of Heraclitus.note

Punctuating Heraclitus is real work, because it is unclear which word goes with which, the following or the preceding, as at the very beginning of his book. He says, “Of this account which holds always humans prove uncomprehending”: it is unclear which way “always” should be punctuated. ⁎ Further, failing to make things correspond produces a solecism, if you don’t join to two words one that fits both. With “sound” or “color,” for instance, “seeing” isn’t common to both, but “perceiving” is. And it is obscure if you don’t say first what you mean, when you are going to throw in a lot in between. For instance: “I was going, after talking with him about this and that and in this way, to set out,” rather than: “I was going to set out after talking with him; then this and that happened, in this way.” ⁎note

Antimachus’ device is useful too: describing a thing by what it does not have, as he does with Teumessus: “There is a small windy hill.” For in this way amplification can go on without limit. This can be done with good and bad things alike, saying what they are not, whichever is useful. This is also where poets get words like “stringless” and “lyreless” music: they apply them from privations. This is well liked when said in proportional metaphors, as when one calls the trumpet “lyreless music.”note

Appropriate style also makes the case persuasive. The soul falsely infers that the speaker is telling the truth, because in such circumstances people feel that way; so they think, even if the speaker’s case is not [as he puts it], that things are as he says. And the hearer always shares the emotion of someone who speaks emotionally, even if he says nothing of substance. That is why many speakers overwhelm their audiences with sheer noise. This display through signs also conveys character, ... because the style suited to each class and disposition goes with it. By class I mean age—boy, man, or old man—and woman or man, and Spartan or Thessalian; by dispositions, those that make a person a certain kind of person in his life, since not every disposition makes a life of a certain kind.

So if a speaker also uses words suited to his disposition, he will portray character; for a rustic and an educated man would not say the same things, nor say them in the same way. ⁎ Audiences are also affected somewhat by a device speechwriters use to excess: “Who doesn’t know?” “Everyone knows.” The hearer agrees out of shame, so as to share in what everyone else does. ⁎ Using these things in season or out of season 1408b is a matter common to all the kinds. The remedy for every exaggeration is the familiar one: you should rebuke yourself at the same time. Then it seems true, since the speaker clearly knows what he is doing. Further, don’t use all the corresponding devices at once; that way the hearer is taken in without noticing.note

I mean, for example, that if the words are harsh, you shouldn’t also make the voice and face and the rest match them; otherwise each one shows itself for what it is. But if one does and the other doesn’t, the speaker does the same thing without being noticed. So if gentle things are said harshly and harsh things gently, it becomes unpersuasive. Compound words, a plurality of epithets, and strange words especially suit a speaker who is speaking with emotion: we forgive an angry man for calling a wrong “heaven-high” or “monstrous.” The same goes for when the speaker already has hold of his audience and has stirred them to enthusiasm by praise or blame, by anger or friendship, as Isocrates does at the end of the Panegyricus: “fame and memory” and “who dared.” People utter such things when carried away, so that the audience plainly accept them because they are in the same state.note

That is why it suits poetry as well, for poetry is inspired. So one should use it either in this way or with irony, as Gorgias did, and as in the Phaedrus.note

Of the rhythms, the heroic is dignified but lacks the tone of conversation; the iamb is the very speech of ordinary people, which is why, of all meters, people utter iambic lines most often in talking. But speech should have dignity and lift itself out of the ordinary. The trochee is too much like a comic dance, as the tetrameters show, 1409a for the tetrameter is a trochaic rhythm. There remains the paean, which speakers have used since Thrasymachus, though they could not say what it was. The paean is a third rhythm, close to those mentioned: it is in the ratio of three to two, while of those the one is one to one, the other two to one. Next to these ratios comes one and a half to one, and that is the paean.note

The other rhythms, then, should be dropped, for the reasons given and because they are metrical; but the paean should be adopted, since it is the only one of the rhythms mentioned that does not form a meter, and so it best escapes notice. Nowadays people use one and the same paean both at the beginning ⟨and at the end⟩, but the end should differ from the beginning. There are two kinds of paean, opposite to each other. One suits the beginning, and is in fact used there: this is the one that begins with a long syllable and ends with three shorts, as in “Delos-born, or else Lycia” and “golden-haired Far-shooter, child of Zeus.” The other is the reverse, with three shorts first and the long last: “after earth and the waters, night blotted out ocean.” This one makes an ending, since a short syllable, being incomplete, leaves the ending truncated.note

Instead, the sentence should be cut off with a long syllable, and the end should be clear not through the scribe or the marginal mark, but through the rhythm.note

That, then, is the running style. The compact style is the one in periods. By a period I mean a stretch of speech that has a beginning and an end in itself, and a size that can easily be taken in at a glance. 1409b Such style is pleasant and easy to learn. It is pleasant because it is the opposite of the unlimited, and because the hearer always thinks he has grasped something and that something has been completed for him; whereas to foresee nothing and get nowhere is unpleasant. It is easy to learn because it is easy to remember, and this is because periodic style has number, which is the easiest of all things to remember. That is why everyone remembers verse better than loose prose: it has number, by which it is measured.

The period should also be complete in its thought, and not cut off like Sophocles’ iambic line, “This land is Calydon, of Pelops’ country”: by the division one can take it to mean the opposite of what is meant—in this example, that Calydon is in the Peloponnese. A period is either in clauses or simple. Style in clauses is complete, divided, and easily spoken in one breath—not at the point of division, like the line just quoted, but as a whole. A clause is one of the two parts of such a period. By “simple” I mean a period of one clause. Clauses and periods should be neither stunted nor long.note

A short one often makes the hearer stumble: when he is still pressing on toward the distance and the measure whose limit he carries in his own mind, and is pulled back because the speaker has stopped, there is bound to be a sort of stumble from the check. Long ones make him lag behind, like people who turn back beyond the turning point on a walk: they too leave their companions behind. Likewise periods that are long become a speech in themselves and resemble a dithyrambic prelude. The result is what Democritus of Chios mocked in Melanippides, who wrote preludes instead of antistrophes: “A man works harm to himself who works harm to another, / and a long prelude is worst for the one who composed it.” This sort of thing also fits those who use long clauses. And periods whose clauses are too short are not periods at all; so they drag the hearer headlong.note

Of style in clauses, one kind is divided, the other antithetical. Divided, for example: “I have often wondered at those who convened the festivals and established the athletic contests.” Antithetical is the kind in which, in each of the two clauses, opposite is set against opposite, or the same word is yoked to both opposites, 1410a for example: “They benefited both, those who stayed behind and those who followed: for the latter they acquired more than they had at home, for the former they left enough at home.” Opposites: staying behind and following, enough and more. “So that both for those in need of money and for those wishing to enjoy it”—enjoyment is opposed to acquisition.

And again: “It often happens in these that the sensible fail and the foolish succeed.” “At once they were judged worthy of the prize for valor, and not long after they won command of the sea.” “To sail through the mainland and march through the sea, bridging the Hellespont and digging through Athos.” “And that men who are citizens by nature should be deprived of their city by law.” “For some of them perished miserably, others were saved shamefully.” And: “Privately to use barbarians as household slaves, but publicly to look on while many of our allies are enslaved.” “Either to have them alive or to leave them behind dead.” And what someone said in court against Peitholaus and Lycophron: “These men sold you when they were at home, and now that they have come to you, they have bought you.” All these produce the effect described.note

Such style is pleasant because opposites are most easily known, and more easily still when set side by side, and because it resembles a syllogism, for refutation is a bringing together of opposites. This, then, is antithesis. Parisosis is when the clauses are equal; paromoiosis when each clause has similar extremities. This must come either at the beginning or at the end. At the beginning it is always whole words; at the end, final syllables, or inflections of the same word, or the same word.

At the beginning, things like “For he got from him land unworked” and “they could be won with gifts and won over with words.” At the end: “They thought he had fathered a child, but he had become the cause of it”; “amid the greatest cares and the slightest hopes.” Inflections of the same word: “Does he deserve a bronze statue, when he’s not worth a bronze coin?” The same word: “You spoke ill of him while he lived, and now you write ill of him.” From a syllable: “What terrible thing would have happened to you if you had seen an idle man?” The same sentence can have all of these at once, 1410b and be at once antithesis, parison, and homoeoteleuton. The excellences of periods have been more or less enumerated in the Theodectea. There are also false antitheses, like those Epicharmus wrote: “At one time I was in their house, at another I was with them.”note

For the simile, as was said earlier, is a metaphor that differs by having a word put in front. That is why it is less pleasant: it is longer. It also does not say that this is that, so the soul does not look for this either. Style and enthymemes, then, are necessarily witty when they make us learn quickly. That is why superficial enthymemes are not well received (by “superficial” we mean those that are obvious to everyone and require no searching), and neither are those that are not understood once they have been said. The ones that succeed are those understood as soon as they are said, even if the knowledge was not there before, or those that the mind catches up with after a short lag. For then a kind of learning takes place, but in the other cases neither happens. In terms of the thought of what is said, then, enthymemes of this kind are well received. In terms of style, they succeed through their form, if they are expressed antithetically, for example: “and regarding the peace that the others share as a war against their own private interests,” where war is set against peace.

They succeed through their words if these contain a metaphor, and a metaphor neither far-fetched (for then it is hard to grasp) nor superficial (for then it has no effect on us). Further, they succeed if they set things before the eyes, for we should see things being done rather than things to come. So one should aim at these three things: metaphor, antithesis, activity. Of the four kinds of metaphor, 1411a the most well received are those by analogy. Pericles, for example, said that the young men who had died in the war had vanished from the city as if someone had taken the spring out of the year. And Leptines, speaking about the Spartans, said they must not stand by and watch Greece become one-eyed. And Cephisodotus, when Chares was eager to submit to his audit for the Olynthian war, was indignant, saying that Chares was trying to submit to his audit while he had the people by the throat and was choking them. And once, urging the Athenians to go to Euboea, he said that they must set out with provisions: “Miltiades’ decree.”note

And Iphicrates, when the Athenians had made a truce with Epidaurus and the coast near it, was indignant, saying that they had robbed themselves of their travel money for the war. And Peitholaus called the Paralus “the people’s club,” and Sestos “the bread-board of the Piraeus.” And Pericles told them to remove Aegina, “the eyesore of the Piraeus.” And Moerocles named one of the decent citizens and said he himself was no more wicked than that man, for that man was wicked at thirty-three percent interest and he himself at ten. And there is the iambic line of Anaxandrides about daughters slow to marry: “My girls have let their wedding day lapse, like a debt.” And Polyeuctus’ remark about a man called Speusippus who had suffered a stroke: he could not keep still, even though fortune had bound him in a five-holed disease. And Cephisodotus used to call the triremes “painted mills,” and the Dog called the taverns of Attica “the Spartan common messes.” And Aesion said that they had “poured the city out into Sicily”; this is a metaphor and sets the thing before the eyes.note

And “so that Greece cried out”: this too is in a way a metaphor and before the eyes. And Cephisodotus told them to take care not to hold too many “stampedes” [assemblies]. And Isocrates spoke of those who “stampede together” at the festivals. And there is the funeral speech, which said that Greece ought to have cut her hair at the tomb of those who died at Salamis, since her freedom was being buried along with their excellence. If he had said that it was right to weep because their excellence was being buried with them, that would be a metaphor and before the eyes, 1411b but “freedom along with excellence” has a kind of antithesis. And Iphicrates said, “The path of my speech runs through the middle of Chares’ deeds”: a metaphor by analogy, and “through the middle” sets it before the eyes. And saying that one “calls on dangers to come to the rescue against dangers” is before the eyes and a metaphor.note

And Lycoleon, speaking for Chabrias: “not even respecting his posture of supplication, the bronze statue.” This is a metaphor for the moment, though not for all time, but it is before the eyes: when he is in danger, the statue supplicates, the lifeless made alive, the memorial of the city’s deeds. And “practicing in every way to think small”: for to practice something is to increase it. And that the god kindled the mind as a light in the soul: for both make something clear. “For we do not end our wars, we postpone them”: for both postponement and this sort of peace concern the future. And saying that a treaty is a trophy far finer than those won in wars: for those are set up for small things and a single stroke of fortune, while treaties are for the whole war; and both are signs of victory.note

And that cities, too, submit to heavy audits before the censure of mankind; for an audit is a kind of just penalty.

In all of these he wins praise by producing activity, as in these lines: “Back again to the plain rolled the shameless stone,” and “the arrow flew,” and “eager to fly at them,” 1412a and “they stood fixed in the ground, longing to glut themselves on flesh,” and “the spear-point sped through his chest, raging onward.” In all these, things appear active because they are made alive: being shameless, raging, and the rest are activity. He attached these qualities through metaphor by analogy: as the stone is to Sisyphus, so the shameless person is to the one he treats shamelessly. He does the same in his well-received similes about lifeless things: “arching, foam-crested, some in front, others behind.” He makes everything moving and living, and activity is movement.

Metaphors should be taken, as was said earlier, from things that are related but not obvious, just as in philosophy too it takes a sharp eye to see the likeness even in things far apart. Archytas, for example, said that an arbitrator and an altar are the same, since the wronged take refuge in both. Or someone might say that an anchor and a pot-hook are the same: both are the same sort of thing, but they differ in that one holds from above and the other from below. And “the cities have been leveled” applies the same thing to things far apart, equality in surface and in power.

Most witty sayings also come through metaphor and from an added deception. It becomes clearer that one has learned something when the thing turns out contrary to what one thought, and the soul seems to say, “How true! I had it wrong.” Witty sayings of the apophthegm kind, too, come from not meaning what one says, like Stesichorus’ remark that the cicadas would sing to themselves from the ground. Well-made riddles are pleasant for the same reason: there is learning in them, and they are expressed in metaphor. Then there is what Theodorus calls “saying new things.” This happens when the thing is unexpected and, as he puts it, does not fit our previous opinion, like the twisted words in jokes. Jokes that change a letter have the same effect, for they deceive.note

It happens in verse too, when the line is not what the hearer expected: “he strode along, with chilblains beneath his feet,” when one thought he would say “sandals.” But this must be clear as soon as it is said. Plays on a letter make the speaker mean not what he says but what the twisted word means, like Theodorus’ remark to Nicon the lyre-singer, “Thratt’ei se”: he pretends to say “it troubles you,” and deceives us, since he means something else. 1412b So it is pleasant to someone who gets it, but if one doesn’t know that Nicon is a Thracian, it won’t seem witty. And “You want to persai him.” Both senses must be appropriately expressed. Witty sayings work the same way, for example telling the Athenians that their rule of the sea was not the beginning of their troubles, since they profited from it; or, as Isocrates said, that the rule was the beginning of the city’s troubles.note

In both cases, something has been said that one would not have expected the speaker to say, and it is recognized as true. Saying that the “archê” is an “archê” is nothing clever; but he does not mean it in that way but in another, and the “archê” he denies is not the one he asserted, but in another sense. In all these cases, the result is good only if the word is applied appropriately, by homonymy or by metaphor. For example, “Anaschetos is not anaschetos [bearable]”: he denied the homonym, but appropriately, if the man is unpleasant. And “You must not be more of a stranger than you should, stranger” / [stranger] [or] “not more than you should,” which is the same thing; and “the stranger must not always be a stranger,” for here too the word is used in a different sense.

Anaxandrides’ much-praised line is the same: “It’s fine to die before you’ve done anything that deserves death.” This is the same as saying “it is worth dying when one does not deserve to die,” or “it is worth dying when one is not deserving of death,” or “when one is not doing things that deserve death.” The form of expression in these is the same, but the more briefly and antithetically it is put, the better it is received. The reason is that one learns more through antithesis, and more quickly through brevity. Something must always be added, either aptness to the person addressed or correctness of expression, if what is said is to be true and not superficial; for these can be had separately. “One should die having done nothing wrong,” but that isn’t witty; “a worthy man should marry a worthy woman,” but that isn’t witty.

It is witty only when it has both at once: “it is worth dying when one does not deserve to die.” And the more of these qualities it has, the wittier it seems: if, for instance, the words are a metaphor, and a metaphor of the right kind, and there is antithesis and balance, and it has activity. Similes too, as was said above, are, when well received, in a way metaphors; for they are always expressed in terms of two things, like proportional metaphor. We say, for example, that the shield is “the cup of Ares,” and a bow is “a lyre without strings.” 1413a Said this way, the expression is not simple, while calling the bow a lyre or the shield a cup is simple. People also make comparisons in this way, for instance a pipe-player to an ape, a short-sighted man [to] a lamp spattered with rain; for both screw themselves up.

The simile is good when it is a metaphor: one can liken the shield to the cup of Ares, and a ruin to the rag of a house, and say that Niceratus is a Philoctetes bitten by Pratys, the comparison Thrasymachus made when he saw Niceratus, beaten by Pratys in the rhapsode contest, still long-haired and unkempt. It is here above all that poets fail if they do it badly and win praise if they do it well. I mean when they spell out the comparison: “he wears his legs crinkled like parsley” / “like Philammon sparring with the punching bag.” All such things are similes; and that similes are metaphors has been said many times. Proverbs, too, are metaphors from species to species. For example, if someone brings something in himself, thinking it will do him good, and is then harmed by it, we say he is like the man from Carpathus with the hare; for both have suffered what was described.note

Where witty sayings come from, then, and why, has more or less been explained. Well-received hyperboles are also metaphors, for example of a man with a black eye: “You’d have thought he was a basket of mulberries”; for the bruise is reddish, but the quantity is greatly exaggerated. And “like this or that” is a hyperbole differing only in its form of expression. “Like Philammon sparring with the punching bag”: “you’d have thought he was Philammon fighting the punching bag.” “Wearing his legs crinkled like parsley”: “you’d have thought he had not legs but parsley, they are so crinkled.” Hyperboles are juvenile, for they show vehemence. That’s why people use them most when they are angry: “Not even if he gave me as much as there is sand and dust.” / “And the daughter of Agamemnon son of Atreus I will not marry, / not even if she rivaled golden Aphrodite in beauty, / and Athena in her handiwork.” ⁎ The Attic orators use this most of all.note

⁎ 1413b That is why it is inappropriate for an older man to use them.

The reason is that the debating style suits a contest. That is why speeches written for delivery, once the delivery is taken away, fail to do their job and seem silly. Asyndeton, for example, and saying the same thing many times are rightly rejected in written style, but not in debating style, and orators use them, for they belong to delivery.

When saying the same thing, one has to vary it, and this, as it were, paves the way for delivery: “This is the man who robbed you, this is the man who deceived you, this is the man who finally tried to betray you.” This is what Philemon the actor used to do in Anaxandrides’ Old Man’s Madness, when he said “Rhadamanthys and Palamedes,” and with the “I” in the prologue of The Pious. If one does not act such things out, one becomes “the man carrying the beam.” Asyndeta work the same way: “I came, I met him, I begged.” One has to act it out and not say it in the same character and tone, as if it were a single thing. Asyndeta have a further peculiarity: many things seem to have been said in the same amount of time. For the connective makes many things one, so clearly, if it is removed, the opposite will happen: the one will become many.note

So it amplifies: “I came, I spoke with him, I entreated”: 1414a it seems like many things; “he disregarded everything I said.” Homer aims at this too in “Nireus from Syme, / Nireus, son of Aglaia, / Nireus, the most beautiful.” For someone about whom many things are said must also have been named many times; so if he is named many times, it seems that many things are said. So Homer amplified him through this fallacy, though he mentioned him only once, and made him memorable, though he never speaks of him again. The style of speaking in the assembly is in every way like scene painting: the bigger the crowd, the more distant the view, so precise detail is wasted and looks worse in both. Forensic style is more precise, and the style used before a single judge still more so, since it leaves the least room for rhetoric. What belongs to the matter and what is foreign to it is easier to take in at a glance, and there is no contest, so the judgment is unclouded.note

That is why the same orators do not excel in all of these. Where delivery counts most, there is least precision; and this is where voice is needed, especially a loud one. Ceremonial style is the most suited to writing, for its function is to be read; second is forensic style. To divide style further by saying that it must be pleasant and magnificent is superfluous. Why these rather than moderate and generous, or any other excellence of character? Clearly what has been said will make it pleasant, if the excellence of style has been correctly defined. For why else must it be clear and not flat, but appropriate? If it is garrulous, it is not clear, nor if it is too concise. Clearly the mean is what fits.

What has been said will also make the style pleasant, if it is well blended: the familiar and the unfamiliar, rhythm, and the persuasiveness that comes from appropriateness. So much, then, for style, both in general for all kinds and in particular for each kind. It remains to speak about arrangement.

Accusation and defense, too, often occur in them, but not insofar as they are advice. And the epilogue, moreover, does not belong even to every forensic speech, for instance if the speech is short or the matter easy to remember; for its effect is to cut down the length. So the necessary parts are statement and proof. These are the proper parts; at the most there are introduction, statement, proof, epilogue. The reply to the opponent is part of the proofs, and the counter-comparison is an amplification of one’s own case, and so a part of the proofs; for whoever does this proves something. But the introduction does not, nor does the epilogue: it reminds. If one makes such divisions, as Theodorus’ followers did, narration will be one thing and supplementary narration and preliminary narration others, and refutation one thing and further refutation another.

One should give a name only when one is describing a distinct kind and a real difference; otherwise it becomes empty and silly, like what Licymnius does in his Art, coining names like “Fair-sailing,” “Wandering-off,” and “Branches.”

The introductions of ceremonial speeches are drawn from praise or blame. Gorgias, for example, in his Olympic Speech: “Worthy of admiration by many, men of Greece”; he praises those who founded the festival gatherings. Isocrates, on the other hand, blames them, because they honored excellences of the body with prizes but established no reward for those who think well. They are also drawn from advice, for example that one should honor the good, which is why the speaker himself praises Aristides; or that one should honor those who are neither famous nor worthless but are good without being recognized, like Alexander son of Priam; 1415a for such a speaker is giving advice. They are also drawn from forensic introductions, that is, from appeals to the hearer, if the speech is about something paradoxical, or difficult, or already much talked about, in order to win indulgence, like Choerilus: “But now, when everything has been portioned out.”note

The introductions of ceremonial speeches, then, come from these sources: praise, blame, exhortation, dissuasion, and appeals to the hearer. And the keynote must be either extraneous or related to the speech. As for the introductions of forensic speech, one must understand that they have the same function as the prologues of plays and the openings of epics; for those of dithyrambs resemble ceremonial introductions: “Because of you and your gifts, or spoils.” In speeches and epics the introduction gives a sample of the subject, so that the audience may know in advance what the speech is about and their minds are not left hanging; for the indefinite leads astray. So whoever puts the beginning, as it were, into the hearer’s hand lets him hold on and follow the speech. That’s why we have “Sing, goddess, the wrath.” / “Tell me, Muse, of the man.”

/ “Lead me to another tale, how from the land of Asia / a great war came to Europe.” The tragedians, too, make clear what the play is about, if not immediately, as Euripides does, then at least somewhere in the prologue [makes it clear], as Sophocles does: “My father was Polybus.” Comedy does the same. The most necessary function of the introduction, then, and the one proper to it, is this: to make clear what the end is for which the speech is given. That is why, if the matter is clear and small, one should not use an introduction. The other kinds people use are remedies, and common to all speeches. They are drawn from the speaker, the hearer, the matter, and the opponent. Those concerning oneself and one’s opponent are whatever serves to dispel or to create prejudice.

These are not used in the same way. The defendant deals with prejudice first, the accuser in the epilogue. Why is not hard to see. When the defendant is about to bring himself forward, he must remove the obstacles, so he must dispel the prejudice first; while the one creating prejudice should do so in the epilogue, so that they remember it better. Appeals to the hearer aim at making him well disposed or angry, and sometimes attentive or the opposite; for it is not always useful to make him attentive, which is why many speakers try to make the audience laugh. Everything will lead to receptiveness, if one wishes, including appearing to be a decent person, 1415b for people pay more attention to such speakers. Hearers attend to things that are important, that concern themselves, that are astonishing, that are pleasant; so one should give the impression that the speech is about such things.

If one wants them not to be attentive, one should say that the matter is trivial, that it has nothing to do with them, that it is painful. But we must not overlook that all such things lie outside the speech proper. They are addressed to a poor hearer, one who listens to things outside the subject. If he is not like that, there is no need for an introduction, except to state the matter in summary, so that it has a head, as a body does. Further, making the audience attentive is common to all parts of the speech, if it is needed; for they slacken anywhere rather than at the beginning. So it’s ridiculous to put this at the beginning, when everyone is listening most attentively. Wherever the moment is right, then, one must say, “And pay attention to me, for this concerns you as much as me,” and “I will tell you something more terrible, or more astonishing, than anything you have ever heard.” This is, as Prodicus said, slipping in a bit of the fifty-drachma lecture whenever the audience nodded off.note

That these appeals are addressed to the hearer not in his capacity as [the] hearer is clear: everyone, in their introductions, either creates prejudice or tries to dispel fears. “My lord, I will not say that from haste” / “Why the preamble?” So do those whose case is bad, or seems so. For it’s better for them to dwell anywhere rather than on the case itself. That is why slaves don’t answer what they’re asked but talk around it, and make introductions. We have said from what sources one should make the audience well disposed, and each of the other things of this kind. And since it is well said, “Grant that I come to the Phaeacians as a friend and as one to be pitied,” these are the two things one should aim at.note

⁎ In ceremonial speeches one must make the hearer think that he shares in the praise, either himself or his family or his way of life, or somehow or other. For what Socrates says in the Funeral Speech is true: it isn’t hard to praise Athenians among Athenians, but among Spartans. ⁎ The introductions of political speech are drawn from those of forensic speech, but by its nature it has least need of them. The audience knows what the subject is, and the matter needs no introduction, except because of the speaker himself or his opponents, or if the audience doesn’t take the matter to be as important as you want, but either more or less so. Then you have to either create or dispel prejudice, and either amplify or diminish. For these reasons it needs an introduction, or else for ornament’s sake, 1416a since speeches look slapdash if they don’t have one.note

Such is Gorgias’ encomium of the Eleans: without any preliminary sparring or warming up, he begins straight off, “Elis, happy city.”

Another topic: that it was a mistake, or a misfortune, or a necessity. Sophocles, for instance, said that he trembled not, as his accuser claimed, so as to seem old, but from necessity: it wasn’t by his own choice that he was eighty. And to offset the motive: that he didn’t want to cause harm but to do such and such, and didn’t mean to do what he is accused of, but the harm happened by accident: “It would be just to hate me if I had acted so that this would happen.” Another, if the accuser has been implicated, either now or before, either himself or one of those close to him. Another, if others are included who are admitted not to be liable to the charge: for instance, if ⟨so-and-so⟩ is an adulterer because he’s well groomed, then so-and-so must be too. Another, if he has slandered others, or someone else has slandered them, or without any slander they were suspected as he himself is now, and they have turned out not to be guilty.

Another, from attacking the accuser in turn: it would be absurd if a man who is himself not to be trusted should have words that are to be trusted. Another, if there has already been a verdict. So Euripides replied to Hygiaenon, who in the exchange-of-property case was accusing him of impiety for having written a line urging perjury: “My tongue has sworn, but my mind is unsworn.” Euripides said that Hygiaenon was doing wrong in bringing into the law courts judgments that belonged to the contest of Dionysus: he had given an account of his words there, or would give one, if Hygiaenon wanted to accuse him. Another, from attacking slander itself: how great an evil it is, and this because it substitutes other issues for trial, and because it shows no confidence in the case itself.note

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ A topic common to both is to cite tokens, 1416b as in the Teucer Odysseus says that Teucer is related to Priam, Hesione being Priam’s sister; and Teucer replies that his father, Telamon, was Priam’s enemy, and that he did not inform on the spies. ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ Another, for the accuser: to praise something small at length and censure something great briefly; or, after setting out many good points, to censure one thing that bears on the issue. People like this are the most artful and the most unjust, for they try to do harm with good things by mixing them with the bad.note

Common to the accuser and the defender: since the same action can be done for several motives, the accuser must disparage it by taking it in the worse sense, the defender in the better. For example, Diomedes chose Odysseus. One side says it was because he thought Odysseus the best man; the other says no, it was because he was the only one who wouldn’t be a rival, being worthless.

Well-known actions one need only recall, which is why many speeches need no narration at all. If you want to praise Achilles, for example: everyone knows his deeds, but you have to make use of them. If it’s Critias, though, you do need a narration, for not many people know ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ At present people absurdly say that narration should be rapid. Yet, as the man said to the baker who asked whether he should knead the dough hard or soft, “What? Is doing it well impossible?”—so it is here too. One shouldn’t narrate at length, just as one shouldn’t make long introductions or state the proofs at length. Here too, doing it well doesn’t mean doing it rapidly or concisely, but in due measure. That means saying as much as will make the matter clear, 1417a or as much as will make the hearer believe that it happened, or did harm, or was a wrong, or was as important as you want; and for the opponent, the opposite.note

In passing, narrate whatever bears on your own excellence, for instance, “I kept admonishing him, always telling him what was just, not to abandon his children”; or on the other’s vice: “But he answered me that wherever he was, there would be other children”—the answer Herodotus says the Egyptian deserters gave. Or whatever will please the jurors. For the defendant the narration is shorter. The points in dispute are that the thing didn’t happen, or wasn’t harmful, or wasn’t unjust, or wasn’t so serious, so one shouldn’t dwell on what is agreed, unless something contributes to that, for instance, that it was done but was not unjust. Further, things should be told as already done, unless telling them as they happen brings pity or outrage. An example is the tale to Alcinous, because it is told to Penelope in sixty lines; and how Phayllus treated the epic cycle; and the prologue in the Oeneus.note

The narration should convey character. This will happen if we know what produces character. One thing is to reveal choice: the character is of a certain kind because the choice is of a certain kind, and the choice is of a certain kind because of its end. That is why mathematical discourses have no character: they have no choice either, since they have no “that for the sake of which.” But Socratic dialogues do, for they speak of such things. Other things that convey character are those that go with each character: for instance, that he kept walking as he talked, which shows a rash and boorish character. And don’t speak as if from the intellect, as people do now, but as if from choice: “But I wanted it; yes, I chose this; and even if I gained nothing, it’s better.” The first is the mark of a person of practical wisdom, the second of a good one. The person of practical wisdom shows himself in pursuing the useful, the good person in pursuing the fine.

If something is hard to believe, then add the reason, as Sophocles does. An example is from the Antigone, that she cared more for her brother than for a husband or children, since those could be replaced if lost: “But with mother and father gone to Hades, / no brother could ever be born.” If you have no reason, say that you aren’t unaware that what you’re saying is hard to believe, but that you are naturally like this. For people don’t believe that anyone willingly does anything other than what is to his advantage. Further, in narrating draw on what expresses emotion, telling both what goes with it and what the audience knows, and what is peculiar to yourself or to the other man: “He went off with a scowl at me.” 1417b And as Aeschines says of Cratylus, “hissing, shaking his fists.” These are persuasive because the things they know become tokens of the things they don’t.note

Plenty of such things can be taken from Homer: “So she spoke, and the old woman held her hands over her face”—for people who are starting to cry put their hands to their eyes. And bring yourself on at once as a certain kind of person, so that they see you as such, and your opponent too; but do it without being noticed. That this is easy you can see from people who bring news: about people we know nothing of, we still form some idea. Narration should come in many places, and sometimes not at the beginning. In speaking in the assembly there is very little narration, because no one narrates the future. But if there is narration, it will be of what has happened, so that, being reminded of it, they may deliberate better about what comes later. Or else when attacking or praising someone. But then the speaker isn’t doing the adviser’s job.

If something is hard to believe, one should promise to give the reason, give it at once, and set it out for them in whatever way they wish. So Jocasta in Carcinus’ Oedipus keeps making promises when the man searching for her son questions her; and so does Sophocles’ Haemon.note

In political speeches one might dispute either that something will happen, or that what the opponent urges will happen but is not just, or not beneficial, or not so important. One should also see whether he says anything false outside the matter at hand, for these look like sure signs that he is lying about the rest too. 1418a Examples are most suited to political oratory, enthymemes more to forensic. The one is concerned with the future, so its examples must be drawn from the past; the other is concerned with what is or is not, where there is more room for demonstration and necessity, since what has happened has a kind of necessity. Enthymemes shouldn’t be stated one after another, but mixed in; otherwise they spoil one another. For there is a limit of quantity too: “Friend, since you have said as many things as a sensible man would”—as many, not such things.

And don’t look for enthymemes about everything. Otherwise you’ll do what some philosophers do, who prove by syllogism conclusions better known and more credible than the premises they argue from. And when you are rousing emotion, don’t state an enthymeme: it will either knock the emotion out or be stated in vain. Movements that happen at the same time knock each other out, and either cancel each other or weaken each other. Nor, when you are making the speech convey character, should you look for an enthymeme at the same time, for demonstration has neither character nor choice.

Maxims should be used both in narration and in proof, for they convey character: “And I gave it, even though I knew one shouldn’t trust.” Or, to express emotion: “And I don’t regret it, though I’ve been wronged; he has the profit, but I have justice.” Speaking in the assembly is harder than speaking in court, understandably, since it concerns the future. In court the concern is the past, which is knowable already, even to seers, as Epimenides the Cretan said: he didn’t prophesy about the future, but about things that had happened but were obscure. Also, in forensic speeches the law serves as a premise, and with a starting point it is easier to find a demonstration. And speaking in the assembly doesn’t allow much lingering, for instance on attacking the opponent, or speaking about oneself, or rousing emotion. It allows these least of all kinds, unless the speaker strays from the subject.note

So when at a loss, one should do what the orators at Athens do, and Isocrates: even when giving advice, he accuses—the Spartans, for instance, in the Panegyricus, and Chares in the speech on the alliance. In ceremonial speeches one should vary the speech with episodes of praise, as Isocrates does: he is always bringing someone in. And what Gorgias used to say, that he never ran short of things to say, comes to the same thing. For in speaking of Achilles he praises Peleus, then Aeacus, then the god, and likewise courage, saying that it does this and that, or is of such a kind. Now if you have demonstrations, you should speak both so as to convey character and demonstratively; if you have no enthymemes, so as to convey character. And it is more fitting for a decent person 1418b to appear good than for his speech to be precise.note

Of enthymemes, those that refute are better received than those that demonstrate, because whatever amounts to a refutation is more evidently a syllogism: opposites are more recognizable side by side. Replies to the opponent are not a separate kind of thing but belong to the proofs: some arguments are to be undone by objection, others by syllogism. Both in deliberation and in a trial, if you speak first, you should state your own proofs first, and afterwards meet the opposing arguments, undoing them and tearing them apart in advance. But if the opposition has many strands, take the opposing arguments first, as Callistratus did in the Messenian assembly: he first demolished what they were going to say, and only then made his own speech.

If you speak second, you should first address the opposing speech, undoing it and arguing against it, especially if it has been well received. For just as the soul doesn’t welcome a person against whom it has already been prejudiced, in the same way it doesn’t welcome a speech either, if the opponent seems to have spoken well. So you have to make room in the hearer for the speech to come, and that will happen if you demolish the other. That is why you should first do battle with all the points, or the most important, or the well-received, or the easily refuted ones, and then make your own case credible. “First I will be the goddesses’ ally; / for I, as for Hera…” In these lines she first touched on the silliest point. So much for proofs.note

As to character: since saying some things about oneself invites envy, or long-windedness, or contradiction, and saying them about another invites a charge of abuse or boorishness, you should have someone else speak. This is what Isocrates does in the Philip and the Antidosis, and how Archilochus delivers his censure. In the iambic poem he has the father speak about his daughter: “Where money is concerned, nothing is beyond hope, nothing sworn impossible”; and Charon the carpenter in the iambic poem that begins “Not for me the wealth of Gyges.” And so Sophocles has Haemon speak to his father on Antigone’s behalf as if others were saying it.note

⁎ One should also sometimes recast enthymemes and make them into maxims, for instance: “Sensible people should make peace when they are prospering, for that way they would gain the most.” As an enthymeme: “For if one should come to terms when terms are most beneficial and most advantageous, then one should come to terms when prospering.” ⁎

Second, when one point is obvious and it is clear that he will grant the other if asked. Having obtained the one premise by questioning, you shouldn’t ask about the obvious one as well, but state the conclusion. For instance, when Meletus said that Socrates didn’t believe in gods, but had admitted that he spoke of a divine sign, Socrates asked whether divine beings weren’t either children of gods or something divine. When Meletus said yes, he said, “Is there anyone, then, who thinks there are children of gods, but not gods?” Again, when you are going to show that he is contradicting himself or saying something paradoxical. Fourth, when he can only get out of the question by giving a sophistical answer. If he answers that it is and it isn’t, or partly yes and partly no, or in one way yes and in another no, the audience raises an uproar as if he were stuck. Otherwise don’t attempt it.note

For if he raises an objection, you seem to have been beaten, since you can’t ask a lot of questions because of the weakness of the audience. That is also why enthymemes should be compressed as much as possible. When answering, you should meet ambiguous questions by drawing distinctions in your answer, and not curtly. Meet apparent contradictions by offering the solution at once in your answer, before he asks the next question or draws his conclusion, for it isn’t hard to see in advance where the argument is going. Let this, and the ways of solving such arguments, be clear to us from the Topics. And when he is drawing a conclusion, if he puts the conclusion as a question, state your reason. For instance, Sophocles was asked by Pisander whether he had decided, like the other commissioners, to set up the Four Hundred, and he said yes. “What? Didn’t you think this was wicked?” He said he did.note

“So you did these wicked things?” “Yes,” he said, “for there was nothing better.” And the Spartan who was being examined on his conduct as ephor was asked whether he thought the others had been justly put to death, and he said yes. The questioner said, “Didn’t you pass the same measures as them?” And he said yes. “Then,” he said, “wouldn’t you also justly be put to death?” “Certainly not,” he said. “They did these things for money, but I didn’t—I acted on my judgment.” That is why you shouldn’t ask a further question after the conclusion, 1419b nor put the conclusion as a question, unless the truth is overwhelmingly on your side. As for jokes, since they seem to have some use in contests, and Gorgias said, rightly, that one should destroy the opponents’ seriousness with laughter and their laughter with seriousness, it has been stated in the Poetics how many kinds of jokes there are. Some of them suit a free man, others don’t.note

This is so that the speaker may pick out what suits him. Irony is more fitting for a free man than buffoonery: the ironist makes a joke for his own sake, the buffoon for someone else’s.

The topics for amplifying and depreciating have been set out earlier. After this, when it is clear what sort the facts are and how great, lead the hearer into emotions: pity, outrage, anger, hatred, envy, emulation, and strife. The topics for these too were stated earlier, so what remains is to recall what has been said. It is fitting to do this in the way people say one should in introductions, though they are wrong to say so: they tell you to repeat things often so that they are easily understood. There, you should state the case, so that the question to be decided isn’t missed; here, you should state in summary the points by which it has been demonstrated. Begin by saying that you have delivered what you promised, so you must say what your points were and why. This is done by setting your case against your opponent’s. You can compare either what you both said on the same point, or points not directly opposed.