Aristotle RHETORIC Complete

Translated by W. Roberts.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 112

And, again, 'if Theseus did no wrong, neither did Paris'; or 'the sons of Tyndareus did no wrong, neither did Paris'; or 'if Hector did well to slay Patroclus, Paris did well to slay Achilles'. And 'if other followers of an art are not bad men, neither are philosophers'. And 'if generals are not bad men because it often happens that they are condemned to death, neither are sophists'. And the remark that 'if each individual among you ought to think of his own city's reputation, you ought all to think of the reputation of Greece as a whole'.

5. Another line of argument is based on considerations of time. Thus Iphicrates, in the case against Harmodius, said, 'if before doing the deed I had bargained that, if I did it, I should have a statue, you would have given me one. Will you not give me one now that I have done the deed? You must not make promises when you are expecting a thing to be done for you, and refuse to fulfil them when the thing has been done.' And, again, to induce the Thebans to let Philip pass through their territory into Attica, it was argued that 'if he had insisted on this before he helped them against the Phocians, they would have promised to do it. It is monstrous, therefore, that just because he threw away his advantage then, and trusted their honour, they should not let him pass through now'.

6. Another line is to apply to the other speaker what he has said against yourself. It is an excellent turn to give to a debate, as may be seen in the Teucer. It was employed by Iphicrates in his reply to Aristophon. 'Would you', he asked, 'take a bribe to betray the fleet?' 'No', said Aristophon; and Iphicrates replied, 'Very good: if you, who are Aristophon, would not betray the fleet, would I, who am Iphicrates?' Only, it must be recognized beforehand that the other man is more likely than you are to commit the crime in question. Otherwise you will make yourself ridiculous; it is Aristeides who is prosecuting, you cannot say that sort of thing to him. The purpose is to discredit the prosecutor, who as a rule would have it appear that his character is better than that of the defendant, a pretension which it is desirable to upset. But the use of such an argument is in all cases ridiculous if you are attacking others for what you do or would do yourself, or are urging others to do what you neither do nor would do yourself.

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