[38]
We must also employ many of the means of
amplification; for instance, if a man has done anything alone, or first, or with
a few, or has been chiefly responsible for it; all these circumstances render an
action noble. Similarly, topics derived from times and seasons, that is to say,
if our expectation is surpassed. Also, if a man has often been successful in the
same thing; for this is of importance and would appear to be due to the man
himself, and not to be the result of chance. And if it is for his sake that
distinctions which are an encouragement or honor have been invented and
established; and if he was the first on whom an encomium was pronounced, as
Hippolochus,1 or to whom a statue was set up in the market-place, as to Harmodius
and Aristogiton.2 And similarly
in opposite cases. If he does not furnish you with enough material in
himself,
you must compare him with others, as
Isocrates used to do, because of his inexperience3 of forensic speaking. And you must compare him with
illustrious personages, for it affords ground for amplification and is noble, if
he can be proved better than men of worth.
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1 Nothing more is known of him.
2 Who slew Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens.
3 Reading ἀσυνήθειαν. He had no legal practice, which would have shown the irrelevancy of comparisons in a law court, whereas in epideictic speeches they are useful. συνήθειαν gives exactly the opposite sense, and must refer to his having written speeches for others to deliver in the courts.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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