Aristotle, Rhetoric
J. H. Freese, Ed.

the hearer seems to be surveying many things, all that the speaker said.¹ This also is Homer's intention in the passage “ Nireus, again, from Syme . . .,
Nireus son of Aglaia . . .,
Nireus, the most beautiful . . . ;²

” for it is necessary that one of whom much has been said should be often mentioned; if then the name is often mentioned, it seems as if much has been said³; so that, by means of this fallacy, Homer has increased the reputation of Nireus, though he only mentions him in one passage; he has perpetuated his memory, though he never speaks of him again.

[5] The deliberative style is exactly like a rough sketch,⁴ for the greater the crowd, the further off is the point of view; wherefore in both too much refinement is a superfluity and even a disadvantage. But the forensic style is more finished, and more so before a single judge, because there is least opportunity of employing rhetorical devices, since the mind more readily takes in at a glance what belongs to the subject and what is foreign to it; there is no discussion,⁵ so the judgement is clear. This is why the same orators do not excel in all these styles; where action is most effective, there the style is least finished, and this is a case in which voice, especially a loud one, is needed.

The epideictic style is especially suited to written compositions, for its function is reading;⁶ [6] and next to it comes the forensic style. It is superfluous to make the further distinction
that style should be pleasant or magnificent. Why so, any more than temperate, liberal, or anything else that indicates moral virtue? For it is evident that, if virtue of style has been correctly defined, what we have said will suffice to make it pleasant. For why, if not to please, need it be clear, not mean, but appropriate? If it be too diffuse, or too concise, it will not be clear; but it is plain that the mean is most suitable. What we have said will make the style pleasant, if it contains a happy mixture of proper and “foreign” words, of rhythm, and of persuasiveness resulting from propriety. This finishes what we had to say about style; of all the three kinds of Rhetoric in general, and of each of them in particular. It only remains to speak of arrangement.

13. A speech has two parts. It is necessary to state the subject, and then to prove it. Wherefore it is impossible to make a statement without proving it, or to prove it without first putting it forward; for both he who proves proves something, and he who puts something forward does so in order to prove it. [2] The first of these parts is the statement of the case, the second the proof, a similar division to that of problem and demonstration. [3] But the division now generally made is absurd; for narrative only belongs in a manner to forensic speech, but in epideictic or deliberative speech how is it possible that there should be narrative as it is defined, or a refutation;