E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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The triple division of Rhetoric, συμβουλευτικόν, δικανικόν, ἐπιδεικτικόν, is, as we learn from Quintilian, II 21, 23, III 4, 1, and 7, 1, due to Aristotle: Anaximenes, his predecessor, had admitted only two genera, with seven species subordinate to these, III 4, 9.

Almost all writers (prope omnes) on the subject, subsequent to Aristotle, had accepted his division, as proceeding from the ‘highest authority’ (utique summae apud antiquos auctoritatis) III 4, 1. Quintilian in this fourth chapter mentions, besides Aristotle's division, those which were adopted by Anaximenes, Protagoras, Plato (in the Sophist), and Isocrates. He decides in favour of Aristotle's, as the safest to follow, both because the preponderance of authority is on its side, and also because it is the most reasonable.

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θεωρὸν ἢ κριτήν] This classification of the different kinds of ‘audience’ is made for the purpose of determining the divisions of Rhetoric; because, the audience being the end and object of the speech, that to which every speech is ultimately referred, and everything being defined or determined by its end (τέλος, Eth. Nic. III 10, 1115 b 23), the number of the varieties of audiences must fix the number of the divisions or branches of Rhetoric. Audiences are of two kinds; either mere ‘spectators’, like the θεαταί in a theatre, at the games, or in any exhibition where amusement is the object, or at all events where there is no interest of a practical character or tendency¹; or else ‘judges’, where some real interest is at stake, and they are called upon to pronounce a decision (pars negotialis, πραγματική Quint.). But these decisions, and those who pronounce them, again fall into two classes, according as they are referred to questions, (1) of political expediency and look to the future, or (2) of right or wrong in respect of past acts or facts.

So that we have three kinds of audiences, and consequently three branches of Rhetoric. The public or national assembly, to which the deliberative kind of rhetoric is addressed; the law-courts and their ‘judges’, properly so called, the object of the forensic or judicial branch of the art; and thirdly the ‘spectators’, those who go to be amused or interested by the show-speeches, or ἐπιδείξεις, the Panegyrics (in two senses), funeral orations, burlesques, or whatever other form may be taken by speeches composed merely to display skill in composition without practical interest (where the δύναμις, the faculty, or skill shewn, is only in question); or, if they please, to criticise them, and so become ‘critics’.

The term κριτής, ‘judge’, which belongs properly only to the second of the three branches, may also be extended to the other two, since they all have to ‘decide’ in some sense, to choose between opposite views, either on questions of expediency in matters of state, or right and wrong in legal questions, or the merits of a composition as ‘critics’. Comp. II 18, 1, III 12, 5, and also Rhet. ad Alex. c. 18 (19), 14, where (comp. § 10) κριταί seems to be used in this general sense for all kinds of ἀκροαταί.

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ἐπιδεικτικόν] ‘ea quae constat laude ac vituperatione. Quod genus videtur Aristoteles, atque eum secutus Theophrastus, a parte negotiali, hoc est πραγματικῇ, removisse, totamque ad solos auditores relegasse; et id eius nominis, quod ab ostentatione ducitur, proprium est.’ Quint. III 7, 1.

οἱ ἰδίᾳ συμβουλεύοντες] II 18, 1, ἄν τε πρὸς ἕνα τις τῷ λόγῳ χρώμενος προτρέπῃ ἢ ἀποτρέπῃ, οἷον οἱ νουθετοῦντες ποιοῦσιν ἢ πείθοντες.

ὁποτερονοῦν] Append. [This Appendix was apparently never written. S.]

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χρόνοι—τῷ μὲν συμβουλεύοντι ὁ μέλλων] I have already pointed out, Introd. p. 120, that Demosthenes adds τὸ παρόν, ‘present time’, to the ‘future’ of Aristotle, as characteristic of the deliberative branch of Rhetoric; and Aristotle himself, in two subsequent passages of this treatise, I 6 § 1, and 8 § 7.

κυριώτατος] On κύριος, in its secondary and metaphorical application, see note on I 11 § 4. The kind of ‘authority’ which this ‘present time’ is here said to carry with it in the epideictic branch is, that it has of all the three the best right to be there; that it is most ‘proper’ or appropriate in that place. It has here very much the same sense as in the phrases κυρία ἡμέρα, κυρία ἐκκλησία, a day or assembly which has a special authority, as ‘fixed’ and ‘appointed’ for a certain purpose; opposed to all ordinary days, and irregular assemblies, which are σύγκλητοι, called together at a moment's notice on special emergencies.

τὰ γενόμενα—τὰ μέλλοντα] The accusatives are here attracted by the participles, instead of following the principal verb in the dative.

προεικάζοντες] ‘with, in the way of, an anticipatory guess or presentiment’, of future honours and distinctions of the subject of the encomium.

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ὁ δὲ ἀποτρέπων ὡς χεῖρον: ἀποτρέπει] ‘Fr. A. Wolf's einleuchtende verbesserung ὡς χείρονος findet einige bestätigung in den ungrammatischen worten der paraphrase: ἀποτρέπει δὲ τῷ χείρονι’ (Brandis, ap. Schneid. Philol. p. 45). This alteration seems to me to be totally unnecessary. It is true that the ordinary construction of the verb in the sense here intended is ἀποτρέπειν τινά τινος, or ἀπό τινος, as § 6, ‘to divert or dissuade some one from something’. But it is plain it can equally well be adapted to the other form of expression adopted here, ‘to divert the thing from the person—in the way of dissuasion—to turn it away from him, as (being) worse’, i. e. ‘to dissuade him from it (as the Greeks as well as ourselves usually say) as the less expedient course’. An author like Aristotle, always regardless of the ordinary usages of language, may very well be allowed such a liberty of expression. If, however, this be still objected to, we may, without alteration of the text—to be admitted I think, as a general rule, only as a last resource—understand ὡς χεῖρον as an absolute case, nomin. or accus., ὁ δὲ ἀποτρέπων ὡς χεῖρον (ὄν τι), ἀποτρέπει (τινὰ αὐτοῦ). See similar examples in note on II 8, 10.

πρὸς τοῦτο] ‘with a view to, with reference to, this’; all the rest (τὰ ἄλλα) as supplementary and subordinate to this.

συμπαραλαμβάνει] ‘takes in as an adjunct, in aid of, as an auxiliary, subordinate and subsidiary, to his main purpose’; de Anima A 2, 1, τὰς τῶν προτέρων δόξας συμπαραλαμβάνειν ὅσοι τι περὶ αὐτῆς ἀπεφήναντο. Plat. Phaed. 65 A ἐάν τις αὐτὸ (τὸ σῶμα) ἐν τῇ ζητήσει κοινωνὸν συμπαραλαμβάνῃ. Ib. 84 D, Lach. 179 E. Spengel ad Rhet. ad Alex. XXV 8, p. 192.

τοῖς δὲ δικαζομένοις] τὸ τέλος ἐστί.

ἐπαναφέρουσι] ‘re-fer’ (ἀναφέρειν) ‘to’ (ἐπί).

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περὶ μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἄλλων κ.τ.λ] On the ‘legal issues’ here intimated, the ἀμφιβιστήσεις (Aristotle), or στάσεις (subsequent Rhetoricians and Lawyers), comp. I 13, 9; III 15, 2; 16, 6; 17, 1, and Introd. p. 397, Append. E to Bk. III.

ὡς δ᾽ οὐκ ἄδικον] (i. e. τοῦ λέγειν ὡς, or τοῦ ὡς, ‘the fact that’), οὐδὲν φροντίζουσιν. On the necessary limitation and qualification of this position of Aristotle, see Introd. p. 170.

ἐν ἐπαίνῳ πολλάκις τιθέασιν κ.τ.λ.] Isocrates gives credit to the Athenian people, ἐν ἐπαίνῳ τίθησιν, for this kind of disinterested policy, in a passage referred to by Victorius. Paneg. § 53 Ἀχιλλέα ἐπαινοῦσιν ὅτι ἐβοήθησε κ.τ.λ. Plat. Symp. 179 E πεπυσμένος παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς ὡς ἀποθανοῖτο ἀποκτείνας Ἕκτορα, μὴ ποιήσας δὲ τοῦτο οἴκαδ᾽ ἐλθὼν γηραιὸς τελευτήσοι, ἐτόλμησεν ἑλέσθαι βοηθήσας τῷ ἐραστῇ Πατρόκλῳ καὶ τιμωρήσας οὐ μόνον ὑπεραποθανεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπαποθανεῖν τετελευτηκότι. Apol. 28 C ὁ τῆς Θέτιδος υἱός, ὃς τοσοῦτον τοῦ κινδύνου κατεφρόνησε παρὰ τὸ αἰσχρόν τι ὑπομεῖναι, ὥστε ἐπειδὴ εἶπεν ἡ μητὴρ αὐτῷ προθυμουμένῳ Ἕκτορα ἀποκτεῖναι, Θεὸς οὖσα, οὑτωσί πως, ὡς ἐγῷμαι, ὦ παῖ, εἰ τιμωρήσεις Πατρόκλῳ τῷ ἑταίρῳ τὸν φόνον καὶ Ἕκτορα ἀποκτενεῖς, αὐτὸς ἀποθανεῖ: αὐτίκα γαρ τοι, φησί, μεθ᾽ Ἕκτορα πότμος ἑτοῖμος (Hom. Il. Σ 98 et infra αὐτίκα τεθναίην κ.τ.λ. v. 104) ὁ δὲ ταῦτ᾽ ἀκούσας κ.τ.λ. comp. Il. I 410 seq. Aeschines likewise, c. Timarch. §§ 145, 150, refers to (in the one) and quotes (in the other) this same passage of Hom. Il. Σ. u. s., but with a totally different purpose.

τούτῳ δὲ ὁ μὲν τοιοῦτος θάνατος κάλλιον, τὸ δὲ ζῃν (though life) συμφέρον] Eth. Nic. IX. 8, 1169 a 18, ἀληθὲς δὲ περὶ τοῦ σπουδαίου καὶ τῶν φίλων ἕνεκα πολλὰ πράττειν καὶ τῆς πατρίδος, κἂν δέῃ ὑπεραποθνήσκειν...τοῖς δ᾽ ὑπεραποθνήσκουσι τοῦτ̓ ἴσως συμβαίνει: αἱροῦνται δὴ μέγα καλὸν ἑαυτοῖς.

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The argument of this and the two following sections of this chapter will be found in a more connected shape in the paraphrase of the Introd. pp. 171—2. The sum of it is simply this: each of the two kinds of τόποι is equally necessary in all the three branches of Rhetoric; (1) the εἴδη, or ἴδιοι τόποι, or ἴδια, from which the rhetorical propositions or premisses, the εἰκότα, σημεῖα, and τεκμήρια are necessarily derived, § 7: and (2) the four κοινοὶ τόποι, here apparently reduced to three, the possible and impossible', ‘fact past and future’, and ‘the great and small (the topic of magnitude or importance) either (1) absolute or (2) comparative (degree)’. §§ 8, 9.

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δικαίωμα] is used here and in c. 13 §§ 1, 3, as the opposite to ἀδίκημα, in the sense of ‘an act of justice’. So Eth. Nic. V 10, 1135 a 8, διαφέρει δὲ τὸ ἀδίκημα καὶ τὸ ἄδικον καὶ τὸ δικαίωμα καὶ τὸ δίκαιον: ἄδικον μὲν γάρ ἐστι τῇ φύσει ἢ τάξει: (i. q. νόμῳ, natural or of human institution.) τὸ δ᾽ αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο ὅταν πραχθῇ ἀδίκημά ἐστι, πρὶν δὲ πραχθῆναι οὔπω, ἀλλ̓ ἄδικον. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ δικαίωμα. καλεῖται δὲ μᾶλλον δικαιοπράγημα τὸ κοινόν, δικαίωμα δὲ τὸ ἐπαρνόρθωμα τοῦ ἀδικήματος: where in the first clause it is used in its ordinary acceptation as ‘a just act’,=δικαιοπράγημα, and contrasted with ἀδίκημα, and afterwards distinguished from it in the more correct sense of ‘a rectification of an act of injustice’. It is in this signification that Plato employs it, Legg. IX 8, 864 E, τῶν δὲ ἄλλων δικαιωμάτων ἀφείσθω, ‘all other penalties’, which are as it were ‘amendments of a wrong or injustice’. In Thuc. I 41 init. it stands for ‘just claims’, ‘rechtsgründe’, Poppo; rechtsanspruch’, Heitz, l. c. In Arist. de Caelo, I 10, 1, it has a sense either derived from that rectification or amendment, an ἐπανόρθωμα of a wrong view or argument, μᾶλλον ἂν εἴη πιστὰ τὰ μέλλοντα λεχθήσεσθαι προακηκοόσι τὰ τῶν ἀμφισβητούντων λόγων δικαιώματα: or rather, as in Thucydides, it denotes a justification or just claim, meaning what the conflicting arguments have each of them to say for themselves. δικαίωμα ‘actio iuris, exsecutio iuris, iustificatio, ex qua (per arbitrum) status iustus qui erat violatus restituitur: nam δικαιοῦν est facere ut quid sit δίκαιον’. Fritsche ad Eth. Eudem. Δ 10, 1135 a 13 (p. 109) q. v., Heitz, Verl. Schrift. Arist. p. 253.

οἷον] ‘for example’, one of several, is used here, as constantly elsewhere, loosely and carelessly, by Aristotle, in the place of τοῦτ᾽ ἐστί, id est, videlicet, as a more explanatory repetition.