Aristotle, Rhetoric
J. H. Freese, Ed.

declared that he would not assess the punishment at less than the victim had assessed it for himself. [4] A wrong act is also greater when it is unprecedented, or the first of its kind, or when committed with the aid of few accomplices¹; and when it has been frequently committed; or when because of it new prohibitions and penalties have been sought and found: thus, at Argos the citizen owing to whom a new law has been passed, is punished, as well as those on whose account a new prison had to be built. [5] The crime is greater, the more brutal it is; or when it has been for a long time premeditated; when the recital of it inspires terror rather than pity. Rhetorical tricks of the following kind may be used:—the statement that the accused person has swept away or violated several principles of justice, for example, oaths, pledges of friendship, plighted word, the sanctity of marriage; for this amounts to heaping crime upon crime. [6] Wrong acts are greater when committed in the very place where wrongdoers themselves are sentenced, as is done by false witnesses; for where would a man not commit wrong, if he does so in a court of justice? They are also greater when accompanied by the greatest disgrace; when committed against one who has been the guilty person's benefactor, for in that case, the wrongdoer is guilty of wrong twice over, in that he not only does wrong, but does not return good for good. [7] So too, again, when a man offends against the unwritten laws of right, for there is greater merit in doing right without being compelled²; now the written laws involve compulsion, the unwritten do not. Looked at in another way, wrongdoing is greater, if it violates the written laws; for a man who commits wrongs that alarm him³ and involve punishment, will be ready to commit wrong
for which he will not be punished. Let this suffice for the treatment of the greater or less degree of wrongdoing.

15. Following on what we have just spoken of, we have now briefly to run over what are called the inartificial proofs, for these properly belong to forensic oratory. [2] These proofs are five in number: laws, witnesses, contracts, torture, oaths. [3] Let us first then speak of the laws, and state what use should be made of them when exhorting or dissuading,⁴ accusing or defending. [4] For it is evident that, if the written law is counter to our case, we must have recourse to the general law and equity, as more in accordance with justice; [5] and we must argue that, when the dicast takes an oath to decide to the best of his judgement, he means that he will not abide rigorously by the written laws; [6] that equity is ever constant and never changes, even as the general law, which is based on nature, whereas the written laws often vary （this is why Antigone in Sophocles justifies herself for having buried Polynices contrary to the law of Creon, but not contrary to the unwritten law: