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πολὺ γὰρ διαφέρει πρὸς πίστιν κ.τ.λ.] Comp. I 2. 4, 5. Quint. IV 5. 6, interim refugienda non modo distinctio quaestionum est, sed omnino tractatio: affectibus perturbandus et ab intentione auferendus auditor. Non enim solum oratoris est docere, sed plus eloquentia circa movendum valet. This goes beyond Aristotle: Quintilian however is speaking rather of the πάθος, of the τὸν κριτὴν ποιόν τινα κατασκευάζειν, than of the ἦθος. He sets the πάθος above the ἦθος in point of its importance and value to the orator as a means of persuasion; Aristotle, admitting this in forensic speaking, takes the opposite view in the deliberative kind; § 41. But compare I 2. 4, where a decided preference for the ἦθος is expressed. ‘For the assumption of a certain character by the speaker himself, and the supposition (of the audience) that he is disposed in a particular way (has certain feelings towards themselves), makes a great difference in respect of the persuasive effect of the speech, first and foremost in counselling or deliberation, and next in legal proceedings (ἦθος); and besides this, whether they (the audience) are themselves in some particular disposition (feeling, frame of mind) (towards him) (πάθος）’. ἐν ταῖς συμβουλαῖς] ‘consultations’. Plat. Gorg. 455 A, ὅταν στρατηγῶν αἱρέσεως πέρι...συμβουλὴ ᾖ.
1 The reason of this is, that when a man has to recommend or dissuade a certain course of action, his character and the opinion entertained of it must give great weight to his advice: and it is not in the law-court, but in public life, in quelling the seditious riot, that Virgil's vir pietate gravis ac meritis (in the famous simile, Aen. I. 149) exhibits his ‘authority’: whereas in a court of justice, where facts are in question, the speaker's assumed character has either no weight at all, or in a far less degree.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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