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

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Top. XX. ‘Another, common to counsellors (in deliberative rhet.) as well as the two parties in forensic pleadings’. This seems to imply that the preceding topic is confined to the forensic branch; and to this, of the three, it is no doubt, most applicable; the suggestion and construction of motives and intentions being there most of all in request. Still in an encounter of two opponents in the public assembly, as in that of Dem. and Aesch., it is almost equally available; and in the remaining branch even more so, as a topic of panegyric or censure. The present topic, like the five preceding, with the partial exception of Top. XV, which appears also amongst the ‘fallacies’ of the de Soph. El., is applicable to Rhetoric alone and does not appear in the dialectical treatise.

It embraces arguments, which may be used in the deliberative kind in exhorting to some act or course of policy, or dissuading from it; and in judicial practice in the way of accusation or defence; in which ‘we have to inquire, first what are the motives and incentives to action, and what things on the contrary deter men from acting. The things which, if they be on our side or are favourable to us, ἐὰν ὑπάρχῃ, supply motives for action, are such as possibility, facility, advantage, either to self or friends, (of accomplishing or effecting anything); or anything injurious (hurtful, damaging: that is, the power of injuring) and’ (bringing loss upon, on this form of adj. see note on I 4.9) ‘involving loss to enemies, or (if or when) the (legal) penalty (for doing something) is less than the thing (that is, the thing done, the success of the deed and the profit of it’, (‘fructus voluptasque quae inde percipitur’: ‘quod cupiebant quod sequebantur et optabant.’ Victorius). The construction of the last words, ἢ ἐλαττων ἡ ζημία τοῦ πράγματος seems to be, if construction it can be called, that ἡ ζημία is continued as an apposition to the preceding nominatives; ‘the penalty being less than the profit’ is another incentive to action. ‘From such cases as these, arguments of exhortation or encouragement are drawn, dissuasive from their contraries (impossibility, difficulty, disadvantage, injury, &c.). From these same are derived arguments for accusation and defence: from dissuasives or deterrents, of defence; from persuasives, of accusation’. That is to say, in defending a client from a charge of wrong-doing, you collect all the difficulties, dangers, disadvantages and so on, to which the accused would be exposed in doing what he is charged with, and infer from them the improbability of his guilt: in accusing, you urge all or any of the opposite incitements to commit a crime, above enumerated. To these last, the inducements to the com mission of crime, may be added the topic cui bono, ‘Cassianum illud’ [Cic. Phil. II § 35]. Compare with this the passage upon the various motives and inducements to crime and wrong-doing, in I 10. 5 seq., which is there mixed up with a general classification of all sources and causes of action.

‘And of this topic the entire “art” of Pamphilus and Callippus is made up’. Of Callippus it has been already stated, supra § 14, that nothing is known but these two notices of Aristotle. It is likely, as I have there pointed out [pp. 271—2], that he was one of the earliest pupils of Isocrates mentioned in his ἀντίδοσις, § 93.

Pamphilus, the rhetorician, is mentioned by Cicero, de Orat. III 21. 82, together with Corax, in somewhat contemptuous terms, Pamphilum nescio quem, and of his Rhetoric, it is said, (tantam rem) tamquam pueriles delicias aliquas depingere. It is plain therefore that Pamphilus, like Callippus, belonged to the early school of Rhetoricians of the age of Gorgias and the Sophists, and treated his art like them in a ‘puerile’ and unworthy manner. Another, and very brief notice of him occurs in Quintilian, III 6. 34, a chapter on the status or στάσεις; he rejected finitio, the ὁρικὴ στάσις. Spalding in his note describes the contents of Pamphilus' ‘art’ from the passage of the Rhet., and then discusses, without coming to a conclusion, the question whether or no this Pamphilus can be identified with a painter of the same name, mentioned in Quint. XII 10. 6, Pliny in several places, and Aristoph. Plut. 385, and the Schol. Spalding has no doubt that Quint.'s Pamphilus, III 6. 34, is the rhetorician. Spengel, Art. Script. p. 149, note 83, thinks that he cannot be the same as Aristotle's, (erat itaque ille P. non ante Hermagorae tempora,) in consequence of his acquaintance with στάσεις, which were of much later invention, and the name of them unknown even to Ar. The same doubt occurred to myself: but I laid the evil spirit by the consideration that though Aristotle was unacquainted with the technical terms and classification of the στάσεις, he yet was familiar with the thing, which he frequently refers to; and the technical expression may belong to Quintilian and not to Pamphilus. Nine times the name of Pamphilus occurs in the Orators, (Sauppe, Ind. Nom. p. 109, ad Orat. Att. vol. III,) but the rhetorician is not among them.