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‘However it must not be forgotten that all such things as these (all these ordinary contents of the προοίμια) are foreign to (outside; extra, not secundum, artem) the speech (and its real object, which is the proof of the case, and that alone, αἱ δὲ πίστεις ἔντεχνόν ἐστι μόνον, τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα προσθῆκαι, I 1. 3): it is only because the audience is bad, and ready to listen to things beside the real question, (that these are addressed to them); for if he be not such, there is no occasion for an exordium (to flatter him into a good humour, and the rest), except just so far as to state the case in a summary way, that, like a body, it may have a head on it’. There is probably a reference in this to σῶμα τῆς πίστεως, as the enthymemes, or direct logical proofs, are called I 1. 3. φαῦλος, as applied to the audience or judges, means here not morally bad, but only defective in intellect and patience, too ignorant and frivolous to attend long to sound and serious reasoning: they require to be relieved and diverted occasionally. So Schrader. Comp. what is said of the ‘single judge’ in 12. 5. Of the summary προοίμιον, the Rhet. ad Alex. 29 (30). 2, gives two examples. ἵνα—κεφαλήν] Comp. Eth. Nic. VI 7, 1141 a 19, of σοφία; νοῦς καὶ ἐπιστήμη, ὥσπερ κεφαλὴν ἔχουσα ἔπιστήμη τῶν τιμωτάτων. Plat. Gorg. 505 D, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τοὺς μύθους φασὶ μεταξὺ θέμις εἶναι καταλείπειν, ἀλλ̓ ἐπιθέντας, ἵνα μὴ ἄνευ κεφαλῆς περιΐῃ. Phaedr. 264 C, δεῖν πάντα λόγον ὥσπερ ζῷον συνεστάναι σῶμά τι ἔχοντα αὐτὸν αὑτοῦ, ὥστε μήτε ἀκέφαλον μήτε ἄπουν, κ.τ.λ. Phileb. 66 D. Polit. 277 C. Legg. VI 752 A. Stallbaum and Heindorf ad loc. Gorg. Thompson ad loc. Phaedri [et Gorg.]. The notion conveyed in all these places is the same, a headless animal is incomplete. See note in Introd. p. 341, on the book, which, without a preface, looks like a man going out into the street without his hat. This gives the same notion of want of finish and completeness. Quint. IV 1. 72, Haec de prooemio, quoties erit eius usus: non semper autem est; nam et supervacuum aliquando est, si sit praeparatus satis etiam sine hoc iudex, aut si res praeparatione non eget. Aristoteles quidem in totum id necessarium apud bonos iudices negat; seq. Comp. XII 10.52, Quod si mihi des concilium iudicum sapientum...Neque enim affectus omnino movendi sunt, nec aures delectatione mulcendae, quum etiam prooemia supervacua esse apud tales Aristoteles existimet.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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