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‘In defence’—when you have to narrate circumstances in order to correct an opponent's statement of the facts—‘the recital may be shorter (because most of the story has been already told by the other), and as the issues (ἀμφισβητήσεις is Arist.'s term for what were afterwards called στάσεις, status) are (on the defensive side) the denial either of the fact, or the injury, or the wrong, or the degree (the estimated amount of the crime and penalty), we must therefore waste no time upon proving what is already admitted, unless it (the proofs of any of the facts) chance to contribute to the establishment of the issue (on which we do rest our case); for instance, when we admit the fact, but deny the wrong’. Though on the other hand, it may be necessary, whilst we admit the facts of our opponent's case, still to go over that ground, in order to clear up points which have a bearing upon the justice of the act which is acknowledged to have been done.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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