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‘And this is the reason why many (speakers) try to stun (overwhelm, confound) their hearers with the clamour that they raise’. The speaker carries, that is, his δείνωσις or exaggeration even to the excess of mere empty noise and clamour, thinking thereby to produce a deeper impression upon the audience, who will suppose that the depth and sincerity of his feeling are in proportion to the noise he makes. The διό is, because the listener always sympathizes with the language and raised tone of passion; the more violent the expression of it, the more he is likely to be affected. Thuc. VII 42 has κατάπληξις to describe the ‘consternation’, abattement de coeur, of the Syracusans at the arrival of Demosthenes and Eurymedon.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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