The Art of Rhetoric · Part 6 · The three kinds of speech · B2–C1
Judicial Speech: The Past and the Just
Part 6 of The Art of Rhetoric: the second kind of speech is judicial, accusation and defence in a court. Its time is the past: what happened, and was it just? Narrative tenses and the language of evidence (past simple, past continuous, past perfect; according to, state, testify, evidence, prove, suggest), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
In a court, one person accuses and another defends. The judges must decide two things: what happened, and whether it was just.
Then the story must be told so clearly, and the evidence shown so plainly, that the judges can see it for themselves.
Aristotle says that judicial speech either accuses or defends. Its time is the past, and its question is what is just and what is unjust. So he studies why people do wrong (for gain, for pleasure, from anger), what state of mind they are in, and whom they wrong.
He also separates two kinds of proof. Some the speaker must invent: his character, the feelings of the judges, and his arguments. Others already exist, and he only has to use them: laws, witnesses, contracts and oaths. Aristotle’s list also includes the testimony of slaves taken under torture. In Athens, a slave’s evidence was only accepted if it had been taken that way. Aristotle discusses it coldly, as a normal part of the courts. Today we know that pain makes…
Or try our free games and lessons.