Spectacle and pity in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria

Spectacle and pity in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria

Book 6 is especially significant in Institutio Oratoria because it commemorates the recent death of Quintilian’s son. Following the personal disclosure in the preface, Quintilian says:  “I have no desire to flaunt my woes in the public gaze nor to exaggerate the cause I have for tears”(377). Coincidentally, the book’s subject is the rhetorical function of appealing to the emotions. Perhaps the reason for his caution when divulging his son and wife’s deaths in this academic text is because he is conscious that philosophers “regard susceptibility to emotion as a vice” and consider appeal to emotion as immoral distraction (387. However, through his use of the figures of lists, oxymoron, and metonymy Quintilian contests the philosophical tradition and contends that emotion and its close associate, image, can actually constitute legitimate grounds for truth even as he acknowledges its potentially deceptive character.

Quintilian describes the customary practice of appealing to the court’s pity with physical exhibitions. “Blood stained swords, fragments of bone taken from the wound, and garments spotted with blood… wounds stripped of their dressings, and scourged bodies bared to view” serve as “cruel facts” of suffering that motivate the court to convict the accused (403). The exhibitions reconstruct the scene of hostility before the expectant court and implicate the jury as witnesses of the act, such that they cannot deny the physical vestiges of suffering before their own eyes. Quintilian uses a list structure to mimic the exposition of the array of physical exhibitions in the courtroom, inviting the reader to participate in the viewing of the exhibit. The parallel arrangement between the structure of the text and the subject of the text blurs the distinction between the reader and the court, such that the force of the exhibits is equally experienced by the reader.

By listing the objects sequentially, the reader conjures the exhibits in spatial contiguity, thus emphasizing the mounting spectacle of morbidity. From left to right, the exhibitions increase in proximity to the supposed victim’s body: the first presented is the sword, held at length, followed by the detached bone fragment, the garment worn on the skin, the wound, and finally culminating in the whole body itself. Paradoxically, the spectacle becomes increasingly intimate with each added exhibition, arousing the sympathy of the court as it suggests that through the acts of “stripping” and “baring” of physical injury the defendant is exposing a manifest truth. Each of the objects thus associates the physical injury of the bearer with moral or ethical injury and thus motivates the court to pity the accuser.

However, Quintilian’s qualification of the exhibitions as cruel facts nearly duplicates the bare facts afforded by a rational explication of events, suggesting that while the exhibits appear carefully curated to elicit a particular response they do ultimately incarnate tangible truths (403, 399). Yet by repeating the word facts in describing rational and visual narratives Quintilian accentuates the parallels between the two. Sensibly speaking, a blood-stained sword no more suggests that its wielder was victim or aggressor; a wound blights the accused or accuser equally. The deception lies in the presentation of the exhibits rather than in the exhibits themselves, a danger equally present in rational explication. The partial repetition of the phrase emphasizes the change in the modifying adjective before the noun. The change in the adjectives modifying the two instances of the word facts forces us to carefully compare them. Bare here simply indicates unembellished or uncovered. On the other hand, cruel is twofold: in the modern sense it denotes a thing that willfully causes suffering or pain to another, but it derives from the Latin crudelis, which is related to crudus, meaning rough or raw. This lends to two conflicting interpretations. The previous usage of cruel in the book, “the cruel tyranny of fortune,” suggests that the word is employed in its modern sense (381). Thus, the oxymoron “cruel facts” suggests that the exhibits glean their force from their deceptively objective appearance though devised to arouse vicarious suffering. However, given that the text was originally written in Latin the second sense is more likely. It is possible that images are being qualified as raw or authentic fact, essentially paralleling the bare facts disclosed by the rational. As cruel facts, the visual exhibitions are authentic yet no more impartial than oral, textual, or purportedly rational reports.

Figuring image as constant but visual experience as refracted by the human eye helps illuminate the justification cited above, “the cause I have for tears.” The phrase employs metonymy since the tears represent the public’s pity. By effectively replacing pity with tears, Quintilian reduces emotion to physical expression, thus suggesting that emotion can be equated with embodied, subjective physical expression. The gesture is repeated in the maxim, “there is good reason for saying that nothing dries so quickly as tears” (401). Once again, tears are a metonym for emotional response or persuasion through pity. The adverb quickly emphasizes the ephemeral quality of emotion, suggesting that it decays like organic material. This is in contrast with reason, which in the dualist philosophical tradition is experienced through the irreducible soul, and in line with his stipulation of tactile, embodied learning in Book 1.

If Quintilian’s woes are to be under the public gaze then they are to be visible things. As Quintilian reduces emotional appraisal to its physical expression, he figures pity as both a highly visible act and contingent on visual pleas. This associates the public gaze with public emotional appraisal. Embodied sight enables the court to vicariously experience or conversely pierce spectacles of suffering. By virtue that the same organ enables sight and tears there is an immediate association between image and emotion, both grounded in the body. The pre-emption before the metonymic phrase, “there is good reason” justifies public emotional response as a valid and justifiable, if not absolutely rational, approach to social truths, the undercurrents of court law.

In conclusion, Quintilian questions the hierarchy of theoretical over embodied judgments through list, anaphora, and metonymy. Ultimately, he contends that a disinterested truth in the context of the court is impossible, but the body, in its appraisal of emotion and image, brings us quite close.

Works Cited

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius., and H. E. Butler. Institutio Oratoria. London: Heinemann, 1920.

Gorgias: The Phenomena of the Leaky Jar

Calvin Leung

Rhetoric 103A

Figurative Essay- Gorgias

28 November 2016

Gorgias: The Phenomena of the Leaky Jar

Through Socrates’ metaphor of the leaky jar, I will demonstrate how Socrates employs the figures of metaphor and juxtaposition in Plato’s Gorgias to delineate the definition of justice as temperance; in his attempt however, Gorgias unravels by the end into sobering revelations about the limitations of philosophy in comparison to rhetoric.

In the beginning of Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates and Callicles debate over the failure of philosophy in face of rhetoric and power. Callicles asserts the rule of justice is the rule of the stronger; in their luxury and self-indulgence are virtue and happiness. Gratified by his frankness, Socrates however rebuttals Callicles’ claim by offering a metaphor:

“The life of self-contentment and self-indulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who are filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars of the one are sound, and the jars of the other leaky; the first fills his jars, and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling them, and would suffer extreme misery if he desisted” (493b).

Socrates uses the metaphor of the leaky jar to present the lives of two people. For those whose life is full of unrestrained desires, they will always require more and more, yet never be satisfied, just as a jar with holes will never remain full. On the other hand, for those whose life can be satisfied with humility, voluntary self-restraint, and modesty, their lives will be sated and quenched, just like a jar being filled once to the brim. A virtuous life for Socrates is one that is consequentially entrenched in temperance.

By juxtaposing a sound jar with a leaky jar, Socrates accentuates the prior by offering the latter as the counterfactual. To Socrates, Callicles’ sense of justice (justice is the rule of the stronger) will inevitably result in an establishment reigned by those whose hearts emulate a leaky jar. Just like how the liquids leak off of a jar filled with holes, the effects of self-indulgence will trickle to the livelihood, relations, and consequential actions on others. With the juxtaposed counterfactual, not only is the person with the sound jar living with an opposite moral bible, but their consequential actions are also of polar opposite. All scenarios regarding the leaky jar and sound jar, whether stated or unstated, are treated as opposite by implementing a juxtaposition in the metaphor.

Extending the metaphor, Callicles rebuttals Socrates with:

“…pleasure and pain are simultaneous, and the cessation of them is simultaneous; e.g. in the case of drinking and thirsting, whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease simultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot be the same as good” (494b).

According to Callicles, Socrates’ metaphor of the leaky jar is faulty because good and evil do not operate similarly to pain and pleasure. Pleasure and pain can operate simultaneously; for example, you can feel slight pain while experiencing an even greater feeling of pleasure. Socrates’ use of alliteration with “pleasure and pain” furthermore cements the two as not only being synonymous in nature, but synonymous rhetorically in rhythm. Good and evil on the other hand are mutually exclusive; as such, it is improper to equate pleasure with justice and good.  In parallel, it is also improper to equate pain with injustice and evil. With the lack of alliteration, there is a rhythmic dissonance, making the comparison jarring in more ways than one. Rather than making claims about the character of people who live according to excessive self-indulgence or temperance, Callicles asserts that we should take the metaphor for what it is at face value.

In conclusion, while Socrates and Callicles’ arguments regarding the leaky jar is grounded as an ad hominem directed at each of the two, it also presents the exact precarious position Socrates is in—his impeding death resulting from the use of his own philosophy in the public sphere. Living a life of temperance—living a life with a heart of a sound jar—has serious consequences for philosophers trying to handle themselves in society. In the case of the leaky jar metaphor, Callicles asserts that your desire for pleasure or pain—your character—does not dictate whether you are a good politician or an evil politician. In extension, a formidable politician is one that does not pursue and attain knowledge like a philosopher, but mobilizes it to make decisions like a rhetorician.  As we read by the end of Gorgias, operating like a philosopher is what ultimately resulted in Socrates’ failure as a political figure and his death. 

The Metaphor of the Body in Against Catiline

Against Catiline is more than an attack on one Roman senator; it is a political power play, an attack on the populares faction of the Roman Republic, of which Catiline was a part of and Cicero, being a member of the optimate faction, was opposed. In this paper, I will examine the metaphor of the Roman Republic as a human body and how Cicero uses it to call for not only Catiline’s exile, but also the exile of all the members of the populares faction.

In section 28 of the First Oration Against Catiline, Cicero declares: “if this man alone is removed from this piratical crew, we may appear, perhaps, for a short time relieved from fear and anxiety, but the danger will settle down and lie hid in the veins and bowels of the republic. As it often happens that men afflicted with a severe disease, when they are tortured with heat and fever, if they drink cold water, seem at first to be relieved, but afterward suffer more and more severely; so this disease which is in the republic, if relieved by the punishment of this man, will only get worse and worse, as the rest will be still alive”. Through metaphor, the republic is compared to the human body, a body which can be sickened by disease. Cicero states that the cause of the current disease is not only Catiline, but also his friends and followers, the members of the populares faction. The exile of Catiline alone will not be enough to cure the disease; all of the members of the populares faction must be expelled from the city to rescue it from its affliction.

The metaphor of the republic as a human body is particularly effective at both affirming the optimate vision of a Senatorial republic and pushing for the expulsion of the populares. First, the metaphor of the human body in this usage creates a clear dichotomy: the body is either alive or it is dead. By equating the current, traditional republic as the living body, Cicero equates a populist republic, led by a demagogue, as the result of the “disease” of the populares faction, a dead republic. Next, by stating that the remaining members of the populares faction upon the expulsion of Catiline will hide in the “bowels” of the republic, Cicero evokes a sensation of disgust by labelling the populares faction as the filthy inhabitants of the most unpleasant portion of the body of the republic.

The metaphor then uses the juxtaposition of temperatures for rhetorical effect. The statement, “tortured with heat and fever” has a dual purpose. First, the symptoms of disease mentioned in this statement create a sense of urgency; the affliction is extremely serious and must be cured at once. Second, Cicero meant to evoke the sense of the fiery, populist movement of the populares in his choice of “heat” and “fever” as opposed to the cold, conservative Senatorial republic; it is the populares faction that is the cause of these symptoms. Cicero then states that the temporary cure of a “cold water” will not cure the disease and ultimately result in the death of the body, the death of the republic. The contrast of temperatures between the two factions, hot for the populist, populares faction and cold for the conservative, optimate faction generates a crucial subtext in the argument: since the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, populist movements supporting demagogues had been growing stronger and stronger in Rome. Solving only the current problem would not change a political landscape where a populist, military strongman seizing power had become relatively common. The only complete cure for the dying, diseased body of the republic would be for the total expulsion of the populares faction.

In conclusion, Cicero’s metaphor of equating the Roman Republic to the human body portrays Catiline and the populares faction as a disease that must be expelled to be cured. This metaphor stands centrally within a political power play in which Cicero, a member of the optimate faction, attempts to destroy the populares opposition. Unfortunately the Caesarian, populares vision ultimately prevailed, resulting in the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of Imperial Rome.

Posted for Brianna Rogers

Brianna Rogers

Figurative Reading 

Rhetoric 103A

Jerilyn Sambrooke

Who’s the Real Criminal?!

This essay will focus on the figure of the criminal in Cicero’s First Oration Against Verres which was Cicero’s  prosecution against Verres. Verres was a man who had a reputation that was not so desirable in the eyes of the people. He was on trial for committing several crimes, yet the system that was supposed to convict him has yet to do so and Cicero, determined to bring on the decision of justice, decides to use a different strategy of truth telling to appeal to a ruling that favors justice. The object of cicero in this oration is to expose Verres in a way that he feels is necessary in order to bring justice using a system that has been unjust. Essentially, the obvious figure of the criminal is assumed to be Verres, but Cicero plays with the idea that the criminal may perhaps be the Judicial system itself. Webster defines the word criminal as a personal who has committed an illegal act. We also define criminals as law breakers or wrong doers, however in stanza one of the text, we realize that this standard rule for criminals does not apply to wealthy criminals who can pay their way out of troubling situations. 

“THAT 1 which was above all things to be desired, O judges, and which above all things was calculated to have the greatest influence toward allaying the unpopularity of your order, and putting an end to the discredit into which your judicial decisions have fallen, appears to have been thrown in your way, and given to you not by any human contrivance, but almost by the interposition of the gods, at a most important crisis of the republic”. The opening stanza in this oration sets the tone for the entire prosecution. This puts the idea of integrity on trial by stating the bias in the court and suggesting that is was no coincidence in the fact that the time had come to put an “end to the discredit into which your judicial decisions have fallen”. Cicero plays on the idea that this trial did not come about by “any human contrivance”, but asserts the idea that the trial is an interposition of the gods” which makes the ideas he is about to present during the trial, more credible. Anything produced by the highest power in the world, God, is worthy of consideration. The latter part of stanza one plays on reputation. “For an opinion has now become established, pernicious to us, and pernicious to the republic, which has been the common talk of everyone, not only at Rome, but among foreign nations also,—that in the courts of law as they exist at present, no wealthy man, however guilty he may be, can possibly be convicted”. This was important for me because I can see where Cicero was strategic in making reference to the fact that this unfavorable reputation of the courts was a common opinion shared throughout Rome as well as other foreign nations. This was the moment within the oration that the figure of the criminal became attached to the actual court of law itself rather than the actual criminal himself. To put an entire system on trial was brilliant in creating this realistic contrast between the criminal and the system that is supposed to bring justice.

  

 “Now at this time of peril to your order and to your tribunal, when men are ready to attempt by harangues, and by the proposal of new laws, to increase the existing unpopularity of the senate, Caius Verres is brought to trial as a criminal—a man condemned in the opinion of every one by his life and actions, but acquitted by the enormousness of his wealth according to his own hope and boast. I, O judges, have undertaken this cause as prosecutor with the greatest good wishes and expectation on the part of the Roman people, not in order to increase the unpopularity of the senate, but to relieve it from the discredit which I share with it”. Cicero continues with the idea that Caius Verres has already been condemned in the eyes of everybody based on the life he lives and his actions, yet he is acquitted by the court based on the fact that he is a very wealth man. Cicero re-affirms that his end result is to “relieve” the courts from its discrediting reputation it has earned through unfair practice of law. 

“For I have brought before you a man, by acting justly in whose case you have an opportunity of retrieving the lost credit of your judicial proceedings, of regaining your credit with the Roman people, and of giving satisfaction to foreign nations; a man, the embezzler of the public funds, the petty tyrant of Asia and Pamphylia, the robber who deprived the city of its rights, the disgrace and ruin of the province of Sicily”. Embezzler of public funds, robber who deprived an entire city, an overall disgrace of Sicily is how Verres is described in this stanza.  This passage focuses on the acts he has committed that labels him a criminal. Notice that the language used to express him as a criminal has a lot to do with his lack of care for the people of Sicily and the fact that he does not have the best interest of the people at hand. His disloyalty and disinterest in the state and the people make him a criminal. In stanza 2, Cicero concludes with “And if you come to a decision about this man with severity and a due regard to your oaths, that authority which ought to remain in you will cling to you still; but if that man’s vast riches shall break down the sanctity and honesty of the courts of justice, at least I shall achieve this, that it shall be plain that it was rather honest judgment that was wanting to the republic, than a criminal to the judges or an accuser to the criminal”.  The figurative use of the criminal in this stanza is open to be attached to whoever commits the crime of allowing a man's riches to break down the sanctity of the courts of justice.  It is clear that Cicero is setting up his argument to be fail proof by exposing the aspects of the judicial system that questions its lawfulness. By questioning the lawfulness of the process, the system is now at jeopardy of being the criminal. In stanza 14, Cicero exclaims, “I ask you, Metellus, what is corrupting the course of justice, if this is not,—to seek to frighten witnesses, and especially Sicilians, timid and oppressed men, not only by your own private influence, but by their fear of the consul, and by the power of two pretors? What could you do for an innocent man or for a relation, when for the sake of a most guilty man, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly saying to appear true to anyone who is not acquainted with you? For they said that Verres said, that you had not been made consul by destiny, as the rest of your family had been, but by his assistance. Two consuls, therefore, and the judge are to be such because of his will”. The specific language in this stanza that is pertinent to my claim is “what could you do for an innocent man...depart from your duty and dignity...not acquainted with you”. This now questions the power and civil duty that the courts are supposed to carry out and compromises the credibility of the court by departing from their duty of dignity with certain wealthy criminals at risk of being convicted. 

Stanza 20 states clearly, “ This is a trial in which you will be deciding about the defendant, the Roman people about you;-by the example of what happens to this man it will be determined whether, when senators are the judges, a very guilty and a very rich man can be condemned”.  Overall, this oration used the figure of the criminal to shine light on the legal criminal, better known as the judicial system. I find this ironic and masterful at the same time. Cicero uses the figure of the criminal to set up the prosecution in a way that opens a possibility that this criminal was untouchable from the very start, due to the unlawful activity that occurs within the system. The system now becomes the unlawful criminal if the courts don't do the right thing and convict Verres. 

Figurative Analysis

Melanie Pittman

Rhetoric 103A

Kwan Hua

Persuasive Discourse in the Enconium of Helen

 (13) Persuasion belonging to discourse shapes the soul at will: witness, first, the discourses of the astronomers, who by setting aside one opinion and building up another in its stead make incredible and obscure things apparent to the eyes of opinion; second, the necessary debates in which one discourse, artfully written but not truthfully meant, delights and persuades a numerous crowd; and third, the competing arguments of the philosophers, in which speed of thought is shown off, as it renders changeable the credibility of an opinion.

(14) The power of discourse stands in the same relation to the soul's organization as the pharmacopoeia does to the physiology of bodies. For just as different drugs draw off different humors from the body, and some put an end to disease and others to life, so too of discourses: some give pain, others delight, others terrify, others rouse the hearers to courage, and yet others by a certain vile persuasion drug and trick the soul.

In this passage from Gorgias’ The Encomium of Helen, Gorgias is attempting to persuade his audience that Helen is not guilty of the charges brought against her, and is in fact a victim in this ordeal. He is arguing for the power of persuasive discourse as being stronger than the human will, and because of this, Helen’s decision to leave her home and family behind was out of her control and decided by the discourse used against her.  Discourse is treated as though it is alive, a unique being with its own will and desires, and when used properly against another it can be wielded like a weapon to control the decisions of the victim.

One of the first tropes we see in this passage is the use of auxesis when Gorgias builds the importance of discourse by relating it to astronomy, debate, and philosophy. Subjects like astronomy and philosophy seek to discover the truth of all there is, from creation to the afterlife, and encompass the scope of human knowledge within their disciplines. To equate discourse to the extremity of information both known and yet to be discovered within these subjects is to place it at the most fundamental level of human existence. Gorgias is declaring that discourse is the driver of public opinion, making “incredible and obscure things apparent.” Although people are able to come to their own individual conclusions about the world around them, discourse allows truths and commonalities between the masses to become apparent, so that a populous can agree on ideas that would otherwise be “obscure.” This is the glue that holds society together, and without the presence of discourse, civility may not be achieved on a large scale.

            At the start of paragraph 14, Gorgias very clearly uses a simile to link mental health to physical health in humans. He says, “The power of discourse stands in the same relation to the soul's organization as the pharmacopoeia does to the physiology of bodies.” A pharmacopeia is used to direct the user as to how properly take and administer medication in order to keep one in a state of good health; in the same sense, he is asserting that persuasive discourse, when used correctly, can dictate the course of a person’s actions and influence the state of one’s mental well-being. Without the clarification provided by a pharmacopeia, a person may have a variety of drugs available to them with no knowledge of how to safely use them, and can easily endanger or end their own life. Though Helen may have experienced a variety of conflicting thoughts pertaining to her decision, if persuasive discourse were used against her, the ideas presented to her would have presented themselves to her as instructive, logical, and foolproof, as if she had followed orders provided by a pharmacopeia in order to preserve her physical well-being. She would have been powerless to deny them, and as is the case made by Gorgias, not to be blamed for her transgressions when following them.

            Gorgias draws parallelism between discourse and medicinal drugs, attributing characteristics of chemical reactions from medicine to the mental persuasion possible through discourse. Drugs, when taken into the body, produce an effect that we are unable to control and must concede to; in the same way, Gorgias is arguing that when persuasive discourse is employed properly, as it was against Helen, one is unable to refute its power and can easily be persuaded to act in a certain manner. In this line, Gorgias personifies the power of discourse when he says that it “gives pain… delights… terrifies… rouses… and tricks the soul,” as if it is a person with a specific plan to dominate another in order to get what it wants. If one can give pain, one can also take it away, which allows one being to control another; to delight or terrify is to control the mental state of another. If discourse alone is strong enough to give one person control over another’s mental state, then what possibility did Helen have of fighting its effects when used against her? If persuasive discourse has the ability to “trick the soul,” she may not have been aware of her wrongdoings as they occurred, and therefore cannot be held responsible for her actions.

Through the use of figurative language, Gorgias is able to transform the idea of discourse from the argumentative use of language to a person-like being that is able to wield control over the minds of others. It is notable that his use of persuasive discourse in his defense of Helen serves as a prime example of the power of discourse; though he is arguing on her behalf, the techniques he uses to persuade his audience are the same that he argues Helen fell victim to when used against her. In order to describe the methods used to trick Helen, Gorgias must subtly employ them against his audience to make his point. He does this successfully, absolving Helen of her guilt while tricking his audience into falling for his own persuasive discourse.  

Posted for Corway Chao

Corway Chao

Dale Carrico

GSI: Kuan Hwa

An Apt Apology with Aplomb

In response to the countless accusations laid against him, Socrates, in “The Apology” by Plato, attempts to defend his youth-supported teachings to a crowd of entrenched members of society. His teaching naturally offends many members of society, even of the “worst and most dangerous kind,” necessitating a deft grasp of language to defend his teachings and his life of it. In the latter part of Socrates’s introduction to the trial, he points out the artificiality of his enemies and the truth of his teachings.

                After describing the people he interrogated, Socrates speaks of the “young men of the richer classes, who…come about [him] of their own accord,” bringing to attention the upper tier which largely compose the dangerous enemies of Socrates. At the same time, Socrates also demonstrates the falsity of his enemies. The people who have power, who think they know something when they really do not, from philosophers that prattle over students for their academy to politicians that fight for positions, are the ones set against Socrates. Yet, the children of the rich are the ones who agree with Socrates, amusing themselves in discovering the pretenders. This ironic outcome attests to how inauthentic the upper class are; even their children do not trust them. To further enforce the pettiness of the upper class, Socrates adopts illeism, and spouts the vile language that his enemies might utter. “This confounded Socrates, they [would] say; this villainous misleader of youth.” At last he calls out his greatest enemy, the one primarily responsible for the trial, “Meletus, that good and patriotic man, as he calls himself.” Using a statement dripping of dramatic irony, Socrates uses Meletus’s own words, knowing that Meletus is anything but what he claims to be.

                The artificiality of Socrates’s enemies is just as obvious in their crowd mentality. Without creating unique responses, “they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause.” The use of polysyndeton only reiterates the droning of the upper masses. To Socrates, his enemies “are numerous and ambitious and energetic,” but the falsehoods of the soothsayers of society are even more dangerous when spoken by “persuasive tongues,” a synecdoche that makes their pointed rhetoric more obvious. To their audience, Socrates’s enemies are just a loud mass that tries to force their speech across. With another synecdoche, Socrates tells the court that Meletus and his gang “[fills]… ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies,” much unlike the words of Socrates which the youth voluntarily listens to.

                To conclude his introduction to the case, Socrates enforces the truth of his teachings, knowing that the truth is exactly what got him into trouble, yet is also his only chance to defend his life and what makes it up. Referring to his audience with the metonymy, “o men of Athens,” Socrates deals an honor that calls upon the nation, not just upon the going-ons of society and especially not the ones in control of it. He tells the audience that his teaching “is the truth and the whole truth; [he conceals] nothing, [he dissembles] nothing,” a deliberate attempt to hammer his words through the hard heads of the masses with epistrophe. And yet [he knows] that this plainness of speech makes them hate [him], and what is their hatred but a proof that [he is] speaking the truth?” The chiasmus of speech and hate reveals the paradoxical relationship that is their hate for and the truth of what Socrates says. To end the introduction to the case, he delivers a heavy handed message with assonance by telling them that the “truth of this [he] will endeavor to prove.”

                The teachings of Socrates already formed his life, but the trial literally set his life up against what some saw as his teachings. In order to defend himself and consequentially his teachings, Socrates had to wrest control of the audience. He had to convince them of the falsehoods and insincerities of the upper class and other arrogant wielders of wisdom, while attesting to the truth of his own wisdom. The only way to gain the attention of the ones listening, was to turn the art of rhetoric against the soothsayers that have infected the masses for too long.