The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

or
I will tell you that whose like you have never yet
    heard for terror, or for wonder. This is what Prodicus called
‘slipping in a bit of the fifty-drachma show-lecture for the
audience whenever they began to nod’. It is plain that such
introductions are addressed not to ideal hearers, but to hearers as
we find them. The use of introductions to excite prejudice or to
dispel misgivings is universal—
My lord, I will not say that eagerly…
    or
Why all this preface?
    Introductions are popular with those whose case is weak, or
looks weak; it pays them to dwell on anything rather than the
actual facts of it. That is why slaves, instead of answering the
questions put to them, make indirect replies with long preambles.
The means of exciting in your hearers goodwill and various other
feelings of the same kind have already been described. The poet
finely says May I find in Phaeacian hearts, at my coming, goodwill
and compassion; and these are the two things we should aim at. In
speeches of display we must make the hearer feel that the eulogy
includes either himself or his family or his way of life or
something or other of the kind. For it is true, as Socrates says in
the Funeral Speech, that ‘the difficulty is not to praise the
Athenians at Athens but at Sparta’.
    The introductions of political oratory will be made out of the
same materials as those of the forensic kind, though the nature of
political oratory makes them very rare. The subject is known
already, and therefore the facts of the case need no introduction;
but you may have to say something on account of yourself or to your
opponents; or those present may be inclined to treat the matter
either more or less seriously than you wish them to. You may
accordingly have to excite or dispel some prejudice, or to make the
matter under discussion seem more or less important than before:
for either of which purposes you will want an introduction. You may
also want one to add elegance to your remarks, feeling that
otherwise they will have a casual air, like Gorgias’ eulogy of the
Eleans, in which, without any preliminary sparring or fencing, he
begins straight off with ‘Happy city of Elis!’
15
    In dealing with prejudice, one class of argument is that whereby
you can dispel objectionable suppositions about yourself. It makes
no practical difference whether such a supposition has been put
into words or not, so that this distinction may be ignored. Another
way is to meet any of the issues directly: to deny the alleged
fact; or to say that you have done no harm, or none to him, or not
as much as he says; or that you have done him no injustice, or not
much; or that you have done nothing disgraceful, or nothing
disgraceful enough to matter: these are the sort of questions on
which the dispute hinges. Thus Iphicrates replying to Nausicrates,
admitted that he had done the deed alleged, and that he had done
Nausicrates harm, but not that he had done him wrong. Or you may
admit the wrong, but balance it with other facts, and say that, if
the deed harmed him, at any rate it was honourable; or that, if it
gave him pain, at least it did him good; or something else like
that. Another way is to allege that your action was due to mistake,
or bad luck, or necessity as Sophocles said he was not trembling,
as his traducer maintained, in order to make people think him an
old man, but because he could not help it; he would rather not be
eighty years old. You may balance your motive against your actual
deed; saying, for instance, that you did not mean to injure him but
to do so-and-so; that you did not do what you are falsely charged
with doing-the damage was accidental-’I should indeed be a
detestable person if I had deliberately intended this result.’
Another way is open when your calumniator, or any of his
connexions, is or has been subject to the same grounds for
suspicion. Yet another, when others are subject to the same grounds
for suspicion but are admitted to be in fact innocent of the
charge: e.g. ‘Must I be a profligate because I am well-groomed?
Then so-and-so must be one too.’ Another, if other people have been
calumniated by the same man or some one else, or, without being
calumniated, have been suspected, like yourself now, and yet have
been proved innocent. Another way is to return calumny for calumny
and say, ‘It is monstrous to trust the man’s statements when you
cannot trust the man himself.’ Another is when the question has
been already decided. So