The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

clearly when the two are nut side by
side.
    The ‘Reply to the Opponent’ is not a separate division of the
speech; it is part of the Arguments to break down the opponent’s
case, whether by objection or by counter-syllogism. Both in
political speaking and when pleading in court, if you are the first
speaker you should put your own arguments forward first, and then
meet the arguments on the other side by refuting them and pulling
them to pieces beforehand. If, however, the case for the other side
contains a great variety of arguments, begin with these, like
Callistratus in the Messenian assembly, when he demolished the
arguments likely to be used against him before giving his own. If
you speak later, you must first, by means of refutation and
counter-syllogism, attempt some answer to your opponent’s speech,
especially if his arguments have been well received. For just as
our minds refuse a favourable reception to a person against whom
they are prejudiced, so they refuse it to a speech when they have
been favourably impressed by the speech on the other side. You
should, therefore, make room in the minds of the audience for your
coming speech; and this will be done by getting your opponent’s
speech out of the way. So attack that first-either the whole of it,
or the most important, successful, or vulnerable points in it, and
thus inspire confidence in what you have to say yourself—
First, champion will I be of Goddesses…
Never, I ween, would Hera…
    where the speaker has attacked the silliest argument first. So
much for the Arguments.
    With regard to the element of moral character: there are
assertions which, if made about yourself, may excite dislike,
appear tedious, or expose you to the risk of contradiction; and
other things which you cannot say about your opponent without
seeming abusive or ill-bred. Put such remarks, therefore, into the
mouth of some third person. This is what Isocrates does in the
Philippus and in the Antidosis, and Archilochus in his satires. The
latter represents the father himself as attacking his daughter in
the lampoon
Think nought impossible at all,
Nor swear that it shall not befall…
    and puts into the mouth of Charon the carpenter the lampoon
which begins
Not for the wealth of Gyes…
    So too Sophocles makes Haemon appeal to his father on behalf of
Antigone as if it were others who were speaking.
    Again, sometimes you should restate your enthymemes in the form
of maxims; e.g. ‘Wise men will come to terms in the hour of
success; for they will gain most if they do’. Expressed as an
enthymeme, this would run, ‘If we ought to come to terms when doing
so will enable us to gain the greatest advantage, then we ought to
come to terms in the hour of success.’
18
    Next as to Interrogation. The best moment to a employ this is
when your opponent has so answered one question that the putting of
just one more lands him in absurdity. Thus Pericles questioned
Lampon about the way of celebrating the rites of the Saviour
Goddess. Lampon declared that no uninitiated person could be told
of them. Pericles then asked, ‘Do you know them yourself?’ ‘Yes’,
answered Lampon. ‘Why,’ said Pericles, ‘how can that be, when you
are uninitiated?’
    Another good moment is when one premiss of an argument is
obviously true, and you can see that your opponent must say ‘yes’
if you ask him whether the other is true. Having first got this
answer about the other, do not go on to ask him about the obviously
true one, but just state the conclusion yourself. Thus, when
Meletus denied that Socrates believed in the existence of gods but
admitted that he talked about a supernatural power, Socrates
proceeded to to ask whether ‘supernatural beings were not either
children of the gods or in some way divine?’ ‘Yes’, said Meletus.
‘Then’, replied Socrates, ‘is there any one who believes in the
existence of children of the gods and yet not in the existence of
the gods themselves?’ Another good occasion is when you expect to
show that your opponent is contradicting either his own words or
what every one believes. A fourth is when it is impossible for him
to meet your question except by an evasive answer. If he answers
‘True, and yet not true’, or ‘Partly true and partly not true’, or
‘True in one sense but not in another’, the audience thinks he is
in difficulties, and applauds his discomfiture. In other cases do
not attempt interrogation; for if your opponent gets in