Institutio Oratoria

The majority of Athenians and almost all philosophers who have left anything in writing on the art of oratory have held that the recapitulation is the sole form of peroration. I

imagine that the reason why the Athenians did so was that appeals to the emotions were forbidden to Athenian orators, a proclamation to this effect being actually made by the court-usher. [*]( Athenaens (xiii. 6, 590 E) states that a law against appeals to the emotions was passed at Athens after Hyperides' defence of 'hryne ( see xv. 9.). But there is no real evidence for the existence of such a law save in cases tried before the Areopagps (see Arist. Rhet. I. i. 5). Appeals for pity were as freely employed in the ordinary courts of Athens during the fourth century as at Rome. When Xenophon ( Mem. iv. iv. 4) says that Socrates refused to beg mercy of his judges contrary to the law, he seems to refer to the spirit, not the letter. ) I am less surprised at the philosophers taking this view, for they regard susceptibility to emotion as a vice, and think it immoral that the judge should be distracted from the truth by an appeal to his emotions and that it is unbecoming for a good man to make use of vicious procedure to serve his ends. None the less they must admit that appeals to emotion are necessary if there are no other means for securing the victory of truth, justice and the public interest.