Noctes Atticae

On the kind of debate which the Greeks call a)/poros.

WITH the rhetorician Antonius Julianus I had withdrawn to Naples during the season of the summer holidays, wishing to escape the heat of Rome. And there was there at the time a young man of the richer class studying with tutors in both languages, and trying to gain a command of Latin eloquence in order to plead at the bar in Rome; and he begged Julianus to hear one of his declamations. Julianus went to hear him and I went along with him. The young fellow entered the room, made some preliminary remarks in a more arrogant and presumptuous style than became his years, and then asked that subjects for debate be given him.

There was present there with us a pupil of Julianus, a man of ready speech and good ability, who was already offended that in the hearing of a man like Julianus the fellow should show such rashness and should dare to test himself in extempore speaking. Therefore, to try him, he proposed a topic for debate that was not logically constructed, of the kind which the Greeks call a)/poros, and in Latin might with some propriety be termed inexplicabile, that is,

unsolvable.

The subject was of this kind:

Seven judges are to hear the case of a defendant, and judgment is to be passed in accordance with the decision of a majority of their number. When the seven judges had heard the case, two decided that the defendant ought to be punished with exile; two, that he ought to be fined; the remaining three, that he should be put to death. The execution of the accused is demanded according to the decision of the three judges, but he appeals.

As soon as the young man had heard this, without any reflection and without waiting for other subjects to be proposed, he began at once with incredible speed to reel off all sorts of principles and apply then to that same question, pouring out floods of confused and meaningless words and a torrent of verbiage. All the other members of his company, who were in the habit of listening to him, showed their delight by loud applause, but Julianus blushed and sweat from shame and embarrassment. But when after many thousand lines of drivel the fellow at last came to an end and we went out, his friends and comrades followed Julianus and asked him for his opinion. Whereupon Julianus very wittily replied

Don't ask me what I think; without controversy [*](Sine controversia is of course used in a double sense: without question, and without an opponent (i.e., when there is no one to argue against him).) this young man is eloquent.

How Plinius Secundus, although not without learning, failed to observe and detect the fallacy in an argument of the kind that the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon.

PLINIUS SECUNDUS was considered the most learned man of his time. He left a work, entitled For Students of Oratory, which is by no manner of means to be lightly regarded. In that work he introduces much varied material that will delight the ears of the learned. He also quotes a number of arguments that he regards as cleverly and skilfully urged in the course of debates. For instance, he cites this argument from such a debate:

'A brave man shall be given the reward which he desires. A man who had done a brave deed asked for the wife of another in marriage, and received her. Then the man whose wife she had been did a brave deed. He demands the return of his wife, but is refused.' On the part of the second brave man, who demanded the return of his wife,

says Pliny,

this elegant and plausible argument was presented: ' If the law is valid, return her to me; if it is not valid, return her.'

[*](If the law was valid, the second man ought to be granted what he desired; that is, the return of his wife. If the law was not valid, the first man's desire should not have been granted, and the second man's wife should not have been taken from him. Cf. v. 10 for a similar argument.) But it escaped Pliny's notice that this bit of reasoning, which he thought very acute, was not without the fallacy which the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon, or

a convertible proposition.

And that is a deceptive fallacy, which lies concealed under a false appearance of truth; for that very argument may just as easily be turned about and used against the same man, and might, for example, be put thus by that former husband:

If the law is valid, I do not return her; if it is not valid, I do not return her.