Precepts of Statecraft (5-9)

However, we should not on this account neglect the charm and power of eloquence and ascribe everything to virtue, but, considering oratory to be, not the creator of persuasion but certainly its coworker, we should correct Menander’s line,

The speaker’s nature, not his speech, persuades,[*]

for both his nature and his speech do so; unless, indeed, one is to affirm that just as the helmsman, not the tiller, steers the ship, and the rider, not the rein, turns the horse, so political virtue, employing, not speech, but the speaker’s character as tiller or rein, sways a State, laying hold of it and directing it, as it were, from the stern, which is, in fact, as Plato says,[*] the easiest way of turning an animal about. For those great and, as Homer calls them, Zeus-descended kings pad themselves out with purple robes and sceptres and guards and divine oracles, and although they enslaved the multitude by their grandeur, as if they were superior beings, they wished nevertheless to be speakers of words and they did not neglect the charm of speech,

Nor the assemblies in which men make themselves greatly distinguished,[*]

and they worshipped not only Zeus of the Council, Ares Enyalius, and Athena of War, but they invoked also Calliopê,

who accompanies reverend monarchs,[*]

softening by persuasion and overcoming by charms the fierce and violent spirit of the people. How, then, is it possible that a private person of ordinary costume and mien who wishes to lead a State may gain power and rule the multitude unless he possesses persuasion and attractive speech? Now the pilots of ships employ others to give orders to the rowers, but the statesman needs to have in himself the mind that steers and also in himself the speech that gives orders, that he may not require some other man’s voice and be obliged to say, as Iphicrates did when defeated through the eloquence of Aristophon’s orators, My opponents’ actor is better, but superior my play, and may not often need those lines of Euripides,

Oh that the seed of wretched men were mute,[*]

and

Ah, would that deeds of men possessed a voice,

That clever speakers might become as naught[*];

for these sayings ought perhaps to be granted as a refuge to Alcamenes, Nesiotes, Ictinus,[*] and all artisans and craftsmen if they take an oath that they are no speakers; as once at Athens, when two architects were being questioned with a view to a public work, one of them, a wheedling and elegant speaker, moved the people by declaiming a prepared speech about the construction of it, but the other, who was a better architect but lacked the power of speech, came forward and said: Men of Athens, what he has said, I will do. For, as Sophocles says,[*] only those are servants of the goddess of artistry who on the anvil with a heavy hammer and with blows work the yielding and inanimate material of their art. But the spokesman for Athena of the City and Themis of Counsel,

She who dismisses assemblies of men and who also convenes them,[*]

employing speech as his only instrument, moulding and adapting some things and softening and smoothing off those which are hindrances to his work, such as would be knots in wood or flaws in iron,[*] is an ornament to the city. For this reason the government in Pericles’ time was in name, as Thucydides says,[*] a democracy, but in fact the rule of the foremost man, because of his power of speech. For Cimon also was a good man, as were Ephialtes and Thucydides, but when the last named was asked by Archidamus King of the Spartans whether he or Pericles was the better wrestler, he replied, Nobody can tell; for whenever I throw him in wrestling, he says he was not thrown and wins by persuading the onlookers. And this brought not only reputation to Pericles but safety to the State; for while it was swayed by him it preserved its existing prosperity and refrained from foreign entanglements. But Nicias, whose policy was the same, but who lacked such power of persuasion and tried to rein in the people with speech as easy as a snaffle, could not restrain or master it, but against his will went off to Sicily on its back and together with it came a cropper. The wolf, they say, cannot be held by the ears; but one must lead a people or a State chiefly by the ears, not, as some do who have no practice in speaking and seek uncultured and inartistic holds upon the people, pulling them by the belly by means of banquets or gifts of money or arranging ballet-dances or gladiatorial shows, by which they lead the common people or rather curry favour with them, tor leadership of a people is leadership of those who are persuaded by speech; but enticing the mob by such means as have just been mentioned is exactly like catching and herding irrational beasts.

The speech of the statesman, however, must not be juvenile and theatrical, as if he were making a speech for show and weaving a garland of delicate and flowery words; on the other hand it must not, as Pytheas said of the speech of Demosthenes, smell of the lamp and elaborate literary labour, with sharp arguments and with periods precisely measured by rule and compass. No, just as musicians demand that the touch upon the strings exhibit feeling,

not mere technique, so the speech of the statesman, counsellor, and ruler must not exhibit shrewdness or subtlety, and it must not be to his credit to speak fluently or artistically or distributively,[*] but his speech must be full of unaffected character, true high-mindedness, a father’s frankness, foresight, and thoughtful concern for others. His speech must also have, in a good cause, a charm that pleases and a winning persuasiveness; in addition to nobility of purpose it must possess grace arising from stately diction and appropriate and persuasive thoughts. And political oratory, much more than that used in a court of law, admits maxims, historical and mythical tales, and metaphors, by means of which those who employ them sparingly and at the proper moment move their audiences exceedingly; as did he who said Do not make Hellas one-eyed,[*] and Demades when he said he was governing the wreck of the State,[*] and Archilochus saying

Nor let the stone of Tantalus

Hang o’er the head of this our isle,[*]

and Pericles when he bade the Athenians to remove the eyesore of the Peiraeus,[*] and Phocion when he said with reference to the victory of Leosthenes that the furlong race of the war was good, but he was fearful about the long-distance race.[*] And, in general, loftiness and grandeur of style are more fitting for political speech; examples are the Philippics and among the speeches in Thucydides that of the ephor Sthenelaïdas, that of King Archidamns at Plataea, and that of Pericles after the pestilence.[*] But as for the rhetorical efforts and grand periods of Ephorus, Theopompus, and Anaximenes, which they deliver after they have armed and drawn up the armies, it can be said of them,

None talks so foolishly when near the steel.[*]

It is true, however, that derision and ridicule are sometimes proper parts of the statesman’s speech if employed, not as insults or buffoonery, but for needful reproof and disparagement. That sort of thing is most laudable in rejoinders and replies; for when employed of set purpose and without provocation, it makes the speaker appear to be a clown and carries with it a suspicion of malice, such as was attached to the ridicule in the speeches of Cicero, Cato the Elder, and Aristotle’s pupil Euxitheüs, all of whom frequently employed ridicule without previous provocation. But for one who employs it in self-defence the occasion makes it pardonable and at the same time pleasing, as when Demosthenes, in reply to a man who was suspected of being a thief and who mocked him for writing at night, said, I am aware that I offend you by keeping a light burning, and to Demades who shouted, Demosthenes would correct me - the sow correcting Athena, he replied, Yes, your Athena was caught in adultery last year![*] Witty too was Xenaenetus’s rejoinder to the citizens who reviled him for running away when he was general, Yes,

to keep you company, my dears. But in jesting one must guard against going too far and against offending one’s hearers by jesting at the wrong moment or making the speaker appear ignoble and mean-spirited, as Democrates did; for he went up into the assembly and said that he, like the State, had little strength but much bluster, and at the time of the disaster at Chaeroneia he came forward among the people and said, I wish the State had not met with so great a misfortune as to make you listen even to me as adviser, for this remark showed him to be mean-spirited, the other to be crazy, and neither is becoming to a statesman. But in Phocion conciseness of speech was admired. At any rate Polyeuctus declared that Demosthenes was the greatest orator, but Phocion the cleverest in speaking, because his speech contained the most meaning in the fewest words. And Demosthenes, though he despised the other orators, used to say when Phocion rose to speak, The cleaver of my speeches is getting up.

Most of all, then, try to employ in addressing the people well-considered, not empty, speech, and to use precaution, knowing that even the great Pericles used to pray before making a public speech that no single utterance foreign to the matter in hand might occur to him. But nevertheless the orator must always keep his speech nimble and in good practice for making apt rejoinders; for occasions arise quickly and often bring with them in public affairs sudden developments. That is why Demosthenes was inferior to many, as they say, because he drew back and hesitated when the occasion called for the opposite course. And Theophrastus tells us that Alcibiades,[*] because he planned, not only to say

the right thing, but to say it in the right way, often while actually speaking would search for words and arrange them into sentences, thereby causing hesitation and failure. But the man who is so moved by the events which take place and the opportunities which offer themselves that he springs to his feet is the one who most thrills the crowd, attracts it, and carries it with him. So it was, for example, with Leo[*] of Byzantium; he once came to address the Athenians when they were in political discord, and when they laughed at him because he was a little man, he said, What if you should see my wife, who hardly comes up to my knee? Then when they laughed louder, And yet, he said, little as we are, when we quarrel with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us. So also when Pytheas the orator was speaking in opposition to the granting of honours to Alexander and someone said to him, Do you, at your age, dare to speak on such important matters? he replied: And yet Alexander is younger than I, and you are voting to make him a god.

And the statesman must bring to the struggle of statecraft - a struggle which is not unimportant, but calls for all one’s fighting power - speech which is severely trained in firmness of voice and strength of lungs, that he may not be frequently so weary and burnt out as to be defeated by some

Rapacious bawler with a torrent’s voice.[*]

Cato, when he had no hope of winning his cause by persuasion because the popular assembly or the senate was gained over beforehand by favours and interests, used to get up and speak the whole day, thus destroying his opponents’ opportunity. On the subject, then, of the preparation of one’s speech and the way to use it these remarks are enough for one who has the ability to go on and discover the conclusions to be drawn from them.