Rhetoric

​The discourse, then, is composed of these things, and the foundation of style is to speak correct Greek; and this lies in five points: ​First, in the connectives, if one renders them as they are naturally disposed to be prior and posterior to one another, just as some require; for example, as ‘on the one hand’ and ‘I, on the one hand’ require ‘on the other hand’ and ‘he, on the other hand.’ And one must correspond them to one another while they are remembered, and neither hang them far apart nor render a connective before the necessary connective; for this is appropriate only in few places. ‘I, on the one hand, when he told me (for Cleon came begging and demanding), went, taking them with me.’ For in these words many connectives have been inserted before the connective that is to be rendered; and if the interval before ‘I went’ becomes too great, it is unclear.

​This, then, is one point: the correct use of connectives; second is to speak with specific terms and not with general terms.

​Third, not using ambiguous terms. This applies unless one deliberately chooses the opposite, which people do when they have nothing to say but pretend to say something; for such people say these things in poetry, as Empedocles does. For the extensive roundabout phrasing deceives, and the audience experiences what the crowd does in the presence of soothsayers; for when they speak ambiguities, the audience nods along in agreement—‘Croesus, having crossed the Halys, will destroy a great empire’— —and because generally there is less error, soothsayers speak through the classes of the thing; for one would more easily hit the mark in games of odd-and-even by saying ‘even’ or ‘odd’ rather than how many one has, and that something ‘will be’ rather than ‘when.’ This is why oracle-mongers do not specify the ‘when.’ All these things, then, are similar, so that unless it is for some such purpose, they must be avoided.

​Fourth, to distinguish the genders of nouns, as Protagoras did, into masculine, feminine, and inanimate; for these too must be rendered correctly:

‘She, having come and talked, went away.’ Fifth, in naming correctly the many, the few, and the one: ‘They, having come, beat me.’ On the whole, what is written must be easy to read and easy to deliver; and this is the same thing. This is not the case where there are many connectives, nor with things that are not easy to punctuate, like the writings of Heraclitus. For to punctuate Heraclitus’s writings is a difficult task because it is unclear to which word a term belongs, whether to the following or to the preceding; for example, at the very beginning of his book, for he says: ‘Of this logos being always men prove uncomprehending.’ For it is unclear to which of the two one should attach ‘always’ by punctuation.

​Further, this causes solecism, the failure to render what is fitting to both, if you do not yoke them with a verb that suits both. For example, to ‘sound and color,’ the term ‘seeing’ is not common, but ‘perceiving’ is common. And things become unclear if you do not express the main verb first when you intend to insert many intermediate things; for example: ‘For I intended, after having conversed with him about this and that, to proceed in this way,’ but not: ‘For I intended, after having conversed, to proceed, and then this and that happened.’