Book 4
pr.31
I will now proceed to the method to be adopted in making our statement of facts. The statement of facts consists in the persuasive exposition of that which either has been done, or is supposed to have been done, or, to quote the definition given by Apollodorus, is a speech instructing the audience as to the nature of the case in dispute. Most writers, more especially those of the Isocratean school, hold that it should be lucid, brief and plausible (for it is of no importance if we substitute clear for lucid, or credible or probable for plausible).
pr.32
I agree with this classification of its qualities, although Aristotle Rhet. iii. 16. disagrees with Isocrates on one point, and pours scorn on his injunction to be brief, as though it were necessary that a statement should be either long or short and it were impossible to hit the happy mean. The followers of Theodorus on the other hand recognise only plausibility on the ground that it is not always expedient that our exposition should be either short or clear.
