Response: Rome: A Proud Republic of 'Virtuous Women' and 'Honorable Men'

Think back, if you will, to a simpler time. A time of words shared between men to decide the fate of an empire, a time when oration took precedence when the might of ones tongue stood paramount above all else in matters of politic.  Before DNA tests, before finger printing, before CSI and computer technology.  A time when cases where won and lost by the power of persuasion.  A time were Gorgias would defend the honor and innocence of Helen of Troy through the power of rhetoric.  When Ethos, Pathos, and Logos were the defining factors.  The Ethos, the speakers credibility, Pathos, his connection with the audience, and Logos, his logic, the three tools the speaker would have to implement to win. Notice how their is no truth in the three pillars of speech,  the sophists, like Gorgias, believed that their was no over all truth and that the winning argument was the right argument.


Now allow the clips to sink in, both clips are examples of rhetoric in the Roman consul (thanks to the HBO series Rome).  While the first clip contains many ad hominem ("to the man" or attacks against the opponent/target of the speech) attacks, it uses these fallacies to paint a picture of what Mark Antony has let rome become under his rule.  It even compares Mark Antony to Helen of Troy, (defended by Gorgias in Encomium) saying that he was always more suited to the work of a woman.  Notice how the speech incites Mark Antony to violence, he is being compared to the roman equivalent of Eve and painted with the crimes of bringing war to Rome.  Cicero's speech attacks Antony's Ethos and Pathos by declaring him a horrible leader and a pestilence on Rome, it was a speech that was able to clear the senate building and leave Antony fuming.


The second clip shows the power of Octavian's rhetoric in establishing is rule over the senate and accusing men of his father's murder.  He entires the senate and reminds the audience of his Ethos, the son of the assassinated Caesar, his Pathos, seeking to unify and strengthen Rome as a republic, and finally his Logos in the declaration of his father's murderers.  His argument is only strengthened when he announces "his legions" who "love my father as i do" and challenges the senate to oppose him.  It is a fine example of rhetoric because it presents who he is, and his argument, in a way that is hard to oppose. He is not necessarily right, but his argument holds valid and is "true" because it was not refuted by the senate.  He is the rightful heir, and his father's killers will be apprehended. Why, because his father was betrayed and stabbed to death twenty seven times by his "friends" and died on the senate floor.  It is murder, and there will be a punishment.  It is a final and concise point driven home with force (both figuratively and the threat of literal force).