History provides compelling illustrations of the rhetoric and persuasion techniques identified by Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his work “Rhetoric.” Each example is using the Aristotelian ethos (speaker’s reputation), pathos (emotional tone) and logos (rational arguments) in various proportions. Demosthenes (384-322 BC), who was born in the same year as Aristotle and died roughly at the same age as Aristotle, gave inspiration for the Aristotelian principles of rhetoric. He made repeated speeches in Athens, explaining the threats arising from King Philip II of Macedonia. Those speeches had the goal of convincing Athenian citizens to prepare the defence of their city against upcoming attacks from Macedonia. Demosthenes’ speeches strongly relied on pathos (emotional tone). They made passionate appeals to honour, patriotism, and self-preservation. They produced outrage and indignation with the goal of awakening the listeners’ desire to fight. The pathos employed by Demosthenes was forceful, intense and relentless. He used compelling imagery (“do you want to become slaves to Macedonia?”), extreme descriptions (“you will lose everything and will be mistreated”) and then repeated the main themes (“take action now, or it will soon be too late”) to drive his point home. In 341 BC, Demosthenes delivered his most famous speech against King Philip II of Macedonia. He described the horrors that would take place if Athens was conquered by Macedonia, and made an urgent call to arms. Together with the emotional undertone (“horrible things are about to happen”), Demosthenes employed the logos. He made logical arguments in favour of gathering an army to prepare the defence of Athens. In his logical argumentation, he addressed one by one every possible objection to his call to arms. How do we know that Macedonia intends to attack Athens? What happens if we lose the war? Is it not better to accept slavery than fighting? After enunciating the objections, Demosthenes demolished them systematically. He wanted his listeners to grow afraid and grasp intellectually that fighting was the best course of action. Demosthenes also put the Aristotelian ethos (the speaker’s reputation) to work to his advantage. He reminded people of his decades-long engagement in Athenian public life and of his participation in past battles to defend Athens. Pericles (490-429 BC), another talented speaker, was also Aristotle’s contemporary. His leadership in the Peloponnesian War and his funerary oration in honour of the fallen Athenian soldiers exemplify the best in Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric. We know the contents of the funerary oration delivered by Pericles in 431 BC because Thucydides (460-400 BC) included an extensive report in his “History of the Peloponnesian War.” The objective of Pericles’ speech was to say farewell to the deceased and exalt the virtues of Athenian democracy. I would go as far as saying that he was using the deceased soldiers as a pretext to arouse patriotism and recruit new soldiers (“are you committed to defending Athenian freedom?”). Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/examples-of-aristotles-theory-of-rhetoric-and-persuasion/