Definition:
In classical rhetoric, proof from character that depends on a rhetor's reputation in the community. See also:
Observations:
- "Aristotle's conception of an [invented] ethos portrayed only through the medium of a speech was, for the Roman orator, neither acceptable nor adequate. [The Romans believed that character was] bestowed or inherited by nature, [and that] in most cases character remains constant from generation to generation of the same family."
(James M. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos, 1988) - "According to Quintilian, Roman rhetoricians who relied on Greek rhetorical theory sometimes confused ethos with pathos--appeals to the emotions--because there was no satisfactory term for ethos in Latin. Cicero occasionally used the Latin term persona), and Quintilian simply borrowed the Greek term. This lack of a technical term is not surprising, because the requirement of having a respectable character was built into the very fabric of Roman oratory. Early Roman society was governed by means of family authority, and so a person's lineage had everything to do with what sort of ethos he could command when he took part in public affairs. The older and more respected the family, the more discursive authority its members enjoyed."
(Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, 3rd edition, Pearson, 2004) - "You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his. Persuasion by flattery is but a special case of persuasion in general. But flattery can safely serve as our paradigm if we systematically widen its meaning, to see behind it the conditions of identification or consubstantiality in general."
(Kenneth Burke, The Rhetoric of Motives, 1950)
