Rhetoric   

painless, and anger is painful. Nor do we grow angry with those who
reverence us.
As to the frame of mind that makes people calm, it is plainly the
opposite to that which makes them angry, as when they are amusing
themselves or laughing or feasting; when they are feeling prosperous
or successful or satisfied; when, in fine, they are enjoying freedom
from pain, or inoffensive pleasure, or justifiable hope. Also when
time has passed and their anger is no longer fresh, for time puts an
end to anger. And vengeance previously taken on one person puts an end
to even greater anger felt against another person. Hence Philocrates,
being asked by some one, at a time when the public was angry with him,
'Why don't you defend yourself?' did right to reply, 'The time is not
yet.' 'Why, when is the time?' 'When I see someone else calumniated.'
For men become calm when they have spent their anger on somebody else.
This happened in the case of Ergophilus: though the people were more
irritated against him than against Callisthenes, they acquitted him
because they had condemned Callisthenes to death the day before.
Again, men become calm if they have convicted the offender; or if he
has already suffered worse things than they in their anger would have
themselves inflicted upon him; for they feel as if they were already
avenged. Or if they feel that they themselves are in the wrong and are
suffering justly (for anger is not excited by what is just), since men
no longer think then that they are suffering without justification;
and anger, as we have seen, means this. Hence we ought always to
inflict a preliminary punishment in words: if that is done, even
slaves are less aggrieved by the actual punishment. We also feel calm
if we think that the offender will not see that he is punished on our
account and because of the way he has treated us. For anger has to do
with individuals. This is plain from the definition. Hence the poet
has well written:
"Say that it was Odysseus, sacker of cities, "
implying that Odysseus would not have considered himself avenged
unless the Cyclops perceived both by whom and for what he had been
blinded. Consequently we do not get angry with any one who cannot be
aware of our anger, and in particular we cease to be angry with people
once they are dead, for we feel that the worst has been done to them,
and that they will neither feel pain nor anything else that we in our
anger aim at making them feel. And therefore the poet has well made
Apollo say, in order to put a stop to the anger of Achilles against
the dead Hector,
"For behold in his fury he doeth despite to the senseless clay. "
It is now plain that when you wish to calm others you must draw upon
these lines of argument; you must put your hearers into the
corresponding frame of mind, and represent those with whom they are
angry as formidable, or as worthy of reverence, or as benefactors, or
as involuntary agents, or as much distressed at what they have done.
Part 4
Let us now turn to Friendship and Enmity, and ask towards whom these
feelings are entertained, and why. We will begin by defining and
friendly feeling. We may describe friendly feeling towards any one as
wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your own
sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can, to bring
these things about. A friend is one who feels thus and excites these
feelings in return: those who think they feel thus towards each other
think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows that your
friend is the sort of man who shares your pleasure in what is good and
your pain in what is unpleasant, for your sake and for no other
reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of his good
wishes for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we wish for,
and pained at getting what we do not. Those, then, are friends to whom
the same things are good and evil; and those who are, moreover,
friendly or unfriendly to the same people; for in that case they must
have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they
wish for themselves, they show themselves each other's friends. Again,