Kitap 2
23.27
Another topic, when something contrary to what has already been done is on the point of being done, consists in examining them together. For instance, when the people of Elea asked Xenophanes if they ought to sacrifice and sing dirges to Leucothea,Leucothea was the name of the deified Ino. She was the daughter of Cadmus and the wife of Athamas king of Thebes. The latter went mad and, in order to escape from him, Ino threw herself into the sea with her infant son Melicertes. Both became marine deities. or not, he advised them that, if they believed her to be a goddess they ought not to sing dirges, but if they believed her to be a mortal, they ought not to sacrifice to her.
23.28
Another topic consists in making use of errors committed, for purposes of accusation or defence. For instance, in the Medea of Carcinus,Tragic poet, contemporary of Aristophanes (T.G.F. p. 798). some accuse Medea of having killed her children,—at any rate, they had disappeared; for she had made the mistake of sending them out of the way. Medea herself pleads that she would have slain, not her children, but her husband Jason; for it would have been a mistake on her part not to have done this, if she had done the other. This topic and kind of enthymeme is the subject of the whole of the first Art of Theodorus.An early edition, afterwards enlarged. It must have contained something more than the topic of errors to be of any use.
