Integrating tradition in legal arguments remains an effective persuasive strategy, serving as a source of legitimacy and appeal, fostering the establishment of a shared identity between the speaker and the audience, and cultivating a sense of belonging to a distinct group with defined notions of its identity. This chapter examines the strategic utilization of the concept of tradition in forensic rhetoric. It investigates how communicators shape and influence discourse within forensic settings by leveraging enduring cultural norms, purported intentions and beliefs of esteemed historical figures, and narratives concerning a people’s historical trajectory. By examining cases from the popular courts of classical Athens and drawing parallels in contemporary American legal arguments, the chapter identifies instances where tradition serves as both a stabilizing force and a catalyst for innovation, and sheds light on the importance of tradition as a cornerstone of the rhetorical strategies of advocates on all sides of an issue, including those challenging the status quo. Consequently, the chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of the rhetorical functioning of tradition, offering insights into the intricate interplay between the construction of persuasive narratives grounded in tradition and legal concepts such as precedent, original intent, and legal interpretation.

Because dialogue represents philosophy happening in the context of interpersonal relationships, it is a natural place to investigate power dynamics, both displays of power and displays of resistance. But in literature, unlike in life, the power dynamics are completely within the control of one person, the author, who can script the situation as he chooses. In this chapter, I argue that there was a change in the rules of comportment found in literary dialogues between the first and fourth centuries CE that can be traced through paying close attention first to the appearance and then to the development of a new character in these discussions – a judge. A shared embrace of forensic rhetoric to express philosophical antagonism existed across changing modes of judgement in the Roman Empire. I argue that this forensic dialogic mode was introduced as a mode of sublimation of political energy, as a rerouting of resistance into a safer domain of scholastic antagonism.