[1]: Not an exact copy, but making a kind of pair with it, and corresponding to it as the antistrophe to the strophe in a choral ode.
[2]: Or and they (Rhetoric and Dialectic) are not confined.
[3]: The special characteristic of an art is the discovery of a system or method, as distinguished from mere knack ( ἐμπειρία).
[4]: Manuals or handbooks treating of the rules of any art or science.
[5]: His functions were a combination of those of the modern judge and juryman.
[6]: That is, forbid speaking of matters that have nothing to do with the case.
[7]: Systematic logical proofs (enthymeme, for example), including testimony as to character and appeals to the emotions (2.3), which the rhetorician has to invent ( εὑρεῖν, inventio) for use in particular cases. They are contrasted with inartificial proofs, which have nothing to do with the rules of the art, but are already in existence, and only need to be made use of. The former are dealt with in chs. 4-14, the latter in ch. 15 of this book.
[8]: κοινότερον: or, more intelligible to the ordinary man.
[9]: The case as a rule being a matter of personal indifference, the judges are likely to be led away by the arguments which seem most plausible.
[10]: Exact scientific proof ( ἀπόδειξις), which probable proof ( πίστις) only to a certain extent resembles.
[11]: Dialectic here apparently includes logic generally, the part being either the Analytica Priori, which deals with the syllogism, or the Sophistici Elenchi, on Fallacies.
[12]: ἔνδοξα, resting on opinion; defined in the Topics (1.1) as things generally admitted by all, or by most men, or by the wise, and by all or most of these, or by the most notable and esteemed.
[13]: διότι either = ὅτι, that; or, (it is clear) why.
[14]: Almost equivalent to demonstration or strictly logical proof.
[15]: 1.2. The Topics is a treatise in eight books on Dialectic and drawing conclusions from probabilities.
[16]: The early sophistical definition was the art of persuasion.
[17]: The essence of sophistry consists in the moral purpose, the deliberate use of fallacious arguments. In Dialectic, the dialectician has the power or faculty of making use of them when he pleases; when he does so deliberately, he is called a sophist. In Rhetoric, this distinction does not exist; he who uses sound arguments as well as he who uses false ones are both known as rhetoricians.
[18]: Rhetoric, as dealing with human actions, characters, virtues, and emotions, is closely connected with Politics, which includes Ethics. The two latter treat of the same subject from a different point of view. Both deal with happiness and virtue, but the object of Politics is, by comparison of the different forms of States to find the one in which man will be most virtuous. Lastly, Rhetoric, as an important factor in the training and education of the individual citizen and of the members of the State as a whole, may be described as an offshoot of Politics, with which the sophistical rhetoricians identified it.
[19]: Or, slips into the garb of (Jebb). Probably a stage metaphor.
[20]: Aristot. Pr. Anal. 2.23; Aristot. Post. Anal. 1.1.
[21]: That is, enthymeme and example must be the same as syllogism and induction.
[22]: From the definitions of syllogism (1.1) and induction (1.12). No particular passage, however, explains the difference here mentioned.
[23]: The employment of syllogism and induction, τὸ εἶδος τῆς ῥητορικῆς being taken as simply = ἡ ῥητορική. Another rendering is: that each kind of Rhetoric (that which depends upon example or upon enthymeme) enjoys some special advantage.
[24]: A lost treatise, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Aristotle, 24, and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the first letter to Ammaeus, 6. It is supposed to have dealt with some branch of Logic.
[25]: 2.20-24.
[26]: Or, by persons which are so (Jebb).
[27]: Certain propositions, which seem paradoxical and improbable to a popular audience, must be proved before it is able to understand them.
[28]: πρῶτος: the primary, typical syllogism of the first figure.
[29]: Son of Diagoras of Rhodes, and like his father celebrated for his victories in the Greek athletic contests. He played a considerable part in political and naval affairs in support of the Spartans (412-407 B.C.) whom he afterwards offended, and by whom he is said to have been put to death.
[30]: Aristot. APr. 1.8.13.
[31]: That is, probabilities and signs correspond to general and necessary propositions. This is not strictly correct; only the τεκμήρια correspond to the necessary propositions, the other signs and the other probabilities to the general or contingent propositions.
[32]: Aristot. Pr. Anal. 2.27.
[33]: The common topics do not deal with particular subject matter, as the specific topics do. In making use of the latter, the better (that is, in regard to a special science) the propositions chosen by a man, the more he will without knowing it quit the domain of Rhetoric and Dialectic, and become a professor of that special science whose first principles he has hit upon.
[34]: Aristot. Sophist. Elenchi (Fallacies) 9. This treatise is really the ninth and concluding part of the Topics.
[35]: Propositions (or premises), the name given to the two first statements in a syllogism from which the conclusion is drawn: All men are mortal (major premise); Socrates is a man (minor premise); therefore Socrates is mortal.
[36]: All three kinds of hearers are regarded as judges (the mere spectator as a critic), although strictly κριτής should be limited to the law courts.
[37]: In 1.6.I and 8.7 the present is also mentioned as a time appropriate to deliberative Rhetoric.
[38]: The omission of οὐκ before ἄδικον has been suggested. The sense would then be: As to the injustice of enslaving . . . he is quite indifferent. There is no doubt a reference to the cruel treatment by Athens of the inhabitants of the island of Melos (416 B.C.) for its loyalty to the Spartans during the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. 5.84-116). The Athenian envoys declined to discuss the question of right or wrong, which they said was only possible between equal powers, and asserted that expediency was the only thing that had to be considered. The question of justice or injustice (in the Melian case entirely disregarded), even when taken into account, was merely accessory and intended to serve as a specious justification for the policy of might.
[39]: To protect his body and avenge his death (Hom. Il. 18.).
[40]: The expedient, the just, the honorable, and their contraries.
[41]: ὅλως: or, reading ὅλος, the syllogism as a whole.
[42]: The analytical science is Dialectic, incorrectly regarded as a branch of Analytics, which properly implies scientific demonstration.
[43]: Taking εἰς ἐπιστήμας with μεταβαίνειν. If taken with ἐπισκευάζων, the sense will be: by changing his ground ( μεταβαίνειν being used absolutely) while altering their characters from faculties to sciences.
[44]: τούτους: those who will receive exports and send imports.
[45]: This rendering, although convenient, hardly represents the Greek, which, literally translated, is the investigations of those who write about human actions (cf. ἱστορικός, 4.8).
[46]: This is the usual rendering, although it is hardly satisfactory. Jebb translates a flourishing state . . . of body.
[47]: Or, bring about, effect them.
[48]: i.e. of mind and body; or δυνάμεις may mean positions of authority and influence.
[49]: This was a favorite boast of the Athenians.
[50]: ἀνελευθερία: literally, qualities unbecoming to a free man or woman, ungentlemanly, unladylike; hence, mean, servile, sordid.
[51]: A similar charge against the Spartan woman is made in Aristot. Pol. 2.9.5: Further the looseness ( ἄνεσις) of the Spartan women is injurious both to the purpose of the constitution and the well-being of the State . . . their life is one of absolute luxury and intemperance (compare Eur. Andr. 595-596 even if she wished it, a Spartan girl could not be chaste). The opinion of Xenophon and Plutarch is much more favorable.
[52]: ἢ μή: in the MS. readings these words follow τοῦ οἰκεῖα εἶναι: ownership or non-ownership. The alteration is Spengel's.
[53]: ἐνέργεια: realization in action or fact.
[54]: Of Selymbria, physician and teacher of hygienic gymnastics (c. 420 B.C.). He is said to have made his patients walk from Athens to Megara and back, about 70 miles. He was satirized by Plato and by his old pupil Hippocrates as one who killed those for whom he prescribed (cf. 2.23.29).
[55]: Five contests: jumping, running, discus-throwing, javelin-throwing, wrestling.
[56]: Or simply, freedom from pain (5.15).
[57]: A combination of wrestling and boxing.
[58]: The results of art and the results due to nature are often assisted (or hindered) by the interference of the irregular operations of fortune or chance. Health may be the result of fortune, as well as art (a sick man may be cured by a drug taken by chance, one not prescribed by the physician); beauty and strength, of fortune as well as nature. It is parenthetically remarked that fortune may also produce unnatural monstrosities. The removal of the brackets and the substitution of a comma for the colon after φύσις have been suggested. The meaning would then be: for instance, such as are due to nature, but possibly may be also contrary to nature.
[59]: The excellence of anything is proportionate to its success in the performance of its proper function. The function of acquisition is to get something valuable, such as money, and its excellence may be judges by the amount of wealth obtained.
[60]: Hom. Il.1.255
[61]: Hom. Il.1.255. The words are those of Nestor to Achilles and Agamemnon, in which he points out how their enemies would rejoice if they heard all the story of their quarrel.
[62]: Reading ὅ. The ordinary reading οὗ is taken to mean that which does not permit excess, that which is midway between two extremes, the mean. Another suggested rendering is, that of which one cannot have too much.
[63]: Hom. Il. 2.160
[64]: Hom. Il. 2.160. Addressed by Hera to Athene, begging her to prevent the Greeks departing from Troy and leaving Helen behind.
[65]: Hom. Il. 2.298
[66]: Hom. Il. 2.298. Spoken by Odysseus. While sympathizing with the desire of the army to leave, he points out that it would be disgraceful after waiting so long to return unsuccessful, and exhorts them to hold out.
[67]: Proverbial for lost labor. Cf. French faire naufrage au port, and the English there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.
[68]: Meaning that they cannot have done their duty against their enemies, who would then have blamed them. Another suggested reading is οὓς οἱ φίλοι ψέγουσι καὶ οὓς οἱ ἐχθροὶ μὴ ψέγουσι (those whom their friends blame and whom their enemies do not blame.)
[69]: In the Iliad Glaucus, a Corinthian, is described as an ally of the Trojans. Simonides meant to praise, but the Corinthians were suspicious and thought his words were meant satirically, in accordance with the view just expressed by Aristotle. The Simonides referred to is Simonides of Ceos (Frag. 50, P.L.G. 3, where the line is differently given). Aristotle is evidently quoting from memory, as he often does, although not always accurately.
[70]: γενόμενα ἄν: Spengel omits ἄν: i.e. things which have happened.
[71]: Or which no one else has done (Jebb).
[72]: The one, the smaller number, and the greater number must be of the same species. Thus, 5 pounds is a greater good than 2 pounds; but 5 farthings is not a greater good than 2 pounds, since the smaller number is not reckoned in with the greater Buckley.
[73]: If B (life) follows on, is the consequent of A (health), but A is not the consequent of B, then A is a greater good than B.
[74]: Eight is greater than 2 by 6, which itself is greater than 2.
[75]: A thing may be of greater importance in two ways: (a) that which is a first principle is superior to that which is not; (b) that which is not a first principle, but an end, is superior to that which is a first principle; for the end is superior to the means. In the illustration that follows: (a) the first principle (suggesting the plot) is said to be of more importance (worse) than the end or result (carrying out the plot); (b) on the other hand, this end is said to be worse than the first principle, since the end is superior to the means. Thus the question of the amount of guilt can be argued both ways.
[76]: Oropus, a frontier-town of Boeotia and Attica, had been occupied by the Thebans (366 B.C.). Callistratus suggested an arrangement which was agreed to and carried out by Chabrias—that the town should remain in Theban possession for the time being. Negotiations proved unsuccessful and the Thebans refused to leave, whereupon Chabrias and Callistratus were brought to trial. Leodamas was an Athenian orator, pupil of Isocrates, and pro-Theban in his political views.
[77]: Pind. O. 1.1
[78]: Pind. O. 1.1.
[79]: e.g. it is worse to be blind than deaf; therefore sight is better than hearing (Schrader).
[80]: Things of which the prices are greater, price being a sort of worth (Jebb).
[81]: Or, superiority over a greater number of things.
[82]: After πεῖσαι all the MSS. except A Paris have λέγουσαν. If this is retained, it must refer to Meleager's wife Cleopatra, who persuaded him . . . by quoting. As the text stands, the literal rendering is: the poet says that (the recital of the three verses) persuaded. The passage is from Hom. Il. 9.592-594 (slightly different).
[83]: Epicharmus (c. 550-460 B.C.) writer of comedies and Pythagorean philosopher, was born at Megara in Sicily (according to others, in the island of Cos). His comedies, written in the Doric dialect, and without a chorus, were either mythological or comedies of manners, as extant titles show. Plato speaks of him as the prince of comedy and Horace states definitely that he was imitated by Plautus.
[84]: Simonides, Frag. 163 (P.L.G. 3.).
[85]: Or, the yoke to which the basket, like our milk-pails long ago, was attached.
[86]: Hom. Od. 22.347
[87]: Hom. Od. 22.347. The words are those of the minstrel Phemius, who was forced to sing to the suitors of Penelope.
[88]: Not in the oration in Thuc. 2.35.
[89]: Or, reading καὶ ἁπλῶς: that which is useful both to the individual and absolutely is a greater good (than that which is only useful in one way), but this necessitates a considerable ellipse.
[90]: It is difficult to see the connection here. Munro's suggestion, τῷ δοκεῖν for τοῦ δοκεῖν, adopted by Roemer, would mean by the show of it, that is, by its attracting notice.
[91]: Or, is not punished equally.
[92]: The pronouncements of the supreme authority are themselves authoritative as laying down laws and regulations for the citizens.
[93]: The end of monarchy is wanting here.
[94]: Aristot. Pol. 3.7.
[95]: Or, a faculty of doing many and great benefits to all men in all cases (Jebb).
[96]: Or, taking εἰς εὐδαιμονίαν with βουλεύεσθαι, come to a wise decision conducive to their happiness.
[97]: i.e. the causes and results of virtue (Cope); or, the noble and the disgraceful (Jebb).
[98]: Frag. 55 (P.L.G. 3.).
[99]: Frag. 28 (P.L.G. 3.).
[100]: Those whose qualities are extreme may be described as possessing the virtues of which these are the excess.
[101]: Plat. Menex. 235d.
[102]: Thus, the Scythians may be assumed to be brave and great hunters; the Spartans hardy, courageous, and brief in speech; the Athenians fond of literature—and they should be praised accordingly.
[103]: That is, τὸ τίμιον looks as if it were really καλόν, and should be spoken as if it were so.
[104]: Cp. 7.32 above.
[105]: Frag. 111 (P.L.G. 3.).
[106]: Archedice, daughter of Hippias, tyrant of Athens, and wife of Aeantides, son of Hippocles, tyrant of Lampsacus.
[107]: In the first sentence, the statement is imperative, there is a prohibition; in the second, it is a simple affirmative, implying praise. In the one case there is forbidding, in the other not-forbidding, which are opposites.
[108]: Nothing more is known of him.
[109]: Who slew Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens.
[110]: Reading ἀσυνήθειαν. He had no legal practice, which would have shown the irrelevancy of comparisons in a law court, whereas in epideictic speeches they are useful. συνήθειαν gives exactly the opposite sense, and must refer to his having written speeches for others to deliver in the courts.
[111]: προαίρεσις (premeditation, deliberate or moral choice) is always voluntary, but all voluntary action is not premeditated; we sometimes act on the spur of the moment. Choice is a voluntary act, the result of deliberate counsel, including the use of reason and knowledge. In Aristot. Nic. Eth. 11 Aristotle defines προαίρεσις as a deliberate appetition of (longing for, ὄρεξις) things in our power, as to which we should necessarily be well-informed.
[112]: Or, in the matter of ease, taking τὰ ῥάθυμα as = ῥαθυμία.
[113]: In the cases of the young, the poor, and the rich, their youth etc. are only accidents, accidental not real causes. Aristotle defines τὸ συμβεβηκός (Aristot. Met. 4.30) as that which is inherent in something, and may be predicated of it as true, but neither necessarily, nor in most cases; for instance, if a man, when digging a hole for a plant, finds a treasure. The color of a man's eyes is an inseparable accident, the fact that a man is a lawyer is a separabIe accident.
[114]: Book 2.12-18.
[115]: Book 2.2.
[116]: Cf. Book 1.6 above.
[117]: The true nature of the normal state was lost during the period of disturbance and unsettlement.
[118]: From Evenus of Paros (Frag. 8, P.L.G. 2.): see Introd.
[119]: Or rest (bodily).
[120]: There is no consideration or definite theory (Jebb, Welldon) of the results that may follow. The desires arise without anything of the kind; they simply come.
[121]: The passage ἐπεὶ δ’ ἐστὶ . . . αἴσθησις has been punctuated in two ways. (1) With a full stop at ἐλπίζει (Roemer, Jebb). The conclusion then drawn is that memory and hope are accompanied by imagination of what is remembered or hoped. To this it is objected that what Aristotle really wants to prove is that memory and hope are a cause of pleasure. (2) With a comma at ἐλπίζει (Cope, Victorius). The steps in the argument will then be: if pleasure is the sensation of a certain emotion; if imagination is a weakened (faded) sensation; if one who remembers or hopes is attended by an imagination of what he remembers or hopes; then, this being so, pleasure will attend one who remembers or hopes, since there is sensation, and pleasure is sensation and a kind of movement (sect. 1). φαντασία, the faculty of forming mental images (variously translated imagination, mental impression, fantasy) is defined by Aristotle (Aristot. De Anima 3.3.11) as a kind of movement, which cannot arise apart from sensation, and the movement produced must resemble the sensation which produced it. But φαντασία is more than this; it is not merely a faculty of sense, but occupies a place midway between sense and intellect; while imagination has need of the senses, the intellect has need of imagination. If φαντασία is referred to an earlier perception of which the sense image is a copy, this is memory. Imagination carries the sense images ( φαντάσματα) to the seat of memory. They are then transformed into memory (of something past) or hope (of something future) and are handed on to the intellect. (See Cope here, and R. D. Hicks in his edition of the De Anima.)
[122]: Euripides, Andromeda (Frag. 133, T.G.F.).
[123]: Hom. Od. 15.400-401
[124]: Hom. Od. 15.400-401, but misquoted in the second line, which runs: ὅς τις δὴ μάλα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ πόλλ’ ἐπαληθῇ.
[125]: Hom. Il. 18.109
[126]: Hom. Il. 18.109.
[127]: Or doing something that has to do with the beloved.
[128]: Hom. Il. 23.108
[129]: Hom. Od. 4.183
[130]: Hom. Il. 23.108, on the occasion of the mourning for Patroclus; Hom. Od. 4.183, referring to the mourning for the absence of Odysseus.
[131]: Controversiae or school rhetorical exercises, as well as arguing in the law courts; unless ἐριστικάς means simply in which there is rivalry.
[132]: For the meaning of φιλία, φιλεῖν cf. Book 2.4.
[133]: Eur. Orest. 234
[134]: Eur. Orest. 234.
[135]: True knowledge or philosophy, which is the result of learning, is the highest condition of the intellect, its normal or settled state. Consequently, a return to this is pleasure, which is defined (11.1) as a settling down of the soul into its natural state after a period of disturbance.
[136]: Or, larger means than the person benefited.
[137]: Hom. Od. 17.218 ὡς αἰεὶ τὸν ὁμοῖον ἄγει θεὸς ὡς τὸν ὁμοῖον.
[138]: Literally, ever jackdaw to jackdaw.
[139]: Of likeness and kinship.
[140]: 11.22.
[141]: Both practically and speculatively or philosophically.
[142]: Antiope (Frag. 183, T.G.F.).
[143]: Only the definition appears in the existing text; The ridiculous is an error, painless and non-destructive ugliness (Aristot. Poet. 5).
[144]: Book 2.19.
[145]: Two different persons. If the second ὁ be omitted, the reference is to one.
[146]: Or, a resourceful mind.
[147]: Who Zeno was, and what the story, is unknown.
[148]: Some do wrong for the sake of gain, others for the sake of praise; but the former sacrifice honor for self-interest, the latter self-interest for honor.
[149]: More distant (Jebb).
[150]: With a comma or colon after τὰ τοιαῦτα; without these render: those who possess such things as they . . .
[151]: Who were too far off to retaliate.
[152]: A proverb meaning an easy prey. The Mysians were regarded as cowardly and unwarlike.
[153]: αἰκία (assault) was a less serious offence than ὕβρις (wanton outrage).
[154]: οἷς i.e. supplying ἀδικουμένοις, by whose being wronged. οὓς has been suggested, i.e. supplying ἀδικοῦντες, wronging whom.
[155]: In our relations with whom, almost = from whom. Another interpretation is: In reference to whom there is a chance . . . consideration from others, meaning the judges (Welldon).
[156]: Callipus was a friend of Dion, who freed Syracuse from Dionysius the Younger. He afterwards accused Dion and contrived his murder. His excuse was that Dion knew what he intended to do, and would be likely to strike first, if he did not anticipate him.
[157]: Aenesidemus, tyrant of Leontini, being anticipated by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, in the enslavement of a neighboring state, sent him the cottabus prize, as a compliment for having played the game so skilfully. The cottabus was originally a Sicilian game.
[158]: Tyrant of Pherae.
[159]: Soph. Ant. 456.
[160]: Of Elis, pupil of Gorgias. The oration is not extant, but the scholiast supplies his words: ἐλευθέρους ἀφῆκε πάντας θεός· οὐδένα δοῦλον ἡ φύσις πεποίηκεν (God has left all men free; Nature has made none a slave). The Messenians had revolted from Sparta.
[161]: 1.10.3.
[162]: Book 1.6.
[163]: 1.10.3.
[164]: Book 2.2.
[165]: Book 1.11, 12.
[166]: Roemer reads, after Dittmeyer, εἰ ἐπὶ βλάβῃ [τούτου ἀφ’ οὗ ἔλαβε] καὶ . . . from the old Latin translation
[167]: Laws are special and general, the former being written or unwritten. The unwritten law, again, is of two kinds: (1) general; (2) supplementary to the special written law. This general law (not the same as the general law based upon nature sect. 2) refers to acts which go beyond the legal standard of virtuous or vicious acts and are characterized by a remarkable degree ( καθ’ ὑπερβολήν) of virtue or the opposite. For these laws do not prescribe any special reward or punishment, but acts are praised or blamed, honored or dishonored, rewarded or punished, in accordance with the general feeling of mankind.
[168]: Inexperience (Jebb).
[169]: To be willing that a judicial sentence should be nominal rather than real (Jebb).
[170]: 1.7.13. Callistratus and Melanopus were rival orators. Nothing is known of this particular charge.
[171]: The magistrates who superintended the building and repairing operations.
[172]: Understanding ἰᾶσθαι. Or to punish adequately, supplying οὗ μὴ ἴση τιμωρία.
[173]: An orator, not the tragic poet.
[174]: Or has been seldom paralleled (Cope, but cp. 1.9.38).
[175]: And therefore the violation of them is more discreditable.
[176]: When he thinks of the punishment they may entail.
[177]: Although the use of inartificial proofs is almost entirely confined to forensic oratory, they may be used in deliberative oratory.
[178]: Soph. Ant. 458
[179]: The first line is quoted 1.13.2. The second differs somewhat from Soph. Ant. 458, where the passage runs, τούτων ἐγὼ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὸς οὐδενὸς φρόνημα δείσασʼ, ἐν θεοῖσι τὴν δίκην δώσειν (I was not likely, through fear of the pride of any man, to incur the penalty for violating these statutes at the bar of heaven).
[180]: Which is the administration of real justice, not that which appears to the legislator to be such and is embodied in legal enactments.
[181]: Cp.14.7 above.
[182]: Αἴας δ’ ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος ἄγεν δυοκαίδεκα νῆας, στῆσε δ’ ἄγων ἵν’ Ἀθηναίων ἵσταντο φάλαγγες, Hom. Il. 2.557-558. The Lacedaemonians, acting as arbitrators between Athens and Megara, who were fighting for the possession of Salamis, decided in favor of Athens on the strength of the two lines in the Iliad, which were taken to show that Salamis belonged to Athens. It was reported that the second line was the invention of Solon.
[183]: It is not known to what this refers.
[184]: (Frag. 22, P.L.G. 2, where the line runs, εἰπέμεναι Κριτίᾳ ξανθότριχι πατρὸς ἀκούειν). The Critias attacked by Cleophon is the well-known oligarch and grandson of the first. Cleophon argued from the phrase bid him listen to his father that his ancestor was a disobedient son and a degenerate. In reality, Solon had a high opinion of the family, and probably meant to praise the father.
[185]: Hdt. 7.141.
[186]: They have not been mentioned before. Spengel would therefore omit εἴρηται, and remove the commas: proverbs are, as it were, evidence.
[187]: From the Cypria of Stasinus, of the epic cycle.
[188]: Opponent of Demosthenes. Chares was an Athenian commander, both naval and military. Nothing is known of Archibius. Plato is probably the comic poet.
[189]: Or, witnesses wholly unconnected with the case.
[190]: In Attic legal procedure, the challenge ( πρόκλησις) to take an oath on the question at issue was one method of deciding it. One party offered the other something to swear by ( δίδωσι ὅρκον), this being the real meaning of ὅρκος, and the other party either accepted ( λαμβάνει, δέχεται) it or refused it. Both parties, of their own accord, might propose to take the oath.
[191]: There are three reasons for not tendering the oath: (1) men are always ready to perjure themselves, if they are likely to benefit by doing so; (2) if your adversary takes the oath, he will decline to pay, trusting that he will be acquitted, whereas, if he is not on his oath, he will probably be condemned; (3) there is less risk in leaving the decision to the dicasts, who can be trusted.
[192]: Born at Colophon in Asia Minor, he migrated to Elea in Italy, where he founded the Eleatic school of philosophy.
[193]: The defence in such cases is: (1) that the previous oath was taken as a result of fraud or compulsion; (2) that you did not mean what you said.
[194]: This is Cope's interpretation. Jebb renders: If we take each branch of Rhetoric by itself. The classes are of course the deliberative, forensic, and epideictic.
[195]: The instructions given for enthymematic or logical proof should suffice; but since the function of Rhetoric is to find the available means of persuasion and its end is a judgement; and since an appeal to the speaker's own character and to the passions of those who are to give the judgement is bound to carry great weight, the speaker must be provided with rules for ethical and pathetic (emotional) proofs. In Book 1.5 Aristotle mentions appeals to the emotions with disapproval, but this does not apply to all such appeals, but only to those which are likely to bias the judges unfairly (e.g. stirring up envy, hatred, a desire for revenge).
[196]: Opposed to εὐέλπιδι. Others render in a bad humor.
[197]: ἐπιεικής and σπουδαῖος both = ἀγαθός. In a restricted sense ἐπιεικής is respectable, σπουδαῖος serious.
[198]: See previous note.
[199]: Book 1.9.
[200]: In Book 1 generally (cp. 1.2.22).
[201]: Gomperz translates φαινομένης real or apparent; Jebb omits φαινομένης and translates φαινομένην apparent; Cope confines both to the meaning manifest.
[202]: Hom. Il. 18.109
[203]: Hom. Il. 18.109 (cp. 1.11.9).
[204]: The thought of revenge in the future, as distinguished from dwelling upon it in the present.
[205]: Or, those in which this tendency does not exist, or is trifling.
[206]: Or, how to make him his friend, φίλος being for φίλον by attraction.
[207]: In Attic law ὕβρις (insulting, degrading treatment) was a more serious offence than αἰκία (bodily ill-treatment). It was the subject of a State criminal prosecution ( γραφή), αἰκία of a private action ( δίκη) for damages. The penalty was assessed in court, and might even be death. It had to be proved that the defendant struck the first blow (2.24.9). One of the best known instances is the action brought by Demosthenes against Midias for a personal outrage on himself, when choregus of his tribe and responsible for the equipment of a chorus for musical competitions at public festivals.
[208]: Hom. Il. 1.356
[209]: Hom. Il. 1.356.
[210]: Hom. Il. 9.648
[211]: Hom. Il. 9.648. μετανάστης, lit. one who changes his home, used as a term of reproach.
[212]: ταὐτῷ. Other readings are ταῦτα, or τις.
[213]: Hom. Il. 2.196
[214]: Hom. Il. 2.196.
[215]: Hom. Il. 1.82
[216]: Hom. Il. 1.82. The words are those of the soothsayer Calchas to Achilles, and the reference is to Agamemnon.
[217]: τοῖς πρὸς τὴν νόσον: lit. the sick man [is angry with those who slight him] in regard to his illness, that is, by making light of it.
[218]: Or, his suffering at the moment.
[219]: εὐκίνητοι refers grammatically to διαθέσεις and ἡλικίαι.
[220]: Plexippus was the uncle of Meleager. The allusion is obscure. It may refer to Meleager giving the skin of the Calydonian boar to Atalanta, which his uncle wanted. One of Antiphon's tragedies was named Meleager (T.G.F. p.792).
[221]: Literally, for the things which (= the persons whom) one respects, do not escape notice.
[222]: The real friend, therefore, would feel as much pain as the other whose faults are exposed.
[223]: Cope translates rulers and governors; but can ἄρχεσθαι be used in a middle sense?
[224]: To avoid the apparent tautology ( 2.17), Roemer (Rhein. Mus. 39 p. 503) boldly conjectures χαίρειν: not to return another's greeting.
[225]: ἐξαπίνης δ’ Ὀδυσῆα ἴδον κύνες ὑλακόμωποι· οἱ μὲν κεκλήγοντες ἐπέδραμον· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεύς ἕζετο κερδοσύνῃ (Hom. Od. 14.29-31).
[226]: That is, greater than their present disservices.
[227]: They regard the disrespectful treatment as merely a temporary lapse.
[228]: πλήρωσις: lit. filling up. The reference may be to the fulfillment of one's desires, or to repletion in the matter of food (L. and S.), which seems less likely; in fulness of content (Jebb).
[229]: Opponent of Demosthenes, and one of the pro-Macedonian party. Impeached for his share in the disastrous Peace of Philocrates, he went into exile and was condemned to death during his absence.
[230]: Ergophilus failed in an attack on Cotys, king of Thrace, while Callisthenes concluded a premature peace with Perdiccas, king of Macedonia.
[231]: Another reading is ἐὰν ἕλωσι, if they have convicted him. This is adopted by Roemer, who refers to Plat. Rep. 558a, where, in speaking of the freedom allowed to all who live under a democracy, it is remarked that, even if a man is convicted by a court of justice, he takes no heed of the sentence, which is very often not enforced.
[232]: Therefore, if you think that a man will never learn who took vengeance on him, you will be less cruel; for anger is personal, and so Odysseus, because he was angry, inflicted a savage punishment, and wished Polyphemus to know it.
[233]: Hom. Od. 9.504
[234]: Hom. Od. 9.504.
[235]: Or, as if Odysseus would not have considered himself avenged, had P. remained ignorant . . .
[236]: Or, with any who can no longer feel their anger. Cope translates: with all the rest (besides those actually within reach) who are out of sight.
[237]: To make the offender feel pain as part of the punishment.
[238]: Hom. Il. 24.54
[239]: Hom. Il. 24.54.
[240]: φιλεῖν may be translated to love or to like; φιλία by love, liking, or friendship; for φίλος friend alone is suitable. For the two meanings cp. the use of aimer in French, and lieben in German.
[241]: Aristotle's opinion of husbandry, in which tillage and planting, keeping of bees, fish, and fowl were included, was not nearly so favorable as that of Xenophon in his Oeconomicus. In two lists of the elements of a State given in the Politics, it comes first at the head of the lower occupations. In its favor it is said that it forms the best material of a rural democracy, furnishes good sailors, a healthy body of men, not money-grabbers like merchants and tradesmen, and does not make men unfit to bear arms. On the other hand, it claims so much of a man's time that he is unable to devote proper attention to political duties, and should be excluded from holding office. He further says that husbandmen, if possible, should be slaves (neither of the same race nor hot-tempered, for they will work better and are less likely to revolt); or, as the next best alternative, barbarians or serfs. The favorable view taken by Aristotle here and in the Oeconomics (probably not his) does not agree with that put forward in the Politics.
[242]: Spengel reads ἢ ἐν οἷς θαυμάζουσιν αὐτοί and brackets [ ἢ ἐν τοῖς θαυμαζομένοις ὑφ’ αὑτῶν]. ἅπασιν, βελτίστοις, and οἷς will then all be neuter.
[243]: Hes. WD 25
[244]: Two of a trade never agree (Hes. WD 25).
[245]: Those with whom we are ambitious of entering into competition in the race for distinction (Cope). There is no unfriendliness, whereas envy produces it.
[246]: A parenthetical remark. Aristotle explains that he is not thinking of merely conventional faults; if, then, one who is ashamed of these is no friend, then one who is not . . .
[247]: He wishes to see and know the result of the measures taken against those with whom he is angry. Or, it may mean that he wishes the object of his anger to feel his wrath, and to know by whom, and for what, he is punished.
[248]: By the definitions of anger and hatred.
[249]: And therefore, having the inclination to be unjust, if he has the power, he will be so.
[250]: Or simply, near . . . far from us.
[251]: τὰ σωτήρια or some other word instead of τὰ θαρραλέα would be expected, to avoid the tautology. The fact of remoteness inspires confidence, because we do not expect fearful things to happen; while salutary things inspire it if near at hand, because we expect them to happen.
[252]: It is assumed that the gods will be on our side if we have suffered wrong; suffering wrong rouses anger and at the same time inspires confidence, if our relations with the gods are such that we feel we can rely upon them for assistance.
[253]: Euripides, Cresphontes: αἰδὼς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσι γίγνεται, τέκνον (T.G.F. frag. 457).
[254]: Jebb translates, who have never seen us break down.
[255]: The Greek scholiast says: Euripides, having been sent as ambassador to the Syracusans, to ask for peace and friendship, when they refused said: O Syracusans, if for no other reason than that we are just feeling the need of your friendship, you ought to respect our admiration. Nothing is known of this embassy. Hyperides has been suggested instead of Euripides.
[256]: This rendering involves a plural neuter with a plural verb. Others take the actions or things in a good sense, deeds and fortunes, their own or their ancestors, which they are likely to disgrace.
[257]: i.e. when they have done anything disgraceful.
[258]: When on an embassy to Syracuse, he was asked by Dionysius which was the best kind of brass. On his replying, that from which the Athenians made their statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, Dionysius ordered him to be put to death.
[259]: χάρις may mean (1) benevolence, the feeling which prompts a favor; (2) an actual favor conferred; (3) gratitude.
[260]: Probably given to a beggar or vagrant who had nothing to sleep on.
[261]: That is, should have in view the satisfaction of urgent wants and desires (Cope).
[262]: Reading ὅτε; others read οἷς, by whom.
[263]: ἀχαρίστους: the word generally means ungrateful, and so Jebb takes it here: and to make men ungrateful.
[264]: The other five categories in Aristotle's list are: relation, position, possession, activity, passivity.
[265]: Because in that case their motives in rendering the greater service cannot be disinterested.
[266]: Hdt. 3.14, where the story is told, not of Amasis, by of his son Psammenitus.
[267]: Jebb renders: Again men pity when the danger is near themselves, which may mean when they see something terrible happening to others and likely soon to befall themselves. Vahlen inserts οὐ γὰρ before ἔτι: for men cease to pity when the terrible comes close to themselves.
[268]: When the men, who are in such crises, are good men (Jebb). If they were not, their misfortune would appear deserved.
[269]: The signs and actions, and the demeanor of the sufferer.
[270]: νεμεσᾶν: the nobler brother of envy (Nietzsche).
[271]: There is justice both in the punishment of the parricide and in the deserved good fortune of others. The conclusion must refer to the latter; if his like is fortunate, he hopes he may be.
[272]: Because it is a man's own fault, and pity is only felt for what is undeserved.
[273]: The first part of the sentence is clear: men are indignant when what good men deserve is possessed by those who are not good. The literal translation o the text as it stands is: Men are indignant . . . at all the advantages of which good men and those who possess natural advantages are worthy; but this cannot be right, since there is nothing in natural advantages to arouse moral indignation, there is no question of their being deserved or undeserved. Something may have fallen out like but they will not be indignant with those who possess natural advantages. Roemer (Rhein. Mus. 39 p. 504) suggests οὐδ’ εἰ τὰ φύσει ἔχουσιν ἀγαθά (understanding νεμεσήσει τούτοις).
[274]: δοκεῖν is a stronger word than φαίνεσθαι, indicating an intellectual operation as opposed to an impression received through the senses. The idea is that where anything has been so long in a person's possession, it has come to he regarded as his by right.
[275]: Hom. Il. 11.542
[276]: Hom. Il. 11.542. Only the first verse is given in the received text of Homer; the second is not found in any of the mss. The reference is to Cebriones, a son of Priam slain by Patroclus.
[277]: It has been suggested to insert μὴ before τυγχάνωσι: if, although virtuous and worthy, they do not happen to possess such advantages.
[278]: Or, of which others happen to be unworthy.
[279]: If some one else possesses the one thing which they think necessary to complete their happiness, they are envious of him, because they consider it ought to be theirs.
[280]: According to the scholiast, from Aeschylus.
[281]: Two rocks at the east end of the Straits of Gibraltar, supposed to be the limit westwards of the ancient world.
[282]: That is, no one will attempt to compete with them in their special branch of study. Roemer reads καὶ πρὸς τοὺς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, translated by Jebb as if there were a full stop at ὑπερέχειν. In like manner we vie with those engaged in such or such pursuits.
[283]: 2.4.21.
[284]: The same state of mind which is absent in the painful feeling will be present in the joy excited by the opposite occasions, meaning that, if one set of circumstances produces pain, the opposite will produce pleasure (Cope). Or, omitting οὐκ before ἔχοντες, For in the same frame of mind as they are pained (at another's good fortune) they will rejoice in the contrary state of things (at another's bad fortune).
[285]: Something like although they are within their grasp is needed to complete the sense.
[286]: Spending one's money benefits one's neighbor to a certain extent, and beauty is always pleasant to look upon. One does not admire anyone because he is in good health, so much as because he is handsome.
[287]: Who have many acquaintances or friends (Jebb).
[288]: λογογράφοι means either the oldest Greek historians (or rather chroniclers), or the writers of speeches for use in the law courts, or of panegyrics.
[289]: καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις. According to Cope, an unnecessary parenthetical note (and on such occasions). Jebb refers both τούτων and τούτοις to persons: tend to show contempt to or about those who. The reason in the translation above is that they suffer from the want of the highly valued goods.
[290]: The πίστις ἠθική is resumed from 2.1.8. As the πάθη and ἕξεις have been discussed already, only the ages and their character remain.
[291]: One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.
[292]: Or, they do not look at things in a bad light, but in a good, i.e., they are not always ready to suspect.
[293]: Social convention is the only law that they know, and they are ashamed if they violate it, because as yet they have no idea of higher laws which may command them to do so.
[294]: ἦθος in the widest sense, includes all that is habitual and characteristic; in a limited sense, it expresses the habitual temper or disposition (Twining).
[295]: One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. The maxim was Μηδὲν ἄγαν, Ne quid nimis, Never go to extremes.
[296]: Or, better than they really are.
[297]: One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.
[298]: Or, speeches which resemble (or reflect) it (their character).
[299]: i.e., the advantages and distinctions the family possessed of old; such distinctions, when possessed by those of later date, are less thought of.
[300]: What makes power worth having (Cope).
[301]: ἐν ἐπιμελείᾳ: because they are administrators (Jebb).
[302]: The three divisions are noble birth, wealth, and power. The meaning is that the highest kinds of good fortune tend or converge to these (i.e., to noble birth, wealth, and power). κατὰ τὰ μόρια might also mean in part. Hobbes, in his Brief of the Art of Rhetorick, paraphrases: the manners of men that prosper, are compounded of the manners of the nobility, the rich, and those that are in power, for to some of these all prosperity appertains.
[303]: Book 2.12-14, 15-17.
[304]: Having dealt with ethical and pathetic proofs, Aristotle proceeds to the discussion of topics of enthymemes common to all three kinds of Rhetoric. The difficulty in the Greek lies in the absence of a suitable apodosis to the long sentence beginning ἐπεὶ δὲ ἡ τῶν πιθανῶν. Grammatically, it might be ὥστε διωρισμένον ἂν εἴη, but it by no means follows that since the employment of persuasive speeches is directed towards a judgement . . . therefore it has been determined how . . . we must make our speeches ethical. Spengel, regarding ἐπεὶ δὲ . . . βουλεύονται merely as an enlargement of Book 2.1, 2, brackets the passage. Cope suggests that something has fallen out after βουλεύονται: Since in all the three kinds of Rhetoric the object is to secure a judgement, [I have shown how to put the judges into a certain frame of mind in the discussion of the characters and emotions]. I have also spoken of the characters of the forms of government; so that this part of the subject need no longer detain us. It is generally agreed that we have not the chapter as originally arranged, although it is not supposed that any part of it is non-Aristotelian (see Cope and note in Jebb's translation).
[305]: Both forensic and deliberative.
[306]: Or, for in both forensic and deliberative arguments the issue is the state of the case.
[307]: Book 1.8.
[308]: Book 1.3.
[309]: Book 1.4-8.
[310]: Book 1.9, 10-15.
[311]: 1.9.40. Amplication is to be understood of the exaggeration of both great and small things. It is most suited to epideictic oratory, in which there is no doubt as to the facts; so that it is only necessary to accentuate their importance or non-importance.
[312]: As a general rule, from their nature as contraries, although it may not be true in particular cases. If a man is ill, he may also be well, although in particular cases certain qualities may make him more liable to one or the other, e.g. he may suffer from an incurable disease (Schrader).
[313]: An argument a fortiori. If a beautiful house can be built, so can a house of any kind; for this is easier.
[314]: The meaning of the Greek words is quite uncertain.
[315]: T.G.F. p. 765.
[316]: Book 1.7.
[317]: As a starting-point and first principle of knowledge.
[318]: The Libyan fables were of African origin. They are mentioned by Quintilian (Quint. Inst. Orat. 5.11.20) and belonged to the class of animal fables.
[319]: The παραβολή as understood by Aristotle is a comparison and application of cases easily supposable and such as occur in real life, for the purpose of illustrating the point in question; the fable, on the other hand, is pure fiction.
[320]: Literary knowledge (Jebb); literature (Cope, Introd. p. 256, who, however, in his annotated ed. explains: intellectual study and mental exercises in general).
[321]: If we have no enthymemes, we must use examples instead of them; for they are useful for persuasion, although they do not really demonstrate anything. If we have enthymemes, we must use examples in corroboration of them (see 21.3 note).
[322]: Putting the comma after σχεδόν.
[323]: Eur. Med. 294-297
[324]: Eur. Med. 294-297.
[325]: The idle habits which they contract (Cope).
[326]: Euripides, Stheneboea (frag. 661, T.G.F.).
[327]: Eur. Hec. 864-865
[328]: Eur. Hec. 864-865.
[329]: Maxims with an epilogue are (1) imperfect enthymemes, or (2) enthymematic in character, but not in form; those without an epilogue are (1) such as are well known, or (2) such as are clear as soon as they are uttered.
[330]: Something added as a supplementary proof, the why and the wherefore; in Book 3.19 it is used for the peroration of a speech.
[331]: From Simonides or Epicharmus.
[332]: Eur. Tro. 1051
[333]: Eur. Tro. 1051.
[334]: See sect. 2.
[335]: They partake of the nature of, but not of the form of, enthymemes.
[336]: Author unknown (T.G.F. p. 854).
[337]: According to Bentley, from Epicharmus.
[338]: Meaning that the land would be devastated and the trees cut down.
[339]: Hom. Il. 12.243
[340]: Hom. Il. 12.243.
[341]: Hom. Il. 18.309
[342]: Hom. Il. 18.309.
[343]: 1.15.14.
[344]: Cf. Thuc. 1.70, where the Corinthians complain of the lack of energy shown by the Spartans, as compared with their own restless and troublesome neighbors, the Athenians.
[345]: Want of cultivation and intelligence (Cope). Amour-propre (St. Hilaire).
[346]: In reference to their own particular case.
[347]: The conclusion must not be reached by means of a long series of arguments, as it were strung together in a chain: cp. 1.2.12, where the hearers are spoken of as unable to take in at a glance a long series of arguments or to follow a long chain of reasoning ( οὐδὲ λογίζεσθαι πόρρωθεν).
[348]: Eur. Hipp. 989.
[349]: Or, by means of the speech it is impossible to prove anything otherwise (Cope).
[350]: Aristot. Top. 1.14. πρῶτον: i.e. the speaker's chief care should be . . .
[351]: The more suitable they will be, and the less they will resemble ordinary, trivial generalities.
[352]: The demonstrative enthymeme draws its conclusion from facts admitted by the opponent; the refutative draws its conclusion from the same, but the conclusion is one which is disputed by the opponent.
[353]: Or, noting in addition (Victorius); or, pointing out, side by side (Jebb).
[354]: Assuming that self-control is good, then if the opposite of good (that is, bad) can be predicated of lack of self-control, this proves the truth of the first proposition; otherwise, it may be refuted.
[355]: Cf. 1.13.2 note.
[356]: Authorship unknown.
[357]: Euripides, Thyestes (Frag. 396, T.G.F.).
[358]: The argument is that if there was no disgrace in selling the right of farming the taxes, there could be none in purchasing this right.
[359]: Pupil of Plato and Isocrates, great friend of Aristotle, the author of fifty tragedies and also of an Art of Rhetoric. Alcmaeon murdered his mother Eriphyle. Alphesiboea, his wife, says to him, Was not your mother hated? To this he replied, Yes, but there is a distinction; they said she deserved to die, but not at my hands.
[360]: Nothing is known of this trial.
[361]: The argument is that since men beat their fathers less commonly than they do their neighbors, if they beat their fathers they will also beat their neighbors, and the Paris ms. in a longer form of this argument has an explanatory addition to this effect, inserting after ὑπάρχει the words τοὺς γὰρ πατέρας ἧττον τύπτουσιν ἢ τοὺς πλησίον. In a similar passage in Aristot. Top. 2.10 εἰκός (or δοκοῦν) is inserted after μᾶλλον and ἧττον. Welldon suggests that here also the reading should be τὸ ἧττον εἰκός and τὸ μᾶλλον εἰκός (Grote, Aristotle, p. 294).
[362]: From the Meleager of Antiphon (T.G.F. p. 885).
[363]: In carrying off Helen.
[364]: The Paris ms. has θανατοῦνται, are put to death.
[365]: Fragment of a speech of Lysias. It was proposed to put up a statue to the famous Athenian general Iphicrates in honor of his defeat of the Spartans (393 B.C.). This was later opposed by Harmodius, probably a descendant of the tyrannicide. The speech, which is considered spurious, was called ἡ περὶ τῆς εἰκόνος.
[366]: Or, the ways of doing this are various (Jebb).
[367]: The illustration is lost or perhaps purposely omitted as well known. The Teucer was a tragedy of Sophocles.
[368]: It would be absurd to use such an argument against the accusation of a just man like Aristides, and to pretend that he is more likely to have committed the crime. It must only be used when the opponent's character is suspect, and lends itself to such a retort.
[369]: The reference is obviously to Socrates, who claimed that a daimonion (a certain divine principle that acted as his internal monitor) checked his action in many cases. When accused of not believing in the gods, he was able to prove, by his definition of the daimonion, that he was no atheist. Similarly, Iphicrates, by his definition of γενναῖος and συγγενής could refute the allegation that he was ignoble and show that his deeds were more akin to those of Harmodius and Aristogiton than to those of his opponents. Paris could say that he was not intemperate, because he was satisfied with Helen alone. Lastly, Socrates refused an invitation to visit Archelaus, king of Macedonia, because he would be unable to return the benefits received, which would imply his being put to shame, and make the invitation a kind of insult.
[370]: Of Polycrates.
[371]: Just as it is to requite them with evil (Jebb).
[372]: Supplying [λελέκται] περὶ τοῦ ὀρθῶς [χρῆσθαι αὐτοῖς]. Others render in reference to the use of the word ὀρθῶς (but ὀρθῶς does not occur in the passage in Aristot. Top. 1.15). A suggested reading is περὶ τούτου ὀρθῶς εἴρηται.
[373]: Mantias had one legitimate son Mantitheus and two illegitimate by a certain Plangon. Mantias at first refused to acknowledge the latter as his sons, until the mother declared they were.
[374]: The name of the mother; or simply, the woman of Dodona, like the woman of Peparethus.
[375]: Others read πολίτην, although he was not their fellow-citizen (but Chios was one of the claimants to his birthplace).
[376]: Something has fallen out, what follows being intended to prove that the best rulers for a state are the philosophers.
[377]: Epaminondas and Pelopidas. One would rather expect, as soon as philosophers had the conduct of affairs.
[378]: Athenian ambassador to Sparta (371 B.C.), whose aggressive policy he attacked. His argument is that, if the Eumenides could agree without any loss of dignity to stand their trial before the Areopagus, as described in Aeschylus, surely Mixidemides could do the same. Nothing is known of Mixidemides, but it is clear that he refused to submit his case to it, when charged with some offense.
[379]: The story is told of Agesipolis (which others read here) in Xen. Hell. 4.7.2. The Argives, when a Lacedaemonian army threatened to invade their territory, were in the habit of alleging that it was festival time, when there should be a holy truce. This obviously left the door open to fraud, so Agesipolis (one of the Spartan kings) consulted the oracle of Zeus at Olympia to ask whether he was to respect such a truce. The reply of the oracle was that he might decline a truce fraudulently demanded. To confirm this, Agesipolis put the same question to Apollo: Is your opinion as to the truce the same as that of your father (Zeus)? Certainly, answered Apollo. Agesipolis thereupon invaded Argos. The point is that really Apollo had little choice, since it would have been disgraceful for the son to contradict the father.
[380]: After his defeat at Aegospotami (405 B.C.) the Athenian general Conon, fearing for his life, took refuge with Evagoras, king of Cyprus—a proof, according to Aristotle, of the goodness of the latter.
[381]: If the genus can be affirmed of any subject, then one or other of the species, which make up the genus, must also be predicable of it. If the proposition to be maintained is, the soul is moved, it is necessary to examine whether any of the different kinds of motion (increase, decrease, decay, change of place, generation, alteration) can be predicated of the soul. If not, the generic predicate is not applicable, and the proposition is refuted.
[382]: The bad with the good. The exact meaning of βλαίσωσις has not been satisfactorily explained. In the definition given of the retortion of a dilemma, the two opposite things would be speaking truth or untruth; the two opposite consequences, pleasing men and pleasing God.
[383]: e.g. a man may say that an honorable death should be preferred to a pleasant life, and honest poverty to ill-acquired wealth, whereas really he wishes the opposite. If then his words are in accordance with his real wishes, he must be confronted with his public statements; if they are in accordance with the latter, he must be confronted with his secret wishes. In either case he must fall into paradox, and contradict either his publicly expressed or secret opinions. (Aristot. Sophist. Elenchi 2.12, Poste's translation).
[384]: This law (already mentioned in 23.11) is said to have been an oration on the legal position of mercenaries.
[385]: Cause and effect.
[386]: Isoc. 15.173.
[387]: The peace concluded between the Greeks (although the Lacedaemonians held aloof) and Alexander the Great after the death of Philip of Macedon (336 B.C.).
[388]: Lys. 34.11.
[389]: i.e., after their return, they preferred to leave the city rather than fight. This is Cope's explanation, but the meaning of the clause ὁτὲ μὲν . . . ᾑροῦντο is then somewhat obscure. A more suitable interpretation would be: At one time they preferred to return from exile at the price of fighting; at another, not to fight at the price of being exiled a second time (St. Hilaire), but one does not see how this can be got out of the Greek.
[390]: The author is unknown.
[391]: Frag. 2 (T.G.F. p. 792).
[392]: Hom. Il. 10.218; cp. T.G.F. p. 801.
[393]: By pointing out what is likely to deter a man from committing a crime, and vice versa.
[394]: The argument is: we accept either that which really is, or that which is probable; if then a statement is made which is incredible and improbable, we assume that it would not have been made, unless it was true.
[395]: Athenian demagogue and opponent of Alcibiades, for whose banishment he was chiefly responsible. When the Four Hundred were set up, he was put to death. Pitthus was an Athenian deme or parish.
[396]: Understanding διαβεβλῆσθαι. Others read μὴ (for ἢ) δοκοῦσι, when there seems no reason to suspect them.
[397]: The names of traitors were inscribed on a brazen pillar in the Acropolis. Leodamas supported the oligarchic, Thrasybulus the democratic party. In answer to the charge that he had had his name removed from the pillar when his party came into power, Leodamas replied that, if he had been originally posted as an enemy of the people and a hater of democracy, he would have preferred to keep the record, as likely to increase the confidence of the Thirty in him, than to have it erased, even though it branded him as a traitor.
[398]: If a person has not taken the better course, when he had the chance of doing so, he cannot be guilty.
[399]: 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.
[400]: Tragic poet, contemporary of Aristophanes (T.G.F. p. 798).
[401]: An early edition, afterwards enlarged. It must have contained something more than the topic of errors to be of any use.
[402]: Sophocles, Tyro, Frag. 597 (T.G.F.). The reference is to Sidero ( σίδηρος, iron), the cruel stepmother of Tyro.
[403]: Thompson's rendering (Introd. to his edition of Plato's Gorgias p. 5). Colt refers to Polus's skittishness and frisking from one subject to another.
[404]: Eur. Tro. 990.
[405]: Frag. 4 (T.G.F.). The name Pentheus is from πένθος (sorrow).
[406]: Admitting the apparent correctness of the opposing argument, we may prove the contradictory of its conclusion by an unassailable argument of our own, which is then called an elenchus (Thomson, Laws of Thought, section 127).
[407]: Isoc. 9.65-69.
[408]: Or equivocation, in which a single term has a double meaning.
[409]: Deriving μυστήρια ( μύειν, to close the lips) from μῦς (mouse).
[410]: A fragment from the Parthenia (songs sung by maidens to the accompaniment of the flute). Pan is called the dog of Cybele, the great nature-goddess of the Greeks, as being always in attendance on her, being himself a nature-god. The fact that Pindar calls Pan dog is taken as a glorification of that animal.
[411]: κοινὸς Ἑρμῆς is an expression meaning halves! When anyone had a stroke of luck, such as finding a purse full of money in the street, anyone with him expected to go halves. Hermes was the god of luck, and such a find was called ἑρμαῖον. κοινωνικός is taken to mean (1) liberal to others, or (2) sociable.
[412]: λόγος: (1) speech; (2) account, esteem.
[413]: Very obscure and no explanation is satisfactory. The parallel passage in Aristot. Sophist. Elenchi 20.6 is: Do you being in Sicily now know that there are triremes in the Piraeus? The ambiguity lies in the position of now, whether it is to be taken with in Sicily or with in the Piraeus. At the moment when a man is in Sicily he cannot know that there are at this time triremes in the Piraeus; but being in Sicily he can certainly know of the ships in the Piraeus, which should be there, but are now in Sicily (Kirchmann). St. Hilaire suggests that the two clauses are: Do you now, being in Sicily, see the triremes which are in the Piraeus? and, Did you when in Sicily, see the triremes which are now in the Piraeus? The fallacy consists in the two facts (being in the Piraeus and the existence of triremes in Sicily), true separately, being untrue combined.
[414]: Thrasybulus deposed the thirty individuals and put down the single tyranny which they composed; he then claimed a thirtyfold reward, as having put down thirty tyrannies.
[415]: Frag. 5 (T.G.F.).
[416]: Hdt. 2.141. The story was that, when Sennacherib invaded Egypt, a host of field-mice devoured all the quivers, bowstrings and leather shield-holders of the Assyrians. Apollo was called Smintheus ( σμίνθος, mouse) and was represented on coins with a mouse in his hand, either as the mouse-slayer and protector of crops, or because the animal was sacred to him. The story, alluded to elsewhere, was of Greek, not of Egyptian origin. Similar panegyrics on ridiculous things or animals included pots, counters, salt, flies, bees, and such subjects as death, sleep, and food.
[417]: Sophocles, The Gathering of the Greeks (T.G.F. p. 161), a satyric drama. His not being invited was a mere accident of the disrespect.
[418]: Assuming a proposition to be convertible, when it is not; it does not follow, assuming that all the high-minded dwell by themselves, that all who dwell by themselves are highminded.
[419]: The poor want to get money; the rich dance and sing to amuse themselves, or to show that they can do as they like. Exiles can certainly live where they like in a foreign land, but would prefer to live in their own country; the rich, who are not exiles, travel to amuse themselves.
[420]: The first is means has a real, absolute existence; the second is merely expresses the identity of the terms of the proposition, and is particular; but the sophistical reasoner takes it in the same sense as the first. The same applies to the argument about the unknown.
[421]: This utterance of Protagoras gave particular offense as apparently implying that the weaker cause was really identical with the worse, so that to support it was to support injustice. But, considering the high moral character ascribed to Protagoras, it seems more probable to take the formula as a statement of the aim of all ancient orators—how to overcome stronger arguments by arguments weaker in themselves.
[422]: In which the contrary of an opponent's conclusion is proved.
[423]: i.e., the opponent's enthymeme.
[424]: Love is regarded as a desire, and therefore as bad as any other desire. It is here included under the general head of want.
[425]: Incest: Ovid Met. 9.454.
[426]: The contrary of good men do good to all their friends is bad men do harm to all their friends, but this is not always true. Jebb gives the objection as: No, the bad man does not do evil to all his enemies.
[427]: Translating ἀεί inserted by Vahlen before ὄντος.
[428]: That is, if the argument is shown to be not necessary.
[429]: The important point in the conclusion drawn is that the judge thinks it is not his business to decide, because the argument is not necessary, whereas his duty is to decide, not about things that are necessary but about things that are probable.
[430]: χρόνῳ . . . πράγμασιν. If χρόνῳ be taken to mean the date, there are the following alternatives. The date may be questioned, the facts admitted; both date and facts may be questioned; both date and facts may be admitted, but circumstances may have altered (a pound was worth twenty shillings in 1914, not in 1924). Others take χρόνῳ to mean the greater number of times the same fact has occurred, πράγμασι the more numerous facts that increase probability. But χρόνῳ can hardly bear this meaning (see Jebb's note).
[431]: 1.2.18; or, at the beginning, i.e., of this book.
[432]: Aristot. Pr. Anal. 2.27.
[433]: On the other side, in the opponent's favor.
[434]: Aristot. Pr. Anal. 2.27.
[435]: That is, when the tekmērion is converted into a syllogism. For tekmērion see 1.2.16.
[436]: Intellectual capacity, as evinced in language (or actions), and seen when the actors argue or make an appeal to the feelings of others, in other words, when they reason or plead with one of the other dramatis personae in the same sort of way as a rhetor might do (Bywater on Aristot. Poet. 1450a 6, where the text is speaking of the διάνοια of the actors in a play).
[437]: Since the authors of tragedies acted their own plays, there was no need for professional actors, nor for instruction in the art of delivery or acting. This explains why no attempt had been made to deal with the question. Similarly, the rhapsodists (reciters of epic poems) were at first as a rule the composers of the poems themselves.
[438]: In the law courts and public assembly.
[439]: Cope prefers: is thought vulgar, and rightly so considered.
[440]: Or, is concerned with appearance.
[441]: i.e. style, delivery, and acting, which are of no use to serious students.
[442]: A treatise on Pathos.
[443]: Of Leontini in Sicily, Greek sophist and rhetorician (see Introduction).
[444]: i.e. the poetic style. See Aristot. Poet. 22, where the choice of words and the extent to which out-of-the-way words and phrases may be used in poetry is discussed.
[445]: Nouns and verbs is a conventional expression for all the parts of speech. Cp. Hor. AP 240 non ego inornata et dominantia nomina solum verbaque, where dominantia is a literal adaptation of κύρια, the usual Latin equivalent for which is propria.
[446]: Aristot. Poet. 21.
[447]: It is impossible to find a satisfactory English equivalent for the terms ξένος, ξενικός, τὸ ξενίζον, as applied to style. Foreign does not really convey the idea, which is rather that of something opposed to home-like,—out-of-the-way, as if from abroad. Jebb suggests distinctive.
[448]: Cp. Hor. AP. 46, where it is said that the choice and use of words requires subtlety and care, skill in making an old word new by clever combination (callida iunctura) being especially praised.
[449]: Chaps. 3 and 7.
[450]: This is a parenthetical note.
[451]: Aristot. Poet. 21, 22.
[452]: The different kinds of words.
[453]: Aristot. Poet. 22.9: for this alone cannot be borrowed from another.
[454]: Begging (as a beggar does) and praying (as a priest might) are both forms of asking, and by substituting one for the other, you can amplify or depreciate.
[455]: See 1.7.32.
[456]: Head of a distinguished Athenian family which held the office of torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries. A man of notoriously dissipated character, he took some part in politics.
[457]: The δᾳδοῦχος or hereditary torch-bearer ranked next to the hierophant or chief priest. In addition to holding the torch during the sacrifices, he took part in the recitation of the ritual and certain purificatory ceremonies. The μητραγύρται or mendicant priests collected alms on behalf of various deities, especially the great Mother Cybele (whence their name). They included both men and women of profligate character, addicted to every kind of lewdness.
[458]: Cf. ‘convey’ the wise it call (Merry Wives, I. iii.). Either the euphemistic or unfavorable application of the term may be adopted.
[459]: According to Athenaeus, p. 669, he was a poet and rhetorician who recommended the Athenians to use bronze money.
[460]: A scream is neither articulate nor agreeable, like the sound of poetry, although both are voices or sound, and to that extent the metaphor is correct.
[461]: Athenaeus, p. 452.
[462]: Rhetorician and sophist of Heraclea in Pontus.
[463]: Eur. Orest. 1588. In the preceding line Menelaus accuses Orestes as a matricide and ready to heap murder on murder, to which Orestes replies, you should rather call me the avenger of my father Agamemnon, who had been murdered by his wife Clytaemnestra, the mother of Orestes. Matricide and avenger of his father show the good and bad sides of the deed of Orestes.
[464]: Frag. 7 (P.L.G. 3, p. 39O). The winner of the mule race was Anaxilaus of Rhegium.
[465]: A sophist, not the poet (author of the obscure Alexander or Cassandra), who was later than Aristotle.
[466]: Lobeck conjectured κατεπιορκήσαντας, who commit out-and-out perjury.
[467]: Sciron and Sinnis were both robbers slain by Theseus, by Lycophron turns Sinnis into a γλῶττα, using it adjectivally = destructive; cf. σῖνος, harm; σίντης = σίννις.
[468]: The meaning of παραλαβών is quite obscure: various renderings are having taken to himself, received, grasped, inherited. The word μουσεῖον, originally a haunt of the Muses, came to mean a school of art or literature. The fault appears to consist in the addition of τῆς φύσεως, but it is difficult to see why. Cope confesses his inability to understand the passage. Jebb translates: he does not say, ‘having taken to himself a school of the Muses,’ but ‘to Nature's school of the Muses.’
[469]: On this passage Thompson (Gorgias, p. 179) says: The metaphor of reaping and sowing is a mere commonplace . . . but ‘pallid and bloodless affairs’ is a phrase which would need apology even from a modern. On the other hand, it is difficult to see what objection there is to calling the Odyssey a beautiful mirror of human life. Another reading is ἔναιμα, which Cope translates events fresh with the blood in them. If the two extracts are taken together, it is suggested (apparently by the editor of Cope's notes) that the sense may be: things green and unripe (flushed with sap), and this was the crop which you . . ., the adjectives referring to green and unripe stalks of corn.
[470]: Or, a barrier against the laws. This is the general meaning of ἐπιτείχισμα, a border fortress commanding an enemy's country.
[471]: Compare Hom. Il. 22.164 ἐνάντιον ὦρτο λεὼν ὥς.
[472]: Pupil of Isocrates and historical writer. Idrieus was a prince of Caria, who had been imprisoned.
[473]: Meaning that there was no difference between Euxenus without a knowledge of geometry and Archidamus with a knowledge of geometry. The proportion of geometrical knowledge will remain the same, so that Archidamus can be called an ungeometrical Euxenus, and Euxenus a geometrical Archidamus (see 4.4, note for by proportion).
[474]: Plat. Rep. 469d.
[475]: Plat. Rep. 488a.
[476]: Plat. Rep. 601b.
[477]: If metrical restrictions have been removed and they are read as prose.
[478]: Meaning that they did not appreciate the benefits received from the Athenians, who conquered the islands (440 B.C.).
[479]: Or, are cut down by axes, the handles of which are made of their own wood.
[480]: It is disputed whether Demosthenes is the orator or the Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War. The point of the comparison is that in a democracy the general instability of political conditions makes the people sick of the existing state of things and eager for a change.
[481]: Aristoph. Kn. 715-718.
[482]: As the shield is to Ares, so is the goblet to Dionysus. Proportion is defined (Aristot. Nic. Eth. 5.3.8) as an equality of ratios, implying four terms at the least, and the proportional metaphor is one in which the second term is to the first as the fourth is to the third; for then one can by metaphor substitute the fourth for the second, or the second for the fourth. Let A be Dionysus, B a goblet, C Ares, D a shield. Then by the definition, the goblet is to Dionysus as the shield is to Ares. The metaphor consists in transferring to the goblet the name belonging to its analogue the shield. Sometimes an addition is made by way of explanation of the word in its new sense, and the goblet may be described as the shield of Dionysus and the shield as the goblet of Ares. The shield and the goblet both come under the same genus, being characteristics of a deity, and can therefore be reciprocally transferred (Aristot. Poet. 21.4).
[483]: The apodosis. ἀποδιδόναι is used in the sense of introducing a clause answering to the πρότασις, and ἀπόδοσις for this answering clause.
[484]: Of Agrigentum (c. 490-430), poet, philosopher, and physician. Among other legends connected with him, he is said to have thrown himself into the crater of Etna, so that by suddenly disappearing he might be thought to be a god. His chief work was a poem called Nature, praised by Lucretius. The principles of things are the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, which are unalterable and indestructible. Love and hate, alternately prevailing, regulate the periods of the formation of the world. The existing fragments corroborate Aristotle's statement.
[485]: Hdt. 1.53
[486]: Hdt. 1.91
[487]: Hdt. 1.53, Hdt. 1.91. Croesus consulted the Delphian oracle whether he should attack Cyrus the Persian or not. Encouraged by the ambiguous oracle, he did so, but was utterly defeated.
[488]: The deliberate intention to mislead.
[489]: σκεύη, inanimate things, the classification probably being male, female, and inanimate, not the grammatical one of masculine, feminine, and neuter.
[490]: Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535-475). His chief work was on Nature. From the harshness of his language and the carelessness of his style he was called ὁ σκοτεινός (the obscure). According to him, fire was the origin of all things; all things become fire, and then fire becomes all other things. All things are in a constant state of flux; all is the same and yet not the same. Knowledge is founded upon sensual perception, but only the gods possess knowledge in perfection.
[491]: Or, although this reason exists for ever men are born . . . without understanding (Welldon).
[492]: Eur. IT 727
[493]: Eur. IT 727.
[494]: In Boeotia. The quotation is from the Thebaid of Antimachus of Claros (c. 450 B.C.). The Alexandrians placed him next to Homer among the epic poets. In his eulogy of the little hill, he went on to attribute to it all the good qualities it did not possess, a process which could obviously be carried on ad infinitum.
[495]: By some identified with the tragic poet spoken of in Aristot. Poet. 2. His manner of expression, due to the wish to use fine language, was ridiculous owing to its being out of harmony with the subject. Others consider that he was not a poet at all but an orator. πότνια was a title of respect, applied to females, whether they were goddesses or ordinary women.
[496]: Or, draws a wrong conclusion.
[497]: Alluding to Isocrates.
[498]: Or, to all the special rules given above.
[499]: The exaggeration should be brought forward first, by way of forestalling the objection, and accompanied by some limiting phrase. Quintilian (Quint. Inst. Orat. 8.3.37) gives as examples: so to say, if I may be allowed to say so.
[500]: Adaptation of voice, features, etc., to the subject.
[501]: Isoc. 4.186, where μνήμη is the reading, translated name above (lit. memory) for the sake of the jingle, which also appears in the Greek of Isocrates. All the Mss. of Aristotle give γνώμην here, which shows that it is a misquotation.
[502]: Plat. Phaedrus 238d, Plat. Phaedrus 241e. In the first of these passages Socrates attributes his unusual flow of words to the inspiration of the nymphs, and tells Phaedrus not to wonder if he seems to be in a divine fury, for he is not far from breaking out into dithyrambs. An example of the irony (a term implying a certain amount of contempt (2.2.25)) of Gorgias is given in Aristot. Pol. 3.1. When asked how a person comes to be a citizen, he answers: as those are mortars which have been made by mortar-makers, so those are Larissaeans who have been made by artisans ( δημιουργούς); for some of these were Larissa-makers ( λαρισοποιούς). There is a play on the double meaning of δημιουργός, (1) artisan, (2) magistrate, lit. people-maker. Larissa-makers means makers of Larissaeans in such numbers that they might be regarded as makers of Larissa itself. It has also been suggested that λαρισοποιούς may mean kettle-makers, from λάρισα a kettle, so called from having been first made at Larissa, but this seems unnecessary. The point is that Gorgias maintained that all were citizens who were made so by the magistrates, that citizenship was a manufactured article (see W. L. Newman's note on the passage, and W. H. Thompson's Appendix to his edition of Plato's Gorgias).
[503]: He did not generally possess full rights of citizenship. The point of the illustration is that the hearer looks for the cadence just as confidently as, when a freedman is asked what patron he selects, every one expects him to say Cleon.
[504]: Bywater's emendation for τμητά of the Mss. Aristotle seems to be referring to the Pythagorean theory that number is the regulating force in all things, and in giving shape to language number is rhythm, which reduces a formless mass of words to order.
[505]: The heroic rhythm (dactyls, spondees, and anapests) is as 1 to 1, two short syllables being equal to one long; trochaic and iambic 2 to 1 on the same principle; paean, 3 to 2 (three shorts and one long), being the mean between the other two.
[506]: Understanding καὶ τελευτῶντες.
[507]: All three attributed to Simonides (Frag. 26 B: P.L.G.).
[508]: A dash below the first word of a line, indicating the end of a sentence.
[509]: καμπτῆρες, properly the turning-point of the δίαυλος or double course, is here used for the goal itself.
[510]: τῶν χύδην: lit. what is poured fourth promiscuously: in flowing, unfettered language (Liddell and Scott).
[511]: Really from the Meleager of Euripides, Frag. 515 (T.G.F.). The break in the sense comes after γαῖα, Πελοπίας χθονός really belonging to the next line: ἐν ἀντιπόρθμοις πέδι’ ἔχουσ’ εὐδαίμονα. As it stands in the text, the line implies that Calydon was in Peloponnesus, which of course it was not. The meaning then is: This is the land of Calydon, with its fertile plains in the country over against Peloponnesus (on the opposite side of the strait, near the mouth of the Corinthian gulf).
[512]: It does not consist in simply dividing off any words from the context as the speaker pleases, but the parts of the sentence as a whole are properly constructed and distinguished and the sense also is complete.
[513]: A well-known musician.
[514]: Of Melos. He wrote rambling dithyrambic preludes without strophic correspondence. Others take ἀναβολή to mean an entire ode.
[515]: Hes. WD 265
[516]: Hes. WD 265. The second line is a parody of 266, ἡ δὲ κακὴ βουλὴ τῷ βουλεύσαντι κακίστη.
[517]: The beginning of Isoc. 4.
[518]: To dwell with us (Jebb). The point seems to be that the barbarian domestics were in a comfortable position as compared with those of the allies who were reduced to slavery; and there is a contrast between the desire of getting servants for private convenience, while in a matter affecting public life indifference was shown.
[519]: All the above quotations are from Isoc. 4.1, 35, 41, 48, 72, 89, 105, 149, 181, 186, with slight variations. The last quotation is part of the sentence of which the beginning appears in 7.11 above. The whole runs: And how great must we consider the fame and the name and the glory which those who have highly distinguished themselves in such deeds of valor will either have when living or will leave behind after their death.