E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘If then fear is always accompanied with the expectation of some destructive suffering’:—the necessary alternative ἢ λυπηροῦ of the defin. § 1 is here omitted and left to be understood: as it stands, the assertion is untrue; fear can be excited by something short of absolute ruin or destruction. A general who had seen hard service replied to one who was boasting that he had never known the sensation of fear, Then sir you have never snuffed a candle with your fingers (this was in the days of tallow):—‘it is plain that no one is afraid who thinks that he is not likely (ἄν) to suffer anything at all, (that he is altogether exempt from the possibility of suffering,) or of those (particular) things that they think themselves unlikely to suffer; nor are they afraid of those (persons) whom they think incapable of doing them harm’, (μὴ οἴονται, sc. παθεῖν ἄν: and ὑφ᾽ ὧν is allowed to follow παθεῖν, because a passive sense is implied in it, ‘to be hurt or injured by’¹,) ‘nor at a time when they don't think them likely to do so’.

As an illustration of ὑφ᾽ ὧν μὴ οἴονται, Victorius quotes Homer Od. ι (IX) 513, where the Cyclops expresses his disgust at having been blinded by a contemptible little fellow, ‘weak and worthless’ like Ulysses: νῦν δέ μ᾽ ἐὼν ὀλίγος τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καὶ ἄκικυς ὀφθαλμοῦ ἀλάωσεν ἐπεί μ̓ ἐδαμάσσατο οἴνῳ.

‘Fear therefore necessarily implies, or is a necessary consequence of, the expectation of probable suffering in general (the opinion that they might suffer, of the likelihood of suffering), and (suffering) from particular persons (τούτων), and of particular things, and at particular times’.