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τὸ ἐπαινετόν] The proper object of ἔπαινος is virtue, any kind of practical excellence; ἔστι δ᾽ ἔπαινος λόγος ἐμφανίζων μέγεθος ἀρετῆς, Rhet. I 9, 33. On ἔπαινος as the test of virtue and the distinction of this from ἐγκώμιον and εὐδαιμονισμός, see Introd. Appendix B to Bk. I ch. 9, p. 212 seq. It is there said that ἔπαινος and ψόγος are the equivalents of Butler's ‘moral approbation and disapprobation’. This requires some qualification. When the ‘intellectual’ virtues are included as the objects of ἔπαινος, as they certainly are in the Eth. Eud. II 1. 18, the approbation loses its exclusively moral character. In Eth. Nic. I 12, Aristotle together with the moral virtues, justice, courage, ‘goodness’ in general, includes also as objects of praise all kinds of ἀρετή or excellence, such as strength and swiftness, which are manifested in action.

καὶ οἱ ἐχθροὶ καὶ οἱ φαῦλοι ἐπαινοῦσιν] Victorius, in illustration of the former of these two topics, quotes Virg. Aen. XI 282, Stetimus tela aspera contra, Contulimusque manus; experto credite quantus In clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam. The prowess of Aeneas could not be more highly extolled than by the praises extorted from his enemy Diomede.

καὶ οἱ φαῦλοι] is rejected as a subsequent insertion by Muretus, F. A. Wolf, Bekker, Brandis, and Spengel, because it is passed over unnoticed in the explanatory commentary that follows, ὥσπερ γὰρπεπονθότες. Vater alone defends it. The explanation of it is easy, and it is perfectly consistent with the context and with good sense. If the vilest and meanest, the ‘worthless and contemptible’, φαῦλοι, who are least likely to be sensible of merit in others, being almost devoid of right moral instinct, find themselves compelled to praise some signal act of valour, disinterestedness, or virtue—we are engaged here upon actions—a fortiori it must meet with the approbation of better judges, and be emphatically good. If with this reasonable explanation we take into account Aristotle's hasty and careless habit, twice already noticed, of interrupting an explanation or an argument by the insertion of something bearing indirectly on the subject, but not immediately appropriate, I think we may without scruple retain the words objected to.

ὥσπερ γὰρ πάντες ἤδη ὁμολογοῦσιν] ‘for this is now as good as, equivalent to, an universal admission’. ἤδη, ‘by this time’, now that we have got as far as this, have reached, that is, the level of enemies, the extreme case of those who are interested in denying the merit—if they approve, all others must necessarily do so.

διὰ γὰρ τὸ φανερὸν...τὸ Ἴλιον] There is a difficulty here which has much occupied the commentators, arising from the want of connexion, as the present text stands, between the two rules laid down, ὥσπερ καὶ... ἐπαινοῦσιν, and the example (from Simonides) which is said, διό, to follow from them: the example, according to the present reading, is not an inference from either of them. The best way of meeting the difficulty seems to be to adopt, with Spengel, the reading of the best MS A^{c}. This omits the words οὓς οἱ φίλοι ψέγουσι καὶ ἀγαθοί, without which the sense is clear and consistent. ‘For it must be owing to its being evident that they are inclined to (would) admit it, just as’ (it is equally evident that, by the same rule, in the opposite case) ‘those who are praised by their enemies must be worthless’, (because if your enemy approves of your conduct towards him, which is assumed to be hostile, it shews that you can have done him no harm: and therefore that you have been wanting either in courage or patriotism or energy and skill). Of this the example of the Corinthians is now a real instance, and their suspicion of Simonides' intentions may be traced to the general rule. ‘And this was why the Corinthians conceived the suspicion that they had been insulted by Simonides, when he wrote, ‘Ilium has no fault to find with the Corinthians’ (which it ought to have had if they had done their duty). The Corinthians misinterpreted Simonides’ expressions; his intentions were innocent, but he failed to perceive the inference that might be derived from them. The line of Simonides is apparently misquoted by a lapse of memory. The Schol. Pind. Ol. XIII p. 78, who cites it, has μανίει (ι^) for μέμφεται; and this reading appears also in another reference to it in Plut. Vit. Dion. c. I sub init. (cf. Bergk and Gaisf.), Σιμωνίδης φησὶ τοῖς Κορινθίοις οὐ μηνίειν τὸ Ἴλιον ἐπιστρατεύσασι μετὰ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, ὅτι κἀκείνοις οἱ περὶ Γλαῦκον ἐξ ἀρχῆς Κορίνθιοι γεγονότες συνεμάχουν προθύμως. Homer only says, Il. Z 152 seq., that Glaucus himself attributed his origin to Sisyphus of Ephyre or Corinth. If this be the true explanation of the reason why Ilium was ‘not wroth’, or ‘found no fault’, with the Corinthians, and Aristotle remembered it when he used the example, it seems that the instance is very ill chosen for the purpose of illustrating the rule. In this case nothing is imputed to the Corinthians except that the aid of Glaucus and his men of Corinthian race compensated the Trojans for their own hostility, and therefore that Troy had nothing to reproach them with, which could scarcely be construed by them as an insult: and the example only applies to the rule which it is supposed to exemplify in this sense; that the Trojans ought by the rule to have been represented as having directly censured the Corinthians, if Simonides had intended to pay them a compliment; by the mere omission of this they thought that he had insulted them.

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