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

Some of the special topics which follow as instances of αὐξητικά have been already mentioned in § 25, and appear again as giving a special importance or prominence to crimes in c. 14. 4, with the omission of the last. They, and others of the like kind, are included in the Rhet. ad Alex. 35 (36), 12, 13, under the general head of ‘Comparison’ with others for the purpose of laudation, to which they are all reducible. Comp. Cic. de Orat. II 85. 347—8, and Quint. Inst. Or. III 7. 16. With καὶ ὃ μάλιστα πεποίηκεν, εἰ πεποίηκεν must be supplied for the sense after καί.

τὰ ἐκ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν] ‘circumstances of time and opportunity’ give a praiseworthy character to particular actions at special times and seasons. This topic, equally applicable to comparative goods, has already occurred, c. 7. 32: and with παρὰ τὸ προσῆκον, comp. c. 9. 31. If, for instance, a man performs an act of liberality, at a time of great pecuniary pressure, or in a case of emergency, or at a crisis of especial difficulty, he is then doing something παρὰ τὸ προσῆκον, beyond what could naturally be expected from him, or any one else, and is entitled to especial credit for it. Similarly Victorius.

καὶ εἰ πολλάκις τὸ αὐτὸ κατώρθωκεν] This topic is not to be confounded with τὸ πολλάκις φαίνεσθαι πεπραχότα of § 32. That is a ‘repetition of the act’, this denotes the ‘repeated success’ in any attempt, the constant success is an indication—not infallible, or certain as a proof—of special skill: as if a man were to throw sixes several times running, even if it were by mere accident, the inference would be that he had a special knack or skill in throwing dice. ‘The constancy of the success gives it importance, and it will seem not accidental but due to the agent himself’.

καὶ εἰ τὰ προτρέποντα κ.τ.λ.] ‘And any one’ (on whose account, in consequence of his actions and distinctions) ‘to commemorate whom incentives, stimulants, to virtue (‘encouragements’ to do the like), or marks of respect for it, have been invented or were ever ‘instituted’, must be a praiseworthy character’. This is the general case of the invention or establishment of any public mark of honour in commemoration of the great deeds or distinctions of any signal public benefactor, and as an incentive or encouragement to others to follow his example.

The next clause, εἰς ὃν πρῶτον, is a particular example of the former of the two preceding cases, the ‘invention’, the first appropriation, of something in a person's honour. Victorius thinks that κατεσκευάσθη is especially applied to the permanent establishment of an enduring monument, as a temple.

This topic again is afterwards applied to crimes, in c. 14. 4.

εὕρηται...κατεσκευάσθη] We may note here the juxtaposition of the perf. and aor., apparently with no distinction of time intended. I have elsewhere noticed (Pref. to Transl. of Gorgias, pp. xv. xvi.) the difference of idiom between the Greek and English languages which obliges us sometimes to translate the Greek aorist by the English perfect. Other examples of the same inadvertence, confusion of tenses, or whatever else it is to be called, occur, I 3. 8, where πραχθῆναι in the same sense and in the same opposition is repeated in the form πεπρᾶχθαι, Top. IX sub fin. p. 184 a 8, βεβοήθηκε μὲν...τέχνην δ᾽ οὐπαρέδωκεν. Many instances are found in Sophocles, which in a writer so subtle in the distinctions of language might lead one to think that he at any rate distinguishes them with a meaning. I leave the reader to judge. Philoct. 664, 666, (Herm. 676), λόγῳ μὲν ἐξήκουσ᾽ ὄπωπα δ̓ οὐ μάλα, 927—8, οἷά μ̓ εἰργάσω, οἰ̔̂ ἠπάτηκας. 1172, τί μ̓ ὤλεσας; τί μ̓ εἴργασαι; Antig. 406 (Dind.), present and aorist, καὶ πῶς ὁρᾶται κἀπίληπτος ᾑρέθη; 1228—9, Aj. 31, Trach. 364, 5, Arist. Ran. 1010—11 (Dind.), πεποίηκας...ἀπέδειξας, Plat. Phaedr. 231 A, ἅ τε καὶ διέθεντο, καὶ ἃ πεποιήκασιν εὖ. Dem. de F. L. § 228, οὐτ᾽ ἠνώχλησα οὔτε...βεβίασμαι.

εἰς ὃν πρῶτον...] The novelty of the distinction, invented expressly for the occasion, marks a still higher sense entertained of the value of the service or the virtue of the act which it is intended to commemorate.

ἐγκώμιον ἐποιήθη] ποιεῖν is here loosely used, by the so-called figure zeugma (on c. 4. 6, note 1), in connexion with ἐγκώμιον and the statue of Harmodius and Aristogeiton in two different senses—as to Hippolochus, until we know who he was, and in what way commemorated, the application must remain uncertain—of writing the panegyric, and ‘setting up the statue in the market-place’.

Of Hippolochus nothing is known. It seems that Aristotle intended the ἐγκώμιον to refer to him. We should therefore insert a semicolon, or at least a comma after Ἱππόλοχον, in order to connect the panegyric and the statue with those that they severally concern: εἰς is to be repeated after καί. ‘And one (is especially praiseworthy) in whose honour a panegyric was first composed, as it was for Hippolochus; (and as the setting up of their statue in the market was ‘done’ first, ἐποιήθη, i.e.), and as the privilege of having their statue erected in the market was granted for the first time to Harmodius and Aristogeiton’. Thucydides in his episodical account of the assassination and the circumstances that led to it, VI 54—59, makes no mention of the statue; nor Aristotle Pol. VIII (V) 10, where the attack on Hipparchus is spoken of. Pausanias, 1 8. 5, says, οὐ πόῤῥω δὲ ἑστᾶσιν Ἁρμόδιος καὶ Ἀριστογείτων οἱ κτείναντες Ἵππαρχον: αἰτία δὲ ἥτις ἐγένετο κ.τ.λ. He is describing the ἀγορά, though he does not expressly name it. (See Smith's Dict. of Geogr. Art. Athena, p. 293 b.)

ἐπὶ τῶν ἐναντίων] ‘in the opposite cases’, of men to whom any reproach or stigma, mark of disapprobation (the test of vice) was first attached. ‘cum nempe quempiam aut solum aut primum aut cum paucis flagitium admisisse ostendemus, turpitudinem ipsius valde augebimus.’ Victorius. On the topics of vituperation, Quintilian, Inst. Or. III 7. 19—22.

κἂν μὴ καθ᾽ αὑτὸν εὐπορῇς κ.τ.λ.] ‘and if you have not enough to say about your hero himself, and in his own person, then institute a comparison between him and others... only the comparison must be with men of distinction, (reputation); because the amplifying power of the comparison and the impression of nobility which it creates, arise from the superiority which is attributed to him over those who are themselves worthy and good’. The same topic is recommended in the Rhet. ad Alex. c. 3 (4). 6.

ὅπερ Ἰσοκράτης—δικολογεῖν] ‘which was Isocrates’ custom, owing to his want of practice in forensic pleading’. Read ἀσυνήθειαν [with A^{c}] for two reasons. First, what is meant is that Isocrates cultivated the habit of comparing his hero with others in consequence of his want of actual practice in the law-courts. There the pleading is always direct, and the arguments pointed at an adversary; comparisons with others are altogether out of place, or only occasionally serviceable. If Isocrates had had this practice, he would not have fallen into the habit of comparing, into which he had been led by confining himself to the epideictic branch of Rhetoric where they tell and are in point. Secondly, this is what Isocrates himself tells us of his own habits and pursuits, Antid. §§ 2, 3, ἐγὼ γὰρ εἰδὼς ἐνίους τῶν σοφιστῶν βλασφημοῦντας περὶ τῆς ἐμῆς διατριβῆς καὶ λέγοντας ὡς ἔστι περὶ δικογραφίαν... αὐτὸς δὲ πᾶσι τοῦτο πεποιηκέναι φανερὸν ὅτι προῄρημαι καὶ λέγειν καὶ γράφειν οὐ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων συμβολαίων, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὲρ τηλικούτων κ.τ.λ. Panath. § 11, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ τοῦ πολιτεύεσθαι διήμαρτον ἐπὶ τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν (i.e. literary labour, speech writing) καὶ πονεῖν καὶ γράφειν, οὐ περὶ μικρῶν τὴν προαίρεσιν ποιούμενος οὐδὲ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων συμβολαίων οὐδὲ περὶ ὧν ἄλλοι τίνες ληροῦσιν, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν κ.τ.λ. Ib. § 39 seq. ἡγοῦμαι δὲ χρῆναι τοὺς βουλομένους ἐγκωμιάσαι τινὰ τῶν πόλεων ἀκριβῶς καὶ δικαίως μὴ μόνον περὶ αὐτῆς ποιεῖσθαι τοὺς λόγους ἧς προῃρημένοι τυγχάνουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ (here follows a simile) οὕτω καὶ ταῖς πόλεσι παριστάναι μὴ τὰς μικρὰς ταῖς μεγάλαις, κ.τ.λ. [Cf. note on Paneg. § 11. S.]

Here we find, first, that he failed in public life; secondly, that he withdrew from the law-courts and their ἴδια συμβόλαια, the cases arising out of the ‘private dealings’ of the citizens with one another in their ordinary business, in order to devote himself to philosophy and the study of public affairs; and thirdly, that his ordinary practice in his Panegyrics was, just as Aristotle describes it, to compare, παριστάναι, the object of his laudation with others, whether men or cities, as great and distinguished as themselves, πρὸς ἐνδόξους συγκρίνειν. The two first of these statements seem to put the reading ἀσυνήθειαν beyond question, συνήθειαν being contrary alike to the known facts and the probabilities of the case. It is nevertheless supported by Max Schmidt, in his tract on the date of the Phetoric, pp. 17, 18. With this reading, δικολογία must be confined to speech writing for the use of parties in a legal process.

This is one of the passages of the Rhetoric on which Victorius founds his charge against Aristotle of jealousy and illwill towards Isocrates, whom he supposes the other to have lost no opportunity of assailing with open or covert censure and ridicule in his Rhetoric. See his commentary, pp. 154, 507, 586, 605, and elsewhere. Here at least, (with the reading ἀσυνήθειαν), there is neither one nor the other. I have already entered into this question in the Introd. p. 40—1, where I have given the opinions of later writers on the subject.

συγκρίνειν] Pol. VI (IV) 11, sub init. 12, 1296 b 24, Metaph. A 4, 985 a 24, 26, Top. A 5, 102 b 15, H 3, 154 a 5, 9, Θ 5, 159 b 25. ‘σύγκρισι ς, ἀδόκιμος φωνή. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὸ συγκρίνειν τόνδε τῷδε καὶ συνέκρινεν ἡμάρτηται: χρὴ οὖν ἀντεξετάζειν καὶ παραβάλλειν λέγειν.’ Phrynichus. See Lobeck's note ad loc. p. 278. In all the passages quoted, except the two of the Metaph., συγκρίνειν and σύγκρισις denote comparison: in the other two it is a term of the early Physical Philosophy, meaning a composition of elements, opposed to διάκρισις.

Victorius quotes in illustration of πρὸς ἐνδόξους συγκρίνειν, Catullus, Carmen 64, 344, non illi quisquam bello se conferet heros, seq. Cic. de Or. II 85, 348, est etiam cum ceteris praestantibus viris comparatio in laude praeclara.