‘And the refusal to undergo labours which older men (than ourselves are willing to endure); or men brought up in the lap of luxury, in luxurious habits (which engender tenderness, and delicacy, and effeminacy, and in general tastes and habits averse to labour); or those who are in higher authority’ (if they condescend to undertake them, we are a fortiori bound to do so: or rather perhaps, in consideration of the μαλακία which seems intended to include all the preceding, for the same reason as the last mentioned, that they have not been inured to labour); ‘or in general, those who are weaker, less capable of undertaking them, than ourselves; for all these are signs of softness, delicacy, or effeminacy’. The οἱ ἐν ἐξουσίᾳ μᾶλλον may be illustrated by the case of a commanding officer on a march dismounting from his horse, and walking on foot by the side of his men. Such an example would certainly shame any of the men who complained of fatigue. [Xen. Anab. III 4. 46—49.]
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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