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‘In all such cases the issue (the dispute, question in dispute, disputed point) turns upon this, whether namely (the accused party) is criminal and vicious or not; for the vice and injustice (of the act) lies in the deliberate purpose or intention, and names of this kind, such as wanton outrage and theft, connote (signify in addition to their direct and literal meaning) the deliberate intention or purpose; for the act of striking is not in every case (co-extensive with) wanton outrage, but only if it was done with a particular object or purpose, of insulting the other for instance, or for his own gratification (the wanton pleasure in the insult itself and in the humiliation it inflicts, ὅπως ἡσθῇ, Rhet. II 2. 5). Nor is surreptitious appropriation in every case theft, but only if the theft was for the injury of the other and for the thief's own private use and advantage. And so the same rule that applies to these cases holds in like manner of all the rest’. περὶ οὗ. These words, suspected from Victorius downwards, omitted by A^{c} and three other MSS, and finally rejected by Bekker and Spengel, were probably inserted by some transcriber or commentator who was doubtful about the construction. If they are omitted, the accusative, πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα, will be, as Victorius says, equivalent to κατὰ πάντα, ‘in all such cases’; which is thus grammatically to be explained. The accusative here follows the analogy of that class of accusatives which indicate the local seat of any ‘affection’ in its widest sense, and follow passive and neuter verbs and adjectives, (τερφθεὶς τοῦτο, Eur. Ion 541, ὦτα κατεαγότες, Plat. Gorg. 515 E, τὰ ὦτα κατάγνυνται, Protag. 342 B, ἀλγεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, νοσεῖν ὀφθαλμούς, βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος, πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς) and are themselves probably nothing but extensions of the ordinary cognate accusative; which passes first from the direct expression of the same notion as that in the verb, μαίνεσθαι μανίαν, τέρπεσθαι τέρψιν, to the indirect and general and indefinite neuter, μαίνεσθαι τάδε, τέρπεσθαι τοῦτο or ταῦτα (see Wunder on Oed. R. 259), and secondly into the expression of any equivalent notion almost without limit, of which the seat of the affection is one form. This is the explanation of Kühner [§ 410 anmerk. 5 of 2nd ed.], Jelf, Gr. Gr. §§ 545, 6, and I think probably the true one. Here therefore πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα ‘all such instances’ are represented locally as the seats of the several ἀμφισβητήσεις, the points on which each case turns, or legal issues: in them the points in dispute or issue are said to reside. ἐν γὰρ τῇ προαιρέσει ἡ μοχθηρία] See note on I 1. 14, and the passage there cited. One of them is Top. Z 12, 149 b 29, οὐ γὰρ ὁ λάθρα λαμβάνων ἀλλ᾽ ὁ βουλόμενος λάθρα λαμβάνειν κλέπτης ἐστίν. Add Eth. Nic. III 4, init. περὶ προαιρέσεως...οἰκειότατον γὰρ εἶναι δοκεῖ τῇ ἀρετῇ καὶ μᾶλλον τὰ ἤθη κρίνειν τῶν πράξεων. Ib. 1112 a 2, τῷ γὰρ προαιρεῖσθαι τἀγαθὰ ἢ τὰ κακὰ ποιοί τινές ἐσμεν. Ib. V 10, 1135 b 25, οὐ γὰρ διὰ μοχθηρίαν ἡ βλάβη, ὅταν δ᾽ ἐκ προαιρέσεως, ἄδικος καὶ μοχθηρός. 1136 a I, ἂν δ᾽ ἐκ προαιρέσεως βλάψῃ ἀδικεῖ. Rhet. I 14. I, 5 (implied). προσσημαίνει] περὶ ἑρμηνείας c. 3, 16 b 5, ῥῆμα δέ ἐστι τὸ προσσημαῖνον χρόνον. Ib. lines 8, 9, 13, 18, 24; ubi Ammonius, προσσημαίνειν δὲ τὸ πρὸς τῷ πρώτως δηλουμένῳ κατὰ δεύτερον λόγον καὶ ἄλλο τι συνεμφαίνειν. Eth. Eudem. II 3, 1221 b 18 seq. (where much the same thing is said as in this passage of the Rhetoric in many more words). ὕβρις] See note on I 12. 26. σφετερισμός is ‘the making a thing one's own’, appropriating it to one's self, and one's own use. Plato has σφετερίζεσθαι, and Arist. Pol. VIII (V) 11 sub fin. 1315 b 2, σφετεριστής. The meaning of the genitive ἑαυτοῦ, which looks as if it meant ‘appropriation of oneself’, must be interpreted by the opposite βλάβη ἄλλου, with which it is contrasted. As ἄλλου after βλάβη is the objective genitive, injury to another, so ἑαυτοῦ after σφετερισμός is the appropriation to yourself and your own benefit, appropriation for your own use and advantage.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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