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

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‘And any crime that is unique, or the first of its class (that has been committed), or has been seldom paralleled’. These three cases of especial prominence have been already applied to acts as topics of praise, I. 9. 38. See in illustration the references there given.

‘And the frequent commission of the same offence magnifies it’: because this shews the depraved habit, or confirmed state, the ἕξις which constitutes vice. ‘Nec enim is casu aut affectu, sed habitu et pravitate animi, delinquit.’ Schrader.

‘And any crime for which any checks and preventives or penalties have been sought and found (invented or discovered), as, for instance, at Argos a penalty is incurred by any one on whose account a law has been enacted (i.e. one of the <*>ωλυτικοί, or (if I may coin a word for the occasion) ζημιωτικοί, νόμοι), or on whose account the prison was built’: supply ἐζημιώθησαν. This same topic has been already employed in the opposite sense, to heighten the praise due to an action, c. 9 § 38. Schrader quotes in illustration Lysias, Or. XXII § 16 (κατὰ τῶν σιτοπώλων), οὕτω δὲ πάλαι περὶ τῆς τούτων πανουργίας καὶ κακονοίας ἡ πόλις ἔγνωκεν, ὥστ᾽ ἐπὶ μὲν τοῖς ἄλλοις ὠνίοις ἅπασι τοὺς ἀγορανόμους φύλακας κατεστήσατε, ἐπὶ δὲ ταύτῃ μόνῃ τῇ τέχνῃ χωρὶς σιτοφύλακας ἀποκληροῦτε; the appointment of a special board of officers for the control of the corn-market signalizes the special rascality of the dealers.