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

προϋπηργμένων] ‘res antea virtute alicuius studioque possessas, laudes quas sibi quispiam labore suo comparaverit.’ Victorius. ‘his own previous acquisitions or possessions’; such as a stock of previous good, noble, great deeds, with which his new achievement, now the object of the encomium, is in accordance; as it ought to be. It is praiseworthy because it is the addition of a new honour, which, since honour itself is καλόν, must also have a tendency to happiness (εὐδαιμονικόν) and be right itself, and all that is right is praiseworthy.

But not only conformity with a man's antecedents may be adduced in praise of an action, but also the opposite, ‘if he surpass them, namely, and improve upon’ his own early condition and actions, or those of his ancestors, not acting in accordance with the past and what he was born to, but contrary to it, i.e. beyond it.

καταλλακτικώτερος] This does not necessarily contradict the topic of § 24; the irreconcilable temper there is only to be fostered against enemies, here it probably refers exclusively to friends: or if not, in Rhetoric either side may be taken as a subject of commendation, each suitable to a different kind or disposition of audience.

τὸ τοῦ Ἰφικράτους—τὸ τοῦ ὀλυμπιονίκου] Both of them already quoted, I 7. 32, q. v.

τὸ τοῦ Σιμωνίδου] The epigram is given at length by Thucydides VI 59. Bergk, Fragm. Lyr. Gr. Simon. Fr. 115, p. 781 [p. 906, 2nd ed.]. Ἀνδρὸς ἀριστεύσαντος ἐν Ἑλλάδι τῶν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ | Ἱππίου Ἀρχεδίκην ἥδε κέκευθε κόνις. | Ἣ πατρός τε καὶ ἀνδρὸς ἀδελφῶν τ᾽ οὖσα τυράννων | Παίδων τ᾽ οὐκ ἤρθη νοῦν ἐς ἀτασθαλίην.