This text is part of:
‘And anything that is possible for inferiors in capacity (and personal qualities in general), and power or position, and intelligence, is a fortiori possible to the opposites (those who are superior) in all these’. Schrader quotes in illustration: Ergo haec (ferre laborem, contemnere vulnus,) veteranus miles facere poterit, doctus vir sapiensque non poterit? ille vero melius ac non paullo quidem (Cic. Tusc. 11 17). Galgacus, ap. Tacit. Agric. 31, Brigantes femina duce exurere coloniam, expugnare castra, ac nisi felicitas in socordiam vertisset, exuere iugum potuere: nos integri et indomiti primo statim congressu non ostendemus quos sibi Caledonia viros seposuerit? ‘As indeed Isocrates said, that it was monstrous to suppose that what an Euthynus could learn he himself should be unable to discover’. Of Euthynus Buhle says, “de Euth. nihil constat, praeterquam quod ex hoc loco colligi potest, fuisse eum stupidi et sterilis ingenii hominem.” After all it is only Isocrates' estimate of him that we have to judge by: in comparison with himself most of Isocrates' contemporaries were to him contemptible. The name of Euthynus does not occur in Isocrates' extant orations. A doubtful speech, πρὸς Εὐθύνουν (Ready wit), is printed with his works. This Euthynous was ἀνεψιὸς Νικίου, § 9. Of course he cannot be the person here meant. Euthynus, a wrestler, is mentioned by Demosthenes, c. Mid. § 71, who might possibly be the man for whom Isocrates expressed his contempt. [The latter part of the speech πρὸς Εὐθύνουν, Isocr. Or. 21, has not been preserved, and Aristotle may possibly be here referring to something in the part that is now missing. Perhaps the only difficulty about this supposition is the loose sense in which Ἰσοκράτης ἔφη must then be interpreted, as the speech in question (whether written, as I believe, by Isocrates, or not) was not delivered by him. In another speech, Isocr. πρὸς Καλλίμαχον, Or. 18 § 15, we have the words: θαυμάζω δ᾽ εἰ αὑτὸν μὲν ἱκανὸν γνῶναι νομίζει, ὅτι...ἐμὲ δ̓ οὐκ ἂν οἴεται τοῦτ̓ ἐξευρεῖν, εἴπερ ἐβουλόμην ψευδῆ λέγειν, ὅτι κ.τ.λ., and Aristotle may, after all, be quoting memoriter, as is his wont, from the latter passage; in this case we should have to suppose that Εὔθυνος is a slip of memory for Καλλίμαχος. See Blass, die Attische Beredsamkeit, II 203; and comp. Jebb's Attic Orators, II 259. S.]
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.