Disappointed expectation is also provocative of anger: ‘if a man happen to have expected the contrary (to that which does actually occur); for the pain of disappointment is increased in proportion to its unexpectedness, just as the joy in the opposite case is increased by an unexpected success. And so, by applying these principles to the different seasons, times, dispositions, and ages (in which anger chiefly manifests itself), it will be easy to see what sorts of them (the two last named) are easily moved to anger, and in what places and at what times, and also that the more they are under these circumstances (in these conditions) the more easily they are moved’. That is, the nearer they are to the critical moment in the times and seasons and to the central point or acme in the age of life, and the more they are under the influence of the particular dispositions which prompt the angry feeling—the higher the degree in each case—the greater will be the proneness to anger. Schrader supplies a very apt illustration of the ὧραι from Theocr. Id. I 15: ‘ut cibi et somni horae; caprarius ap. Theocr. Οὐ θέμις, ὦ ποιμάν, τὸ μεσαμβρινόν, οὐ θέμις ἄμμιν Συρίσδεν: τὸν Πᾶνα δεδοίκαμες: ἦ γὰρ ἀπ᾽ ἄγρας Τανίκα κεκμακὼς ἀμπαύεται: ἔντι δὲ πικρός, Καὶ οἱ ἀεὶ δριμεῖα χολὴ ποτὶ ῥινὶ κάθηται.’ Of the three ἡλικίαι, II 12. 2, Seneca, on the contrary, de Ira I 13, ult., iracundissimi infantes senesque et aegri sunt, et invalidum omne naturae querulum est (Schrader). ϝεότης is the one which is most liable to anger, Ib. § 5, com. 9. As regards times and seasons, one man might be more inclined to be angry in hot, and another in cold, weather— though perhaps this should rather be referred to the διαθέσεις or bodily temperaments; constitution, or habit of body or mind, comes under the denomination of διαθέσεις—the διάθεσις or ‘passing temporary disposition’ being apparently not here distinguished (as it ought to be, Categ. 8, p. 8 b 27, comp. 11 a 22) from the confirmed, settled, permanent, ἕξις or ‘state’. On the διαθέσεις Schrader notes, ‘Affectiones animi corporisve: ut morbus, maeror, pudor, metus. Sen. de Ira II 19, vinum incendit iram, quia auget calorem. III 10, vetus dictum est, a lasso rixam quaeri (fatigue). Aeque autem et ab esuriente et a siticnte, et ab omni homine quem aliqua res urit: nam uti ulcera ad levem tactum, deinde etiam ad suspicionem tactus, condolescunt (this describes a state of irritation or inflammation); ita animus affectus minimis offenditur. Adeo ut quosdam salutatio, epistola, oratio, et interrogatio in litem evocent’. Every situation or condition of pain, discomfort, malaise, constraint, &c. makes a man irritable.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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