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

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‘The cause or source of the pleasure which men feel in wanton outrages is that they think that by the illtreatment of (by doing mischief to) others they are shewing in an unusual degree their superiority over them’. μᾶλλον ‘more than they otherwise would’. Superiority, or excess in merit and good qualities, is a mark of virtue, I 9. 39, ἡ δ᾽ ὑπεροχὴ τῶν καλῶν. ...ἡ ὑπεροχὴ δοκεῖ μηνύειν ἀρετήν; and a source of pleasure, I 11. 14, τὸ νικᾶν ἡδύ...φαντασία γὰρ ὑπεροχῆς γίγνεται, οὗ πάντες ἔχουσιν ἐπιθυμίαν ἢ ἤρεμα ἢ μᾶλλον, and the corollaries of this, § 15. τὸ ἄρχειν ἥδιστον, ib. § 27. On the ‘emotion of power’ and its ramifications, the various modes in which it exhibits itself, see Mr. Bain's excellent chapter (VIII), Emotions and Will, p. 145 seq. and the quotation from Dugald Stewart in the note at the commencement [chap.x.p. 192, ed. 1875].

διὸ οἱ νέοι ὑβρισταί] Comp. II 12. 15, καὶ τὰ ἀδικήματα ἀδικοῦσιν εἰς ὕβριν καὶ οὐ κακουργίαν. This character and tendency of youth is also expressed in one of the two opposite senses of the derivatives νεανίας, νεανιεύεσθαι, νεανικός. The two last convey, in different contexts, the two sides of the youthful character, and the good and bad qualities by which it is specially distinguished. On the one hand, they represent the gallant, spirited, vigorous, impetuous, nature of youth (εὖ καὶ γενναίως, ἅτε νέος ὤν, Plat. Soph. 239 B), on the other the petulousness, wantonness, insolence, which sometimes characterises it—protervus, ferox, superbus, Ast, Lex. Plat. s. v. νεανικός. Both senses are abundantly illustrated in Plato. I will only quote Soph. 239 D, τί τις τῷ νεανίᾳ (this audacious, impertinent, youngster) πρὸς τὸ ἐρωτώμενον ἀποκρινεῖται. See Heindorf ad loc. who refers to Eur. Suppl. 580, Arist. Vesp. 1333, and interprets the word ‘de homine feroci insolentique’; and νεανιεύεσθαι, as exemplified in Lysias’ speech (Phaedr. 235 A), which ‘ran riot’, ‘passed all bounds of moderation’ in the endeavour to shew, &c.; and (according to Callicles, Gorg. 482 C) in that of Socrates, who had been talking like a mob-orator, ‘running riot, luxuriating in language full of exaggeration, extravagance.’ So that ‘to play the youth, act like a young man’, sometimes means rash and arrogant, wanton, insolent, overbearing, extravagant, licentious conduct. The examples of both these words in Demosthenes display a leaning towards the more favourable view of the youthful character. —Plat. Euthyd. 273 A, ὑβριστὴς δὲ διὰ τὸ νέος εἶναι (Gaisford).

οἱ πλούσιοι] II 16. 1, τῷ δὲ πλούτῳ ἃ ἕπεται ἤθη ἐπιπολῆς ἐστὶν ἰδεῖν ἅπασιν: ὑβρισταὶ γὰρ καὶ ὑπερήφανοι, and the reason of this. And again § 4, like the νέοι, ἀδικήματα ἀδικοῦσιν οὐ κακουργικὰ ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν ὑβριστικὰ τὰ δὲ ἀκρατευτικά. In applying the doctrine of the ‘mean’ to the various orders of population, with the view of determining the best form of government, Aristotle makes the following remark, Polit. VI (IV) 11, 1295 b 6, all excess and defect is injurious; ὑπέρκαλον δὲ ἢ ὑπερίσχυρον ἢ ὑπερευγενῆ ἢ ὑπερπλούσιον, ἢ τἀναντία τούτοις, ὑπέρπτωχον ἢ ὑπερασθενῆ καὶ σφόδρα ἄτιμον, χαλεπὸν τῷ λόγῳ ἀκολουθεῖν. γίγνονται γὰρ οἱ μὲν ὑβρισταὶ καὶ μεγαλοπόνηροι μᾶλλον, οἱ δὲ κακοῦργοι καὶ μικροπόνηροι λίαν: τῶν δ᾽ ἀδικημά- των τὰ μὲν γίγνεται δἰ ὕβριν τὰ δὲ διὰ κακουργίαν: where we have again the same distinction of crimes as in the two passages of the Rhetoric already quoted, II 12. 15, and 16.4; and a third time 13. 14, where the opposite —εἰς κακουργίαν, οὐκ εἰς ὕβριν—is said of old men. Crimes are hereby divided into two classes, crimes on a great and on a petty scale; highminded crimes of violence and audacity, outrages which imply a sense of power and superiority in those who commit them; and sneaking, underhand crimes, of fraud and low villany, which are the crimes which the poor and mean are especially inclined to.

ὑπερέχειν γὰρ οἴονται ὑβρίζοντες] This, as we have already seen, is a general tendency of human nature: but besides this general inclination, there is in the case of the young a special desire and a special inclination to assert their superiority to others, which is shewn in the love of victory, or getting the better of an opponent in the mimic combats and contests of their games; and also in their love of honour or spirit of ambition; ὑπεροχῆς γὰρ ἐπιθυμεῖ ἡ νεότης, ἡ δὲ νίκη ὑπεροχή τις, II 12. 6.

‘Again, ὕβρις is a mark of disrespect, inflicts disgrace or indignity, and this again is a mark of slight esteem; and this feeling of disrespect, and the disgrace and dishonour to the sufferer that accompany it, shew that the object of them is considered of no worth or value, because he has no honour (but the contrary), which is as much as to say that he is of no value (τιμή having the double sense), worth nothing either for good or for evil’, and therefore is the object of the contemptuous indifference which is the sting of ὀλιγωρία.

This disgrace and indignity is then illustrated by two lines of Homer Il. A 356, repeated in I (IX) 367, and I (IX) 648 (644), in which the angry Achilles expresses his indignation at the slight put upon him by Agamemnon, ‘who had taken and kept for himself (αὐτὸς ἔχει) the present (gift of honour, one of the μέρη τιμῆς; see note on γέρα, I 5. 9, p. 85) of which he had deprived him’; and had treated him ‘like some despised alien or vagabond’. μετανάστης, comp. Il. II (XVI) 59, where the line is repeated, properly a ‘settler in a foreign land’, like the μέτοικοι at Athens, a despised class without civil rights, and therefore ἀτίμητοι; Ar. Pol. III 5, 1278 a 36, ὥσπερ καὶ Ὅμηρος ἐποίησεν “ὥσει τιν᾽ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην”: ὥσπερ μέτοικος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ τῶν τιμῶν μὴ μετέχων. And Herod. VII 161, where the Athenians boast that they are μοῦνοι οὐ μετανάσται Ἑλλήνων.