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

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‘As regards ethical proof, since there are some things, which, if you say them of yourself, are either invidious or tedious or provoke contradiction, or which, if said of another, involve slander or rudeness, you must ascribe them to some one else instead’.

The reference to the Philippus of Isocrates points (according to Victorius) to p. 96 D §§ 72—78, where the writer gets rid of the indelicacy of himself reminding Philip of the current imputation that his growing power οὐχ ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ ταύτην αὐξάνεται, by attributing it to others in the words, αἰσθάνομαι γάρ σε διαβαλλόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν σοὶ φθονούντων in § 73, and by describing it in § 78 as τοιαύτην φήμην σαυτῷ περιφυομένην, ἣν οἱ μὲν ἐχθροὶ περιθεῖναί σοι ζητοῦσι. This, however, seems to be open to the objection pointed out by Spengel, that Isocrates can hardly be regarded as putting what are really his own views as a friend of Philip into the mouth of that monarch's enemies (“at vix Isocrates ipse haec animo probans vera putabat”). Spengel accordingly prefers taking it as a reference to §§ 4—7, where, instead of expressing his own satisfaction with one of his compositions, he states that his friends who have heard it recited had been struck by its truthful statement of facts, § 4, and had expected that, if published, it would have led to the establishment of peace; it so happened, however, that Philip had concluded peace, before the fastidious rhetorician had elaborated his pamphlet to a sufficient degree to think it deserving of publication. Perhaps a still more apposite passage, which is omitted by Victorius and Spengel, is that in p. 87 B, § 23, where the writer, after describing himself as deterred by his friends from addressing Philip, adds that finally ἔσπευδον μᾶλλον ἠγὼ πεμφθῆναί σοι τὸν λόγον τοῦτον, ἔλεγον δ᾽ ὡς ἔλπίζουσιν οὐ μόνον σὲ καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἕξειν μοι χάριν ὑπὲρ τῶν εἰρημένων ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἅπαντας.

ἐν τῇ ἀντιδόσει] §§ 141—149, ἀκροώμενος δέ τις τῶν ἐπιτηδείων ἐτόλμησεν εἰπεῖν κ.τ.λ. In the course of the passage referred to, the rhetorician makes his imaginary friend compliment him on his writings as οὐ μέμψεως ἀλλὰ χάριτος τῆς μεγίστης ἀξίους ὄντας, an expression which would have been open to the imputation of indelicacy (περὶ αὑτοῦ λέγειν ἐπίφθονον), had not the writer ingeniously placed it in another man's mouth. The device is sufficiently transparent, even if it were not for the candid confession in § 8, εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐπαινεῖν ἐμαυτὸν ἐπιχειροίην, ἑώρων οὔτε...ἐπιχαρίτως οὐδ᾽ ἀνεπιφθόνως εἰπεῖν περὶ αὐτῶν δυνησόμενος.

The same device, in a less refined form, may be noticed in the modern parallel from Martin Chuzzlewit, which will occur to every reader (chap. xxv).

Ἀρχίλοχος ψέγει...ἰάμβῳ] Hor. A. P. 79, Archilochum proprio rabies armauit iambo. Comp. note on II 23. 11. Archilochus (Lycambae spretus infido gener, Epod. VI 13), instead of directly attacking Neobule, the daughter of Lycambes, puts his lampoon into the mouth of her own father, thereby ostensibly refraining from a coarseness of invective, which would imply ἀγροικία on his own part, but really intensifying its bitterness; as the reader will naturally argue, ‘If her own father can say nothing better of her, what will the rest of the world say?’ Comp. Bergk, Gr. Lyr., p. 542, ed. 2, Archil. fragm., οἴην Λυκάμβεω παῖδα τὴν ὑπερτέρην. Stobaeus (CX 10, Bergk u. s. p. 552) has preserved nine trochaic lines beginning with the first of the two quotations given by Aristotle, but there is nothing in the passage, so far as there quoted, which illustrates Aristotle's object in here referring to it. There is a rendering of the lines by J. H. Merivale in Wellesley's Anthologia Polyglotta p. 220, beginning Never man again may swear, things shall be as erst they were.

οὔ μοι τὰ Γύγεω] τοῦ πολυχρύσου μέλει. The four lines of which this is the first are preserved by Plutarch de tranquill. an. c. 10 (Bergk Gr. Lyr. p. 541) and are thus rendered by Milman, No care have I of Gyges' golden store, Unenvious I for nought the gods implore; I have no love of wide and kingly sway But turn from pride my reckless eyes away. On Gyges, the wealthy king of Lydia, compare Herod. I 12, τοῦ (sc. Γύγεω) καὶ Ἀρχίλοχος ὁ Πάριος κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον γενόμενος ἐν ἰάμβῳ τριμέτρῳ ἐπεμνήσθη. Archilochus is inveighing against the vice of envy and the vanity of riches, and with a dramatic skill that is one of his characteristics, gives expression to his own feelings by ascribing them to Charon the contented carpenter (comp. Mure, H. G. L. III 167).

Σοφοκλῆς] Antig. 688—700, where Haemon quotes the talk of the town about Creon's treatment of Antigone, instead of himself directly attacking him. 693, τὴν παῖδα ταύτην οἰ̔̂ ὀδύρεται πόλις..., 700, τοιάδ᾽ ἐρεμνὴ σῖγ̓ ἐπέρχεται φάτις.