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κακῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης κ.τ.λ. ‘did notshrink from being set down as having stolen what stood in other people's way.’ κακῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης is a very singular expression, ‘a thief of other people's ills,’ meaning (as some suppose) one who steals what is detrimental to other people's interests, in this case the μαρτυρία, which is a κακὸν οἰκεῖον to Phormion and a κακὸν ἀλλότριον to Stephanus. But Lambinus justly objects to the phrase, and Lortzing p. 91 rightly observes, singulariter dicta sunt. Reiske says ‘Fur alienorum malorum est Graecis ille qui mala, fraudes, scelera, clam, in occulto exsequitur et perficit, non sponte sua, sed iussualieno’; and similarly C.R. Kennedy (rather vaguely) renders it ‘a person who would commit a theft as a tool of another.’ G. H. Schaefer, who rightly doubts whether κακὰ ἀλλότρια can mean anything but mala quae alius patitur, proposes to read κακιῶν with the sense ‘qui quid furatur, ut sceleribus alius accommodet.’ Another critic (Beels, diatribe p. 100) says: ‘κακῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης lepide vocatur Stephanus, qui in gratiam Phormionis et fortasse eius iussu, testimonium e capsula surripuerat.’ Blass takes κακῶν ἀλλοτρίων as a genitive of price. Lastly, Huettner observes: ‘κακῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης Stephanus dicitur, quod surrepto illo testimonio, quo Apollodori causa maxime nitebatur, Phormionis nequitiam dissimulavit et ne coaτgueretur impedivit (κλέπτειν occultare, Soph. Aj. 1137; Dem. 29 § 5; Aesch. 3 § 142).’ In Plato Rep. 346 E we have μηδένα ἐθέλειν ἑκόντα ἄρχειν καὶ τὰ ἀλλότρια κακὰ μεταχειρίζεσθαι ἀνορθοῦντα (‘to handle and set right other people's disorders’); but neither this nor any other passage that I can find supports the sense usually assigned to the words before us.

It may therefore be worth while to suggest that κακῶν may be corrupt and should be altered into καὶ τῶν where καὶ emphasizes the whole clause τῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης ὑπέμεινεν ὀνομασθῆναι, and not τῶν ἀλλοτρίων only. [The latter construction would inappropriately import into the passage some of the humour of the lines in Aristoph. Ranae 610 εἶτ᾽ οὐχὶ δεινὰ ταῦτα, τύπτειν τουτονὶ κλέπτοντα, πρός τ᾽ ἀλλότρια ‘isn't it a shame to beat this poor fellow (Xanthias) for stealing, and that too— another man's goods?’ καὶ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων κλέπτης seems a highly probable emendation; nor is there any difficulty in καὶ referring to the general character of a κλέπτης τῶν ἀλλοτρίων. P.] Cf. also Or. 28 § 22 ἀλλὰ καὶ τἀλλότρια ἀποστερῶν ἀποδέδεικται.

Or again we may alter κακῶν into καὶ ἑκὼν, comparing § 62 where τὴν τοῦ κλέπτης φανῆναι (δόξαν) μὴ φυγὼν is parallel to ὃς μηδεὶς ἐκέλευεν ἐθελοντὴς (= ἑκὼνπονηρὸς ἦν.

ἀλλοτρίων in any case is intended to point the contrast with ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ in the second half of the sentence.

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    • Demosthenes, Against Aphobus 2, 22
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