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Book II Chapter 7

Gentleness Generosity and Greatness of Soul

Gentleness is a state intermediate between irascibility and callousness; generosity, a mean between prodigality and illiberality;⁷⁰⁵ greatness of soul, a mean between vanity and smallness of soul.⁷⁰⁶

Magnificence and Indignation

Magnificence is ⟨a mean between ostentation and pettiness;⁷⁰⁷ indignation is⟩ a mean between enviousness and malicious joy.⁷⁰⁸

Dignity Modesty and Wit

Dignity is a mean between self-will and obsequiousness;⁷⁰⁹ modesty, a mean between shamelessness and being overawed;⁷¹⁰ wit, ⟨a mean⟩ between buffoonery and boorishness.⁷¹¹

Friendship Truthfulness and Justice

Friendship is a mean between flattery and enmity; truthfulness, a mean between self-depreciation and boastfulness;⁷¹² justice, a mean between excess and deficiency, and much and little.⁷¹³

Other Virtues and Their Kinds

There are many other virtues, some in their own right and others among the kinds of those already mentioned. For example, under justice fall piety, holiness, kindness, good fellowship, and fair dealing; under self-control, propriety, orderliness, and self-sufficiency;⁷¹⁴ ⟨under courage, stoutheartedness and love of effort⟩. It is not out of place to run through their definitions as well.⁷¹⁵

Piety and Holiness

Piety is a state of attending to gods and divine spirits, lying between godlessness and superstition.⁷¹⁶ Holiness is a state of observing what is just toward the gods and the departed, lying between unholiness and a certain unnamed state.⁷¹⁷

Kindness and Good Fellowship

Kindness is a state of voluntarily benefiting people for those people’s own sake, lying between wickedness and an unnamed state.⁷¹⁸ Good fellowship is a state that renders people blameless in association, lying between unsociability and an unnamed state.⁷¹⁹

Fair Dealing

Fair dealing is a state that guards against injustice in contracts, lying between bad dealing and an unnamed state.⁷²⁰ (The unnamed state is, in a way, strict justice.)⁷²¹

Propriety and Orderliness

Propriety is a state of observing what is fitting in movements and postures, lying between impropriety and an unnamed state.⁷²² Orderliness is a state that aims at what is noble in order, lying between disorder and an unnamed state.⁷²³

Self Sufficiency

Self-sufficiency is a state content with what comes one’s way, together with generosity, lying between poverty and extravagance.⁷²⁴

Stoutheartedness and Love of Effort

Stoutheartedness is a state unconquerable in enduring terrible things, between faintheartedness and warlike frenzy.⁷²⁵ Love of effort is a state that does not yield to toil and works to accomplish the noble, between softness and futile toil.⁷²⁶

Nobility and Goodness and Complete Virtue

Virtue constituted from all the ethical virtues is called nobility and goodness, and is complete virtue,⁷²⁷ making good things beneficial and noble, and choosing noble things for their own sake.⁷²⁸

705.The extremes remain in their printed order. Gentleness occupies the middle between readiness to anger and lack of feeling; generosity between wasteful giving and lack of generosity. The source prints πραότητα here, while the earlier discussion also uses forms with iota subscript. No change of the named virtue is intended.

706.Χαυνότης is puffed-up vanity, and μικροψυχία smallness of soul. The order here is vanity followed by smallness of soul, whereas the list in II.7.20.13 placed smallness of soul before vanity. Both source orders are retained.

707.The continuous angle-bracketed supplement begins with the mean defining magnificence and ends with the introduction of indignation. Its entire extent remains bracketed in Greek and English. Σαλακωνεία is ostentation or affected grandeur, a variant of the σαλακωνία printed in II.7.20.13; μικροπρέπεια is pettiness. The two printed forms are not silently made identical.

708.Φθονερία is enviousness and ἐπιχαιρεκακία malicious joy at another’s misfortune. Νέμεσις is indignation, distinct from both. Its fuller association with undeserved good fortune was explained at II.7.21.1. The mean classification remains the one asserted by this account.

709.Σεμνότης is dignity in social conduct. Αὐθάδεια is stubborn self-will or self-assertion, while ἀρέσκεια is an excessive eagerness to please, rendered obsequiousness. These are opposing ways of dealing with others, not two synonyms for the same pride.

710.Αἰδώς is modesty or a sense of shame. Κατάπληξις is being overawed, an inhibiting extreme opposite shamelessness in this classification. The source does not replace it with the ordinary fear that courage regulates.

711.The word ⟨μεσότητα⟩ is supplied and remains bracketed as a mean. Εὐτραπελία concerns wit or ready humor; βωμολοχία buffoonery, and ἀγροικία boorishness. The opposition concerns manner in social amusement rather than identifying every joke with a vice.

712.Φιλία retains friendship, the word used in section 22; in this classification it also concerns friendliness in association. Κολακεία is flattery and ἔχθρα enmity. Εἰρωνεία is self-depreciation or the understating of one’s qualities, opposed to boastfulness, ἀλαζονεία. Truthfulness concerns an accurate presentation rather than a mean between truth and falsehood.

713.The Greek retains both pairs, ὑπεροχή and ἔλλειψις, excess and deficiency, followed by πολύ and ὀλίγον, much and little. No pair is omitted as redundant. Compare the earlier explanation of proportionate equality in II.7.20.16. The source’s classification of justice as a mean is preserved.

714.The distinction between virtues in their own right and kinds subordinate to the virtues named above remains. All five under justice and all three under self-control are retained. These relationships resemble the earlier Stoic classification at II.7.5b2.2, but the local Peripatetic list is followed, including its separate holiness and self-sufficiency.

715.The entire phrase assigning stoutheartedness and love of effort to courage is supplied in Wachsmuth’s text and remains bracketed in both languages. Ἐπιδραμεῖν means to run over briefly; ὅροι are definitions. The next clauses define all ten of the named subordinate virtues, including the two introduced by this supplement.

716.Εὐσέβεια is piety, and θεραπευτική concerns attendance, service, or worship. Δαίμονες are divine spirits, without the necessarily evil sense of modern demons. The two named extremes are ἀθεότης, godlessness, and δεισιδαιμονία, superstition or excessive fear of divine powers.

717.Ὁσιότης, holiness, is distinguished from piety by its definition through obligations of justice toward both gods and the dead. Κατοιχόμενοι are the departed. The opposite ἀνοσιότης is named, but the other extreme remains unnamed; no name or additional practice is supplied to fill it.

718.The definition of χρηστότης includes both willingness, ἑκουσίως, and the beneficiaries’ own sake, αὐτῶν ἐκείνων χάριν. These motives are not replaced with an unstated aim of reputation or repayment. One extreme, πονηρία, wickedness, is named; the other is not.

719.Εὐκοινωνησία concerns good fellowship or participation in common life. The plural ἀμέμπτους supplies people as the implicit object, while ἐν κοινωνίᾳ specifies the sphere of association. The Greek retains ἀκοινωνησία, unsociability, and leaves the opposite extreme unnamed. The compressed printed construction is followed without replacing it with an apparatus conjecture.

720.Εὐσυναλλαξία concerns fair conduct in dealings, with συμβόλαια specifying contracts or agreements. Εὐλαβητική means careful to avoid or guard against something, here injustice. Ἀσυναλλαξία is rendered bad dealing; it can suggest an inability or unwillingness to deal properly.

721.The parenthesis identifies the otherwise unnamed extreme only approximately: πως, in a way. Τὸ ἀκριβοδίκαιον is strict or exact justice; in this contrast it suggests an excessively rigorous insistence on what is just. Both the unusual description and its qualification remain, rather than assigning the extreme a new formal name.

722.Both κινήσεις, movements, and σχέσεις, postures or positions, remain in the definition of εὐκοσμία. Τὸ πρέπον is what is fitting. The named opposite, ἀκοσμία, is impropriety or lack of decorum in this context; the other extreme is left unnamed.

723.Εὐταξία is orderliness, with στοχαστική again expressing an aim at a target. Its object is the noble in matters of τάξις, order or arrangement. The named extreme is ἀταξία, disorder. This definition is distinguished from the preceding one concerning movements and postures.

724.The definition joins contentment with available circumstances to ἐλευθεριότης, generosity; neither element is omitted. Αὐτάρκεια is self-sufficiency here, defined as a particular ethical state. The source names πτωχεία, poverty or beggary, rather than ἀνελευθερία, illiberality, as one extreme; πολυτέλεια is costly extravagance. The unusual pairing is retained rather than rewritten as the earlier definition of generosity.

725.Εὐψυχία is stoutheartedness, as in II.7.19.10. Its definition preserves endurance of terrible things and the two extremes: ἀψυχία, faintheartedness, and ἀρειμανιότης, warlike frenzy. The latter word evokes Ares, the god of war, and is not replaced with the earlier rashness or with absence of all fear.

726.Φιλοπονία is love of effort. Both not yielding to toils and accomplishing the noble remain. Μαλακία is softness or inability to bear hardship, while ματαιοπονία is futile toil. The mean therefore concerns the end and character of effort, not an unqualified preference for the greatest amount of labor.

727.Καλοκἀγαθία remains nobility and goodness, the compound used at II.7.18.4 and 20.2. Here it is constituted from all the ethical virtues and called complete. Its earlier inclusion among qualities of the rational part is not silently removed or made identical to this formulation.

728.The two activities remain distinct: making good things beneficial and noble, and choosing noble things for their own sake. The printed order ὠφέλιμα καὶ καλά, beneficial and noble, is retained; Wachsmuth records a proposed different order in the apparatus. The conclusion does not reduce nobility to usefulness. Section 25 ends here, before the transition to household management and politics in section 26.