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καὶ τὸ οἴεσθαι (ἕπεται τῷ πλούτῳ). ‘Cum καὶ οἱ οἰόμενοι pergere oporteret, τὸ οἴεσθαι posuit.’ Vater. ‘Wealth too is accompanied (in the minds of its possessors) by the opinion of a just claim to power (office, authority); and this is due to the supposition that they have what makes power worth having (ἄξιον). This I think is the only way of translating the text, with ἄξιον: and so the Vetus Translatio; habere enim putant quorum gratia principari dignum. The version of Victorius is quod tenere se putant ea, quae qui possident regno digni sunt. But this seems to require ἄξιοι, though the sense and connexion are certainly better; ἄξιοι had suggested itself to me as a probable emendation. Bekker and Spengel retain ἄξιον. ‘And in sum, the character that belongs to wealth is that of a thriving blockhead (a prosperous fool, good luck without sense).’ Victorius very properly observes that εὐδαιμονία is not to be understood in its strict ethical sense of real happiness, which must exclude folly, but it is used here loosely as a synonym of εὐτυχία. He also quotes a parallel phrase in Cic. de Amic. (54), nihil insipiente fortunato intolerabilius fieri potest.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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