Book 3
5
And the virtue concerned with each thing judges rightly the greater and the smaller good, just as the wise man and virtue would bid, so that all the virtues go with it, or it goes with all the virtues.
6
Again, it is thought characteristic of the great-spirited man to be disdainful. Each virtue makes men disdainful of things irrationally deemed great: for example, courage makes a man disdainful of dangers, for he thinks that to consider danger a great matter is a disgraceful thing, and that numbers are not always formidable; and the sober-minded man disdains great and numerous pleasures, and the liberal man wealth.
7
But the reason why this is thought characteristic of the great-spirited man is because of his caring about few things and those great ones, and not about whatever somebody else thinks. And a great-spirited man would consider more what one virtuous man thinks than what many ordinary people think, as Antiphon after his condemnation said to Agathon when he praised his speech for his defence.A variant reading gives as A. said to A. when he insincerely praised his defence. For Antiphon’s indictment as a leader in the revolution of the Four Hundred at Athens see Thuc. 8.68. Agathon is presumably the tragic poet, see Plato’s Symposium. The anecdote is not recorded elsewhere. And a feeling thought to be specially characteristic of the great-spirited man is disdain.
