previous next
do not fall within the limits of Vice, nor yet does Bestiality; and to conquer or yield to them does not constitute Unrestraint1 in the strict sense, but only the state so called by analogy; just as a man who cannot control his anger must be described as ‘unrestrained in’ that passion, not ‘unrestrained.’

(Indeed folly, cowardice, profligacy, and ill-temper, whenever they run to excess, are either bestial or morbid conditions. [6] One so constituted by nature as to be frightened by everything, even the sound of a mouse, shows the cowardice of a lower animal; the man who was afraid of a weasel was a case of disease. So with folly: people irrational by nature and living solely by sensation, like certain remote tribes of barbarians, belong to the bestial class; those who lose their reason owing to some disease, such as epilepsy, or through insanity, to the morbid.) [7]

With these unnatural propensities it is possible in some cases merely to have the disposition and not to yield to it: I mean, for instance, Phalaris2 might have had the desire to eat a child, or to practise unnatural vice, and refrained; or it is possible not merely to possess but to yield to the propensity. [8] As therefore with Vice, that natural to man is called simply vice, whereas the other kind3 is termed not simply vice, but vice with the qualifying epithet bestial or morbid, similarly with Unrestraint, it is clear that the bestial and morbid kinds are distinct from unrestraint proper, and that the name without qualification belongs only

1 We must understand ‘does not constitute restraint or unrestraint’ unless we amend ‘and to fail to conquer, or to be conquered by, them does not constitute unrestraint.’

2 No such stories about Phalaris are alluded to elsewhere; so Burnet here brackets the name, supposing the subject of κατεῖχεν to be unexpressed, and taking 5.2 to refer to Phalaris's well-known practice of burning human victims in a bronze bull. But that was hardly an instance of Bestiality.

3 i.e., inhuman vice.

load focus Greek (J. Bywater)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: