The Seba library treats Aret in 9 passages, across 3 authors (including Sullivan, Shirley Darcus, Arthur W.H. Adkins, Hesiod).
Many evil men are rich, and many good men are poor, but we will not exchange our arete for the wealth of these, since it is always enduring whereas different people at different times have wealth.
Theognis presents arete as a permanent quality of noble character utterly independent of wealth, establishing the foundational tension between aristocratic excellence and material fortune.
, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995thesis
In the Scopas poem (542), he essentially places the achievement of the standard notion of arefi in a special category. Pittacus is wrong in saying that ‘it is difficult to be good’. It is instead impossible, if human beings encounter a disaster of great proportion.
Simonides radically reframes arete by arguing that the traditional ‘four-square’ ideal is practically unattainable under the conditions of human necessity and catastrophe, relocating the moral standard from absolute achievement to the avoidance of willing shame.
, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995thesis
Given the paramount position of arete, it is not easy to provide a reason for this allocation of spheres of influence, should anyone attempt to question it.
Adkins identifies arete’s unquestioned supremacy as the structural reason why the separation of martial excellence from civic dikaiosune was philosophically unstable and ultimately untenable.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960thesis
There is a sense in which arete may be opposed to wealth, as was the case in Theognis; but in such contexts
Adkins demonstrates that even in fourth-century usage, arete retains the competitive aristocratic sense of wealth-and-birth, though a counter-tradition opposing it to mere material possession persists from Theognis onward.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960thesis
in the earlier Hippolytus arete was used to commend Hippolytus’ chastity—for, Eur. frag. 446 Nauck, arete is equated with sephrosune, in explicit reference to Hippolytus
Adkins traces Euripides’ extension of arete to encompass sophrosune (chastity, self-restraint), marking a significant expansion of the term into the domain of ‘quiet’ moral virtues.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960supporting
to acknowledge past aretai as aretai, but claim that they are irrelevant, is much more fruitful than to say that other activities are more important aretai
Adkins analyses rhetorical strategies in Athenian legal oratory that acknowledge arete’s traditional force while attempting to neutralise its claim, revealing the term’s ineliminable weight in public discourse.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960supporting
In chapter 4 we treated Xenophanes’ poem 2 in which he claims that wisdom (sophia) is the highest form of arere.
Sullivan traces Xenophanes’ redefinition of arete as sophia rather than athletic or military prowess, grounding the claim in the social value of wisdom for civic good order (eunomie).
, Psychological and Ethical Ideas What Early Greeks Say, 1995supporting
it was said of one man that he reached such a pitch of arete that he felt more anger at the wrongs done to the people than gratitude to those responsible for his return from exile.
Adkins documents how democratic Athenian rhetoric appropriated arete for civic-moral ends, stripping its oligarchic flavour while retaining its evaluative force as the highest commendation.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960supporting
Arete, of
A bare index reference to ‘Arete’ as a named figure in the Hesiodic corpus, indicating the term’s mythological as well as ethical valence in archaic Greek thought.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700aside