I rejoined our people, and expected a reprimand for having forced the enemy without orders; though I had my excuse ready. But here I was mistaken; for I met with nothing but encomiums.

Many a new locomotive class has received encomiums in these columns because its early work was outstanding, judged by the then prevailing standards.

I am, you will agree, mature, and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the-slipper. I remember one of the hostesses whose Christmas parties I attended comparing me to a juvenile bloodhound. An extravagant encomium, of course, but that is what she said.

This is the last part but one (No. 10, dealing with engines absorbed after 1922, is still to come) of the monumental R.C.T.S. history, which needs no further encomium for students of G.W.R. locomotive practice.

A more classical, adoxographic tone characterizes an encomium of the ass contained in Pero Mexía's 1547 Diálogos. In it the donkey is praised for its humility and integrity, as well as for its practicality: the she-ass's milk is recommended as both an antidote for poison and a skin cleanser, the animal is a good mount for soldiers, and even its meat is tasty.

As Philodemus indicated in antiquity, encomia of Busiris [by Isocrates] belong to this category of "paradoxical" or "adoxographic" treatises, which flourished in nearly all periods of ancient Greek literature. These were speeches written in the encomiastic style on subjects that were immediately recognizable to ancient audiences as vile, trivial, ridiculous, or otherwise unsuited to praise.

[…] Polycrates' encomium on mice dwelt upon their service to the Egyptians in gnawing the bowstrings and shield handles of invading enemies, while Philostratus, praising hair, gave examples of long-haired heroes at Troy. Appion's praise of adultery recalls the love affairs of Zeus and other gods, and Libanus stresses the good parentage of Thersites, ugliest of the Greeks who fought against Troy. But for all their diversity of individual arguments, the overall pattern for these playful or "adoxographic" works remains that of the serious encomium, and their subject matter can conveniently be grouped under the three broad headings of vice, disease, and animals.

Encomium

Meaning

Noun

Origin

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