Abstract
Abstract In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that a happy man is “foursquare beyond reproach” (τετράγωνοσ άνευ ψόγου or, in a common Latin translation, quadratus sine probro). To be foursquare, the happy man must bear the chances of life nobly and decorously as well as possess the qualities of the phronimos or good deliberator. That Aristotle moors felicity to prudence and decorum spurs classical, medieval, and early modern commentators, moral philosophers, and poets; by tracing the reception and use of the square man, I explore change and continuity in the relationship between prudence and decorum in some classical, late medieval, and early modern texts in order to suggest that prudent and practical persuasion emerges as a flexible responsive mode of perceiving ethical and political practice in the early modern period.