E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘Now men think they have a natural claim’ (προσήκειν, note on II 1 p. 11, μὴ προσήκοντος) ‘to especial respect and consideration (πολυωρεῖσθαι) (and therefore are all the more angry, the slight is felt more deeply, when they fail to receive it) from their inferiors in birth, power, virtue (i.e. merit), and generally in anything in which they far surpass (him who slights them) when it is of the same kind (falls under the same γένος or class) (as that in which they themselves excel); as in money the rich man (claims respect) from the poor, the accomplished orator from one that has no faculty for speaking, the governor from the governed, or one who thinks he has the right to bear rule from one who only deserves to obey’.

πολυωρεῖν, a rare word, found once in Aeschin. c. Timarch. § 50, in a copy of evidence, ‘to pay attention to’, but chiefly in later writers, (πολυωρία a Stoic term). It is opposed to, and formed upon the analogy of ὀλιγωρεῖν, and therefore appropriate here.

ῥητορικός] ‘vocantur ῥητορικοί diserti et eloquentes homines. Isocr. Nicocl. § 8, καὶ ῥητορικοὺς μὲν καλοῦμεν τοὺς ἐν τῷ πλήθει δυναμένους λέγειν.’ Victorius.

This is illustrated by two more lines of Homer, Il. B 196, ‘great is the wrath of divine-bred kings’ (‘in Homeri Il. B 196, singulare Διοτρεφέος βασιλῆος legitur. Sed cum haec sententia in proverbium abiisset, universe pronuntiandum erat plurali numero.’ Vater); and, Il. A 82, ‘Yet it may be that even hereafter he keeps a grudge’—here the endurance of the wrath indicates its original violence and the magnitude of the slight that provoked it (ἀλλά γε καὶ, the vulg., is retained by Bekker. MSS A^{c}, Y^{b}, Z^{b} have τε, as also Mr Paley's text).—ἀγανακτοῦσι γὰρ κ.τ.λ. ‘For the lasting vexation (this is in explanation of the μετόπισθεν κότον of the last quotation) is owing to their superiority’.