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‘Further, you should occasionally transform your enthymemes and express them as general maxims’. Comp. II 21. 1, 2, with the notes in Vol. II p. 206. On the ‘enthymeme’, see Saint-Hilaire's Rhétorique d'Aristote, Vol. II pp. 345—376; and Jebb's Attic Orators, II 289. Aristotle's example of a γνώμη seems to be a general reminiscence of a passage in Isocr. Archidamus p. 126 B § 50, χρὴ δὲ τοὺς μὲν εὖ πράττοντας τῆς εἰρήνης ἐπιθυμεῖν: ἐν ταύτῃ γὰρ τῇ καταστάσει πλεῖστον ἄν τις χρόνον τὰ παρόντα διαφυλάξειεν: τοὺς δὲ δυστυχοῦντας τῷ πολέμῳ προσέχειν τὸν νοῦν: ἐκ γὰρ τῆς ταραχῆς καὶ τῆς καινουργίας θᾶττον ἂν μεταβολῆς τύχοιεν. Spengel gives a reference to Rhet. ad Alex. 2 (3). 32, δεῖ τοὺς νοῦν ἔχοντας μὴ περιμένειν ἕως ἂν πέσωσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῷ κρατεῖν ποιεῖσθαι τὴν εἰρήνην. In expressing the γνώμη in the form of an ἐνθύμημα, Ar. alters διαλλαγὰς into its synonym καταλλαγαί, possibly for no other reason than to avoid the reiteration of similar sounds in δεῖ...διαλλαγαὶ...διαλλάττεσθαι, and the harsh collocation δεῖ διαλλάττεσθαι.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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