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

‘But whereas it frequently happens that men when called to account for an imputed criminal act, admit the fact, but refuse to admit either the title, or name that has been applied to it’ (by the prosecutor namely, who has had it registered under a certain name or title whereby it is referred to a certain class of crimes, and some particular tribunal, and has a special penalty attached to it: this is the στάσις ὁρική, status finitivus, nomen, or finitio, of the subsequent classifications), ‘or that which is contained under the title’ (that is, the description of the act which is supposed to correspond to the title, but may not actually do so): ‘a man may say, for instance, that he ‘took’ the thing but did not ‘steal’ it, or that he struck the first blow but was not guilty of wanton outrage, or that there was intercourse but no adultery, or that he was guilty of theft but not of sacrilege (because the thing stolen belonged to no god), or that he had committed a trespass but not on public lands, the state domains, or had conversed (held communication) with the enemy but was guilty of no treachery—from the frequent occurrence of these and similar distinctions it becomes necessary that it should be determined what theft is, and what ὕβρις, and what adultery, and so on; in order that if we want to prove that the fact is so, or the reverse, we may be able to set in a clear light the real merits or rights (τὸ δίκαιον) of the case’.

The distinction of the ἐπίγραμμα and περὶ ο τὸ ἐπίγραμμα I have already indicated. The one is the στάσις ὁρική, the name or title by which the act should be designated, which determines the court that it shall be tried in, and is represented in all the examples given except the case of trespass: the other is the description given of the act, as may be seen in the instance that illustrates it, the trespass (the name) is acknowledged, but the detailed account described it as a trespass upon the public land, which is denied. This, if it corresponds to any of the στάσεις when they were regularly classified (on which see Introd. p. 397 seq. in Appendix E to Book III), must be the στάσις of quality, ποιότης, quale: but it seems certain that in Aristotle's time they had not yet been systematised and arranged under constant technical names. At all events, in this passage in the two last cases it seems that no very clear distinction is made out; or apparently intended, as appears from the mixing up together of the examples of both. Quint. III 6.49, where Aristotle's division of στάσεις is noticed, must be referred, not to this passage, but to Rhet. III 16.6, and 17. 1.

πατάξαι πρότερον] to be the aggressor in an affray. It is otherwise termed ἄρχειν χειρῶν ἀδίκων, II 24. 9, Rhet. ad Alex. 26 (37). 39.

ἐπεργάσασθαι] Donaldson, New Cratylus § 174, has introduced this passage amongst his examples of a large family of verbs compounded with ἐπί, in which the preposition corresponds to the Latin (and English) inter (in composition), implying reciprocity, or mutual right or association, as ἐπικοινωνία, inter-communion, ἐπιγαμία, the right of inter-marriage, Rhet. I 14. 5. It is quite true that ἐπεργασία and ἐπεργάζεσθαι (see the examples in Donaldson, p. 296, and the Lexicons) are both used in this sense for the right of inter-cultivation of land, just like ἐπινομία the right of mutual pasturage, as on a border territory. But here ἐπεργάσασθαι must mean to encroach or trespass, otherwise it is no offence: and so the word is used by Aeschines, Ctesiph. § 113, of the Locrians of Amphissa who ‘encroached upon’ the sacred soil of Crissa, by cultivating, Thucyd. I 139, and elsewhere; as well as ἐπινομία and ἐπινέμειν, for a similar trespass on the pasturage of some one else. The primary sense must be no doubt that of reciprocal right or occupation, the interchange of cultivation. Perhaps the notion of going backwards and forwards over a border to cultivate land may have suggested the notion of trespassing, by extending the original signification to cases where there was no such right existing, or only in the trespasser's imagination.

I will add some instances of similar formations which are not given in the New Cratylus.

ἐπαλλάττειν, Eur. Heracl. 836, ποῦς ἐπαλλαχθεὶς ποδί, ‘interchanged, interlaced’: common in Aristotle, Pol. I 6 (quoted by Donaldson), c. 9, 1257 b 35, ἐπαλλάττει ἡ χρῆσις κ.τ.λ. Ib. VI (IV) 10, 1295 a 9, διὰ τὸ τὴν δύναμιν ἐπαλλάττειν πως αὐτῶν, Ib. VII (VI) I, 1317 a I, ποιεῖ τὰς πολιτείας ἐπαλλάττειν. Parva Naturalia, de longitate et brevitate vitae, c. 1, 464 b 28, ἐπηλλάττει τὰ νοσώδη τὴν φύσιν σώματα τοῖς βραχυβίοις, de ortu anim. II 1, 732 b 15, ἐπάλλαξις, 733 a 27, ἐπαλλάττουσιν ἀλλήλοις κ.τ.λ. de insomniis II 18, 460 b 20, καὶ τῇ ἐπαλλάξει τῶν δακτύλων τὸ ἓν δύο φαίνεται, Theophr. Hist. Pl. I 3. 2.

ἐπιμίσγεσθαι, Thucyd. I 2 and 13, ἐπιμιγνύντες, ἐπιμισγόντων; Herod. I 68, ἐπιμιξίη; Thuc. V 78, Xen. Cyr. VII 4. 5, Ar. Pol. IV (VII) 6, 1327 a 39: ἐπέρχεσθαι, Thucyd. IV 120, ἐπήρχοντο, ‘were going backwards and forwards paying one another visits’: ἐπικοινωνεῖν, ἐπικοινωνία, Plat. Gorg. 464 C, Soph. 251 D, 252 D, ἐπικοινοῦσθαι, Protag. 313 B, Ar. Top. Δ 2, 123 a 6, ἐπικοινωνοῦσι γὰρ οἱ τόποι, Anal. Post. A 11, 77 a 26, ἐπικ. πᾶσᾳιͅ αἱ ἐπιστῆμαι ἀλλήλαις, Rhet. ad Alex. 5 (6). 5.