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

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ἀντὶ χρημάτων] is, setting a pecuniary value upon the oath (estimating it against money, at so much money value), which is degrading to the dignity and sanctity of the oath, and therefore it is that you refuse to take it, and not from any baser motive.

κατωμόσατο] κατομνύναι (ὅρκον) occurs in Arist. Ran. 305, 306, appa rently as a mere synonym of the simple verb, Δ. καἶθις κατόμοσον. Ξ. νὴ Δἴ; Δ. ὄμοσον. Ξ. νὴ Δία. With ὅρκον and a second accus. of the thing sworn by, Eur. Hel. 835, ἀλλ᾽ ἁγνὸν ὅρκον σὸν κάρα κατώμοσα. The middle voice is found again in Herod. VI 65, but in a different sense ‘to swear against’, with a genitive following. Here, and in the two other cases quoted above, the κατά seems to have an intensive force, expressing the ‘binding force’ of an oath. This sense of κατά comes from the original, physical, notion of ‘keeping down’.

For the interpretation of this obscure topic, see Introd. p. 203. The obscurity is a little heightened by Bekker's punctuation, and may be very slightly cleared up by reading μὴ ὀμόσας δ᾽ οὔ (with colon instead of full stop) and at the end of the next clause τὸ μή. (with full stop instead of colon). There is a considerably closer connexion between the two clauses which he separates by a full stop, than there is between the two which are divided only by a colon.

The intention of the topic is to shew the purity and disinterestedness of the speaker's motives in refusing to take the oath.

καὶ τὸ τοῦ Ξενοφάνους] Xenophanes of Colophon, the founder of the Eleatic school of Philosophy (Plat. Soph. 242 D, τὸ δὲ παῤ ἡμῖν Ἐλεατικὸν ε<*>θνος, ἀπὸ Ξενοφάνους...ἀρξάμενον）—of which Parmenides his follower was the most distinguished representative, who converted the theological conception of universal being, represented by Xenophanes as God, into the metaphysical conception of the Universe as One, ἓν τὸ ὄν— appears to have conveyed his philosophical doctrines in hexameter verse, an example subsequently followed by Parmenides and Empedocles. He also wrote elegies and iambics, the latter directed against Homer and Hesiod, whose manner of speaking about the Gods he disapproved, Diog. Laert. IX 2. 18. The verse quoted here is a trochaic tetrameter; on which Mullach remarks, Fragm. Phil. Gr. Xenoph. Fr. 25, p. 106, note, ‘cuius versiculi hiatus in voce αὕτη caesurae excusationem habet, prima autem syllaba in ἀσεβεῖ producitur ad aliorum nominum velut ἀθάνατος similitudinem’. So Karsten, Xenophanes, p. 79. The work which contained this verse is unknown. Mullach and Karsten agree in the opinion that this verse is all that belongs to Xenophanes in Aristotle's reference; the succeeding illustration is his own. All that is repeated in the converse of Xenophanes' maxim, § 30, is what is contained in the verse itself. I have no doubt they are right. On Xenophanes and his philosophy, besides the two works already referred to, which contain collections of the surviving fragments, see the histories of Greek Philosophy, by Brandis, Zeller, Ritter, Butler, with Dr Thompson's notes and the rest; also Grote's Plato, Vol. I. pp. 16—19.

ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοία καὶ εἰ] In this illustration of Xenophanes' dictum, the parallel case proposed by Aristotle, the strong man is the unscrupulous or godless man, who is ready to swear anything, true or false; he has the same advantage over the scrupulous, godfearing man, in a challenge to swear, as the strong man would have over the weak in a challenge to fight.

πατάξαι ἢ πληγῆναι] These forms are in general use in Attic Prose as the aorist active and passive of τύπτω. Eth. N. V 5. 4, p. 1132 b 28, εἰ ἀρχὴν ἔχων ἐπάταξεν, οὐ δεῖ ἀντιπληγῆναι, καὶ εἰ ἄρχοντα ἐπάταξεν οὐ πληγῆναι μόνον δεῖ ἀλλὰ καὶ κολασθῆναι. Ib. v 4. 4, p. 1132 a 8, ὅταν ὁ μὲν πληγῇ ὁ δὲ πατάξῃ, ἢ καὶ κτείνῃ ὁ δ̓ ἀποθάνῃ. de Anima, B, 8, p. 419 b 15, τὸ τύπτον καὶ τὸ τυπτόμενον followed by ἂν πληγῇ, ib. p. 420 a 24, τυπτόμενον καὶ τύπτον followed by ἐὰν πατάξη. For further illustrations see Dem. Select Private Orations, II. pp. 207—211, Excursus on the defective verb τύπτω. S.]