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

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ἔστι δέ, ἄν τε πρὸς ἕνα κ.τ.λ.] Comp. I 3. 2. 3, of which most of the statements of this parenthesis are a repetition, though in other words. This may help to account for the introduction of it here, where the author is reviewing the progress of his work; the same train of reasoning recurs to his mind, and he starts again with the same topic.

κριτὴς ὁ εἷς] Comp. III 12. 5.

ἐάν τε πρὸς ἀμφισβητοῦντα κ.τ.λ.] ‘Whether you are arguing against a real antagonist (in a court of law, or the public assembly), or merely against some thesis or theory (where there is no antagonist of flesh and blood to oppose you); for the speech must be used as an instrument, and the opposite (theory or arguments) refuted, against which— as though it were an imaginary antagonist—you are directing your words’. In either case, if you want to persuade or convince any one, as an antagonist real or imaginary, you are looking for a decision or judgment in some sense or other: in the case of the defence of the thesis, the opposing argument or theory, which has to be overcome, seems to stand in the place of the antagonist in a contest of real life, who must be convinced if you are to succeed. When you want to convince anyone, you make him your judge.

ὥσπερ γὰρ πρὸς κριτήν κ.τ.λ.] ‘the composition of the speech is directed (submitted) to the spectator (for his judgment or decision) as though he were a judge’. The spectator, the person who comes to listen to a declamation, like a spectator at a show, for amusement or criticism, stands to the panegyric, or declamatory show-speech, as a critic, in the same position as the judge to the parties whose case he has to decide. I 3. 2, ἀνάγκη τὸν ἀκροατὴν ἢ θεωρὸν εἶναι ἢ κριτήν...ὁ δὲ περὶ τῆς δυνάμεως (κρίνων) ὁ θεωρός.

‘But as a general rule it is only the person who decides the points in question in political (public, including judicial) contests that is absolutely (strictly and properly) to be called a judge; for the inquiry is directed in the one to the points in dispute (between the two parties in the case) to see how the truth really stands, in the other to the subject of deliberation’.

ἐν τοῖς συμβουλευτικοῖς] The division of the work, from I 4. 7 to I 8 inclusive, in which is contained the analysis of the various εἴδη, or special topics, which belong to the deliberative branch of Rhetoric. The punctuation πρότερον, ὥστε, in Bekker's [later] editions and in Spengel's, making ὥστε—ποιητέον the apodosis to the preceding clause only, has been already mentioned in the introductory note to this chapter [p. 172, middle], and the arguments against it stated.

εἴρηται πρότερον] I c. 8, see especially § 7: the notes on § 6, and Introd. p. 182, and p. 110.