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

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‘It is plain then from what has been said, how many kinds of γνώμη there are, and on what sort of subject (or occasion) each of them is appropriate; for (when it pronounces) on things questionable or paradoxical (or unexpected, surprising, as before) the supplement must not be omitted (subaudi ἁρμόττει λέγειν); but either the supplement should come first, and then the conclusion (of the inference) be used as a γνώμη—as, for instance, if it were to be said (returning to the first example, § 2), “now for my own part, since we are bound neither to incur jealousy nor to be idle, I deny that they (children) ought to be educated”; or else, say this first, and then add the supplement (the reason)’.

τῶν ἀμφισβητουμένων ἢ παραδόξων κ.τ.λ.] “Ni enim ratio addatur, fidem non inveniet huiusmodi sententia. Melius esse iniuriam accipere quam inferre (this is the apparent paradox maintained by Socrates in Plato's Gorgias and Republic): supplicum misereri non oportere, et his similia qui audit reicit; at si rationes annectantur, haud dubie assentietur; nempe qui facit iniuriam semper improbus est, at qui patitur probus esse potest. Et misericordia intempestiva iustitiae solet esse adversa.” Schrader.

‘(When they are) about things, not unexpected, but obscure’ (not immediately intelligible. Understand δεῖ, ἁρμόττει, λέγειν αὐτάς), ‘you must add the (reason) why, as tersely as possible’. A popular audience is always impatient of long explanations, and long trains of reasoning; or enthymemes, II 22. 3; comp. I 2. 12, III 17.6. In assigning therefore the reason for the ambiguous or seemingly paradoxical γνώμη, we must express ourselves in the fewest possible words, as briefly and compactly as possible.

στρόγγυλος, ‘rounded’, ‘compact’ (as a ball), is properly applied to the periodic style—the period, περί-ὁδός, is in fact a kind of circle, “a sentence returning into itself,” Müller, Hist. Gr. Lit. [II 155]. Comp. Dionysius, de Lysia Jud. c. 6. ἡ συστρέφουσα (condenses, packs close) τὰ νοήματα καὶ στρογγύλως ἐκφέρουσα λέξις, “expresses them in a rounded, compact, terse form.” Arist. Σκηνὰς καταλαμβάνουσαι, Fragm. IV (Meineke, Fr. Comm. Gr. II 1142), of Euripides' neat, terse, well-rounded style, χρῶμαι γὰρ αὐτοῦ τοῦ στόματος τῷ στρογγύλῳ. So rotunde; Cic. de Fin. IV 3. 7, Ista ipsa, quae tu breviter,—a te quidem apte et rotunde: quippe habes enim a rhetoribus. Brut. LXVIII 272, rotunda constructio verborum. Orat. XIII 40, Thucydides praefractior nec satis, ut ita dicam, rotundus. Nizolius ad verbum, concinne, explicate, στρογγύλως. Ernesti, Clavis Cic. s. v.