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

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‘Now that (the art which applies ὑποκριτκή to Rhetoric), whenever it reaches us (arrives), will produce the same effects as the art of acting (i. e. the application of it to dramatic poetry, § 3): some indeed have already to a trifling extent made the attempt to treat of it, as Thrasymachus in his ἔλεοι; in fact, a capacity for acting is a natural gift’ (part of that general love of imitation which is the foundation of all the imitative or fine arts, Poet. c. 1) ‘and less subject to rules of art’ (more, or somewhat, spontaneous, αὐτοσχεδιαστική, extemporaneous, Poet. IV 14, of tragedy in its earliest stage), ‘but when applied to language (declamation) it (the practice of it) may be reduced to an art. And therefore those who have the faculty (of ὑποκριτικὴ κατὰ λέξιν) obtain prizes in their turn’ (again, πάλιν; of which τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ὑπόκρισιν ῥήτορσιν is an explanation, Victorius), ‘as do also rhetoricians in respect of (by) their acting or declamation: for written speeches (in the ἐπιδεικτικὸν γένος) owe more of their effect to the style and language than to the thought or intellectual part’; διάνοιαν (Rhet. II 26. 5, Poet. XIX 2) meaning here the logical part of Rhetoric, the direct and indirect arguments.

Thrasymachus and his ἔλεοι are described by Plato, Phaedr. 267 C, τῶν γε μὴν οἰκτρογόων ἐπὶ γῆρας καὶ πενίαν ἑλκομένων λόγων κεκρατηκέναι τέχνῃ μοι φαίνεται τὸ τοῦ Χαλκηδονίου σθένος. ὀργίσαι τε αὖ πολλοὺς ἅμα δεινὸς ἀνὴρ γέγονε, καὶ πάλιν ὠργισμένοις ἐπᾴδων κηλεῖν, ὡς ἔφη: διαβάλλειν τε καὶ ἀπολύσασθαι διαβολὰς ὁθενδὴ κράτιστος.

On Thrasymachus see Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, No. IX Vol. III p. 268 seq., on the ἔλεοι 274, Spengel, Artium Scriptores [pp. 95—97, and Blass, die Attische Beredsamkeit, I esp. p. 244, also K. F. Hermann's Disputatio de Thrasymacho Chalcedonio sophista, Gottingen, 1848, pp. 15, and Mayor's note on Juv. VII 204, paenituit multos vanae sterilisque cathedrae, sicut Tharsymachi probat exitus. Quint. III 3. 4, Nec audiendi quidam...qui tres modo primas esse partes volunt, quoniam memoria atque actio natura non arte contingant,...licet Thrasymachus quoque idem de actione crediderit (sc. ἀτεχνότερον εἶναι), where Quintilian must be referring to the present passage, though he is misled by the words οἷον Θρασύμαχος ἐν τοῖς ἐλέοις, into supposing that the sentence, καὶ ἔστι φύσεως τὸ ὑποκριτικὸν εἶναι, καὶ ἀτεχνότερον, is a quotation from Thrasymachus.]

οἱ γὰρ γραφόμενοι λόγοι κ.τ.λ.] Comp. III 12. 5, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον ἡ ἑνὶ κριτῇ κ.τ.λ. at the end of the section.