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

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‘Besides, this making the hearers disposed to listen (keep up their attention), is common to all the parts of the speech alike, wherever it is required: for they are more inclined to relax it anywhere rather than at the opening. It is absurd therefore to fix its place (‘post’ it) at the beginning, a time when everybody listens with the greatest attention’. Cic. de Or. II 79. 323 quoted on § 7, οὐ γὰρ <*>᾿εὶ συμφέρει. Also Quint. IV. 1. 73, who follows Arist. in quoting Prodicus' artifice. ‘And therefore, (not only at the beginning, but) wherever there is occasion, such phrases as this must be used, “And now attend to what I say, for it is no more my affair than yours”; or, “I'll tell such a strange thing—or a thing so marvellous—as you have never yet heard before.” And this is like what Prodicus said, “whenever his audience were inclined to be drowsy, he would slip them in a taste of the fifty drachm”’. παρεμβάλλειν, throw them in by the side of the rest, on the sly, (παραδιηγεῖσθαι, infra 16.5). The ‘fifty drachm’ was Prodicus' most famous, and interesting, and expensive lecture. Plat. Crat. 384 B, Σωκρ. Εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐγὼ ἤδη ἀκηκόη παρὰ Προδίκου τὴν πεντηκοντάδραχμον ἐπίδειξιν, ἣν ἀκούσαντι ὑπάρχει περὶ τοῦτο πεπαιδεῦσθαι, ὥς φησιν ἐκεῖνος, οὐδὲν ἂν ἐκώλυέ σε αὐτίκα μάλα εἰδέναι τὴν ἀλήθειαν περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος: νῦν δε οὐκ ἀκήκοα, ἀλλὰ τὴν δραχμιαίαν.