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

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‘Of well-known actions the hearer should merely be reminded (they should merely be suggested, by a brief allusion, not dwelt upon); and therefore most people¹ (i.e. men of ordinary education) in such cases don't require a regular narrative of them’—everybody at once remembers that Achilles conquered Hector; people only need to be reminded of that—‘as for instance, if you want to praise Achilles: for his actions are known to everybody, they only require to be employed (that is, to be enlarged upon, and commented, for the purpose of enhancing their glory). If Critias is to be praised (or censured), he does want one: for not many people know anything about him’. Critias too—one of the Thirty—was a famous man in his day: one wonders that he should have been so entirely forgotten in Aristotle's time. Pericles and Alcibiades still lived fresh in men's memories; though I don't mean that the three were absolutely on a level in contemporary reputation.

It appears that between ἴσασιν and νῦν δὲ γελοίως there has been a gap in the MSS, including A^{c}, which has been filled up with an extract from I 9, on ἔπαινος, §§ 33—97. Comp. Spengel, in a paper on the Rhet. ad Alex. in Zeitschrift für Alt. Wiss. 1840, p. 1226. Bekker's Variae Lectiones include A^{c} with the rest, as having the interpolated passage: Buhle, ad h. l., says “in nearly all the Edd. except that of Victorius and his followers,” the interpolation is found.

The abrupt transition from the epideictic to the dicastic branch had already made Vettori (for once I will give him his proper name) suspect a lacuna. The words νῦν δέ, which have no reference to anything preceding, suggest the same conclusion.