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

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‘Such then is antithesis; the equality of the members (or clauses) is παρίσωσις; παρομοίωσις is when each of the two members (the supposition that the period consists of only two clauses is still carried on) has its extremities similar (i. e. in the letters, so that the terminations rhyme to one another). (The clauses) must have this either at the beginning or at the end. And when they (the similar sounding letters) are at the beginning (the figure is) always (expressed in) whole words (lit. the words, entire words, always are a beginning), but at the end (it admits of) either the (similarity of the) last syllables, or the same word with a changed termination (declension, adverbial, adjectival, termination, &c), or the same word. Similar sound (παρομοίωσις) at the com mencement (may be illustrated by) such examples as this; ἀγρὸν γὰρ ἔλαβεν ἀργὸν (fallow, uncultivated) παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ’. Victorius quotes a parallel example from Xen. Cyrop. VIII 3. 15, οὐ δυνάμενος τρέφειν ἀργὸν εἰς ἀγρὸν ἀπαγαγὼν ἐκέλευσεν ἐργάζεσθαι. The ‘rhyme at the beginning’ of clauses is properly called ὁμοιοκάταρκτον; at the end ὁμοιοτέλευτον and, δωρητοί τ̓ ἐπέλοντο παράρρητοί τ̓ ἐπέεσσιν. Il. I [IX] 526. ‘At the end, ᾠήθησαν αὐτὸν παιδίον τετοκέναι, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοῦ αἴτιον γεγονέναι (in this there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason [the assonance, or correspondence of vowel sounds, is however clearly marked in the two clauses]; it is most likely corrupt, says Buhle). ἐν πλείσταις δὲ φροντίσι καὶ ἐν ἐλαχίσταις ἐλπίσιν’.

‘And an inflexion (declension, change of termination from a root: see note on I 7. 27) of the same word (i. e. root) ἄξιος δὲ σταθῆναι χαλκοῦς, οὐκ ἄξιος ὢν χαλκοῦ, “worthy to be set up in brass (have a bronze statue erected in his honour, Dem. de F. L. § 296, Φίλιππον θαυμάζουσι καὶ χαλκοῦν ἱστᾶσι... Ib. § 378, ἔστιν ὅντιν᾽ ὑμεῖς...χαλκοῦν στήσαιτ̓ ἂν ἐν ἀγορᾷ; as a public benefactor), not being worth a brass farthing”’. (Supposed to deserve a brass statue—bronze in reality—when he doesn't deserve a brass farthing. This is in fact more in the nature of a παρονομασία, or play upon words, than of an ὁμοιοτέλευτον. Ar. however seems to class both under his παρομοίωσις).

‘And the same word (repeated) ἔλεγες κακῶς...γράφεις κακῶς’. Demetrius, who repeats all this, following Arist. very closely, and sometimes borrowing his examples, supplies in his version a word which is wanting in our text, both to the sense and to the due balance of the sentence: σὺ δ᾽ αὐτὸν καὶ ζῶντα ἔλεγες κακῶς, καὶ νῦν θανόντα γράφεις κακῶς. Demetr. περὶ ἑρμηνείας § 26. Compare the three chapters, π. περιόδου, π. παρομοίων κώλων, π. ὁμοιοτελεύτου, Rhet. Gr. III 262—268, ed. Spengel. This sentence was applied by some rival orator to one who, after slandering some one all his life, after his death wrote a panegyric on him—which, the speaker says, was just as bad as his slander¹.

‘And (a rhyming termination arising) from a single syllable: δειν-όν... ἀργ-όν. And the same clause may have all three at once, and the antithesis and balance of clauses, and similar termination may be the same’ (included or exemplified in one or the same clause). An instance of this is given by Victorius from a saying of Gorgias preserved by Plutarch, Cimon. c. 10, τὸν Κίμωνα τὰ χρήματα κτᾶσθαι μὲν ὡς χρῷτο, χρῆσθαι δὲ ὡς τιμῷτο. Gorg. Fragm. Sauppe, Or. Att. III p. 131, Fr. Inc. 6. This is not only antithesis and the rest, but a false antithesis to boot. Demetr., u. s. § 23, has supplied a much more elaborate example from Isocr. Helen. § 17. τῷ (τοῦ Isocr.) μὲν ἐπίπονον καὶ φιλοκίνδυνον τὸν βίον κατέστησε (Dem. has ἐποίησε), τῆς δὲ περίβλεπτον καὶ περιμάχητον τὴν φύσιν ἐποίησεν (Dem. κατέστησεν). ‘The commencements of periods (in this view of the artificial structure of the sentence) have been enumerated with tolerable (σχεδόν ‘pretty nearly’) completeness (ἐξ—‘out’, ‘to the end or full’) in the Theodectea. There are also false antitheses, as Epicharmus, besides others, (καί) wrote, τόκα μὲν κ.τ.λ.’ This line of Epicharmus is also given by Demetr. u. s. § 24. He speaks of it as ‘said in jest’, πεπαιγμένον—τὸ αὐτὸ μὲν γὰρ εἴρηται, καὶ οὐδὲν ἐναντίον—to make fun of the rhetoricians, σκώπτων τοὺς ῥήτορας, viz. Gorgias and his school, the inventors of antithesis and the rest of these rhetorical novelties.

For further details on the subject of these rhetorical figures introduced by Gorgias and his school, who carried them to a vicious excess, a style to which the term Γοργιάζειν was afterwards applied; which was thought to have attained its highest perfection in the measured and laboured, empty and monotonous, periods of Isocrates;—see the paper on Gorgias, Camb. Journ. of Cl. and Sacred Phil., No. VII, Vol. III. p. 69 seq. where they are classified and arranged under three heads, representing parallelism in sense, structure, and sound, which is in fact Aristotle's division. Illustrative extracts from Gorgias' speeches are given at p. 67: and a collection of his fragments in Sauppe, Fragm. Or. Att. (appended to the Or. Att. Vol. III) p. 129 seq. [Compare Blass, die Attische Beredsamkeit, I pp. 60—62, and Thompson's ed. of the Gorgias, Appendix, On the Fragments of Gorgias.]

Perhaps the most complete specimen of Isocrates' style in his Panegyric, from which I will select one or two illustrations, is § 76, οὐ γὰρ ὠλιγώρουν τῶν κοινῶν, οὐδ᾽ ἀπέλαυον μὲν ὡς ἰδίων, ἠμέλουν δὲ ὡς ἀλλοτρίων, ἀλλ̓ ἐκήδοντο μὲν ὡς οἰκείων, ἀπείχοντο δ̓ ὥσπερ χρὴ τῶν μηδὲν προσηκόντων: and so on, in the same measured strain. Of παρομοίωσις, we have an example § 45, ἔτι δ᾽ ἀγῶνας ἰδεῖν μὴ μόνον τάχους καὶ ῥώμης, ἀλλὰ καὶ λόγων καὶ γνώμης, κ.τ.λ. The rhyming terminations pervade §§ 185, 186, culminating in a sentence, in which for once the echo is really effective, φήμην δὲ καὶ μνήμην καὶ δόξαν πόσην τίνα χρὴ νομίζειν ἢ ζῶντας ἕξειν ἢ τελευτήσαντας καταλείψειν τοὺς ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἔργοις ἀριστεύσαντας; (Aesch. c. Ctes. p. 65 § 78, at the close of a paragraph, οὐ γὰρ τὸν τρόπον ἀλλὰ τὸν τόπον μόνον μετήλλαξεν. Ennius, ap. Cic. Orat. XXVII 23, Arce et urbe orba sum.) No better illustration could be found of the importance of the precept so much insisted upon by Aristotle, that the art employed in composition should be carefully concealed, than the striking difference in point of interest between the studied, monotonous, wearisome periods of Isocrates, and the animated, vigorous, natural, yet rhythmical periods of Demosthenes, on which though at least as much pains and labour had been bestowed by the one as by the other—the critics said ‘they smelt of the lamp’—in the one the study entirely escapes notice, in the other it is most painfully apparent.

On antithesis and the rest, there are also remarks in Introd. pp. 314, 5, and the note: and on the divisions of the period, κόμμα and κῶλον, of which the last two are not distinguished by Ar., p. 312, note 1.

The meaning and authorship of the Theodectea has been already discussed at length, p. 55, seq. The conclusion arrived at is, that the work here referred to was an earlier treatise on Rhetoric by Aristotle, the result of his rhetorical teaching, which confined itself to the subjects dealt with in the extant third book. αἱ ἀρχαὶ τῶν περιόδων, which is confined by the expression to the ὁμοιοκάταρκτον, may perhaps, as Victorius supposed, be intended to include by inference all the other figures described in this chapter.