Book 3
11.5
As we have said before, metaphors should be drawn from objects which are proper to the object, but not too obvious; just as, for instance, in philosophy it needs sagacity to grasp the similarity in things that are apart. Thus Archytas said that there was no difference between an arbitrator and an altar, for the wronged betakes itself to one or the other. Similarly, if one were to say that an anchor and a pot-hook hung up were identical; for both are the same sort of thing, but they differ in this—that one is hung up above and the other below.The anchor keeps a ship steady below, the pot hook is above, and the pot hangs down from it. And if one were to say the cities have been reduced to the same level, this amounts to the same in the case of things far apart—the equality of levelling in regard to superficies and resources.Cope, retaining ἀνωμαλίσθαι (as if from ἀνομαλίζειν, aequalitatem restituere Bonitz, cf. ἀνομάλωσις) says: the widely dissimilar things here compared are the areas of properties and the state offices and privileges, which are to be alike equalized, translating: And the re-equalization of cities, when the same principle is applied to things standing wide apart, viz. to surface (area) and powers (functions, offices). ( ἀν- is not negative, but = re.) But the passage quoted by Victorius from Isoc. 5.40: for I know that all the cities of Greece have been placed on the same level ( ὡμαλίσθαι) by misfortunes suggests this as a preferable reading here, ὡμαλίσθαι meaning (1) have been levelled to the ground (although the Lexica give no instance of this use), (2) reduced to the same level of weakness.
