2. I.e. a bad start which vitiates the first half is as serious as all the mistakes of the second half, and so stands in the ‘same proportion’ to the whole as they all do, i.e. the proportion of a half. Aristotle may he punning on the word archē, which means not only ‘start’ but ‘rule’/‘ruler’/‘official’: if so, perhaps ‘stages’ (merē) ought to be rendered ‘parts’ (of the state).

3. 428: cf. Thucydides III i ff.

4. Proxenos, ‘representative’ of a foreign state, but not a citizen of it. Dexander would therefore have been a Mytilenean, not an Athenian.