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Book Nine
but natural rhetoric, cf. Xen. Cyr. 7.5.53 CXCTITOS OCTTOTOS dvonroviTrros,
[Dem.] 25.52 aaiTeiaTOS dvi8pUTOS OCIJIEIKTOS, and for further examples
Richardson on HyDem 2oon., 19.344—gn. and 24.157—8n. — EKETVOS, with £-,
is certain only here and at 11.653 in the Iliad. It is more frequent in the
Odyssey (13 x ).
64 6TTi8r||Jiiou OKpuoevros: OKpuoeis is evidently synonymous with KpuoEis,
'chilling' (i.e. 'causing fear'), cf. Kpuoeacra 'ICOKT) (5.740), 9o(3ou Kpuoevros
(9.2 etc.), and TtoAeiicp KpuoEVTi (Hesiod, Theog. 936). The primary form of
the present expression was doubtless 6TTi8r)|iioo KpuosvTos, which at some
stage in the evolution of the Kunstsprache was wrongly divided, cf. Leumann,
//M^ 49-50, under the influence of the bucolic diaeresis. OKpuoeis (2X //.)
is in neither case guaranteed, a fact that throws some doubt on Leumann's
view that the false form antedated the epic. Primary -00 is plausibly assumed
also at 2.325, 2.518, 5.21, 6.61 (= 7.120 = 13.788), 6.344 (see n.),
15.66 (= 21.104, 22.6), 22.313, Od. 1.70, 10.36, 10.60: see Monro,
Z/G83.
65-70 The dyoprj must take some resolution, so Nestor is made to put
forward two innocuous proposals, to prepare the evening meal and to post
a picket outside the wall; but his real thoughts are elsewhere, to make
overtures to Akhilleus. Note the consistent characterization of Agamemnon;
if a proposal so humiliating to him were made in the open dyopr)
Agamemnon would return the sort of answer he gave in the assemblies in
book 1 (i.24ff. and 10iff.). Nestor therefore proposes a private dinner for
the yepovTES.
65-6 These verses (to £9O7rAicr6|Ji£(T0a) = 8.502-3 = Od. 12.291-2. To
'obey night' is apparently formular, cf. VUKTI TTIOECTOOCI 7.282 and 293.
66-7 Aristarchus (Am/A) took Ae^daOcov to be from Aeyoiiai, 'choose',
and therefore changed cpuAoKT'npES to the ace. to provide the verb with
an object. KpivdoOcov, as at Od. 8.36 in a not dissimilar context, would
render that sense better. The vulgate requires As^dcrOcov to be derived from
*AEXOUOCI implied by AE^OUOU, AEKTO, etc., i.e. 'lie down', 'bivouac', cf. 8.519.
67 See 8.213-14^ This verse with 87, Kd6 8E IJECTOV Td9pou KCCI Tsixeos,
is the clearest indication yet that the poet thinks of the trench as dug
at some distance beyond the wall and not as being at the outer foot of
the wall like the ditch or moat of a medieval castle or town-wall: 18.215,
orf) 8' ['AXIAAEUS] £TTI Td9pov icbv diro TEIXEOS, envisages the same arrangement,
and so, probably, does the difficult passage 8.213—16. Military advantage
- keeping the enemy from the foot of the wall and increasing its
effective height — and the convenience of building the wall from the material
dug from the trench (cf. Thuc. 2.78) condemn the Homeric arrangement.
See, however, i2.65~6n., the trench kept the Trojan chariotry at a
respectful distance. The position of the wall and trench were originally
conceived at 7.341 and 7.440 as adjacent (EyyuOi, ETT' OCUTCO), but the
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