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Book Nine
Phthie itself is a vague term, see 395n., 2.683-4-n. and 13.685-8^ According
to 10.266 Amuntor son of Ormenos, the original owner of the boar's tusk
helmet, lived at Eleon (in Boeotia, according to the Catalogue, 2.500). This
has seemed such confusion as to call in question the identity of these
Amuntores, see bT to 10.266 (Aristarchus suspected they were different
persons), Eust. 762, Strabo 9.5.18 (a good report of Hellenistic controversies),
and RE s.v. 'Amyntor'. There was also an Ormenion in Thessaly
(2.734), which would suit this passage well. Both Amuntor and Ormenos
are good heroic names, the latter at least used freely (for Trojans at 8.274
and 12.187, for Eumaios' grandfather at Od. 18.414).
447-52 A comment on these verses is contained in Pap. vii (= Mus. Brit.
1605 c = Pack 2 1188), see Pfeiffer, Philol. 92 (1937) 16-18, 6TTCO]S UIOT| TOO
[yepovTOS epcoTa. The motive attributed to Amuntor's wife, a demonstration
of Phoinix' superior vigour, is probably misconceived, cf. the action of
Absalom, 2 Samuel 16.21-3 with 20.3: the effect of Phoinix' action would
be to alienate the yepcov not the TraAAotKis. T reports a reading yepovn,
which suggests that some critics wished to understand the passage in the
latter sense. For Amuntor's reaction cf. Genesis 35.22 with 49.4: as a result
of seducing his father's concubine Reuben lost his right of primogeniture.
449 KCCAAIKOUOIO is formular (1 x Od., 2X Hesiod) but under-represented.
The complementary epithet fjUKOuoio is remarkably more popular (15X
//., 2X Od., 1 ix Hesiod).
453 The first half of the verse was emended to TTJ OU 7Ti06ur|V |o056
6pE£a| (0O8' ip£oc Cobet) by Sosiphanes (fourth century B.C.), a remarkably
irresponsible bowdlerization, thought worthy of record by the exegetical
scholia (A) and Eust. 363.9.
454 Amuntor calls on the Erinues because they are the guardians of
oaths (Hesiod, Erga 803) and curses. In an oath the sanction of the goddesses
is invoked on oneself, in a curse on another, see Burkert, Religion 200.
They are associated on the one hand with uoipcc (19.87) because they are
the guardians of the natural order and punish those whose unnatural
acts (whether speech by a horse (19.418) or disrespect for parents) have
breached it, and on the other with Hades and Persephone because they live
in the Underworld ('Epe(3eaq>iv, 572) and perhaps have power to hound in
death as well as life (see 3.278-9, 19.259-60 and nn.). The Erinues are a
formidable sanction, but then keeping the oath and honouring parents
are principles that are not easily enforced except by moral terrorism. —
etreKeKAeT (o): by beating on the ground, see 568. One appealed to the
Olympians standing and raising the arms. — 'Epivus: an archaic ace. pi. in
-us (< -uvs) of u-stems is common in the epic beside the secondary -uas
(epivuas 21.412).
455 £9&TCTE(76ai is future middle, 'that he should set on his knees' a
122