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Book Nine
which was approved by Callimachus (fr. 55 Pfeiffer). dAcofjv would then be
the object of lOcov, if one could be sure the poet more than half understood
the word.
543-4 Meleagros' standing as a hero later elevated his parentage; he is
firmly son of Oineus in the Iliad, but was attributed to Ares in [Hesiod] fr.
25.iff. M-W, cf. the similar elevation of Bellerophon (son of Poseidon
[Hesiod] fr. 43a.8i M-W, in defiance of 6.155). The many Or|pf)Topes that
Meleagros recruited would have made a fine catalogue (see the list in Ovid,
Met. 8.301-17) and would have included Atalante, to whom first blood was
credited and to whom Meleagros awarded the spoils. Her omission from this
succinct allusion is without special significance; she would not, for example,
be parallel to Briseis as the cause of strife and her exotic character would
clash with the low-key, realistic style of this summary.
546 -n\jpf\s hTEprja' dAeyeivffc is evidently formular, cf. TT\jpf\s 67n(3&VT'
dAeyeivns (4-99, see n.). The Aithiopis, with its many funerals, would have
had more use for this area of diction.
551 KCCKCOS fjv: for elvoci construed with an adverb (a construction more
familiar in Latin) see Chantraine, GH11 9.
552 The desire to make parallel the situations of Meleagros and
Akhilleus has led to some lack of clarity. Kaludon was the city under siege
(530-2), but the TEIXOS behind which the Kouretes were obliged to remain
would naturally be the wall of their own city (Pleuron, but here unnamed),
just as the Trojans did not dare to come out to face Akhilleus, cf. [Hesiod]
fr. 25.13 M-W uapv&uEvos Koupff^an Trep! FTA] e [u] pcov [1] [accKeSvrj. But the
Kouretes are the aggressors (531-2) and should now be fighting around
Kaludon, as they are below at 573. It is possible, in order to save the
narrative, to imagine that the TEIXOS is the wall of the Kouretes' fortified
encampment corresponding to the wall of the Achaeans' lately fortified
camp, but nothing in the immediate context suggests it.
553—4 I8u xoAos: the emotion as usual is conceived to originate outside
the person and to 'enter' him or be 'put on', cf. 9.231 Sucreai 6AKT)V. aAAcov
is a rather obvious oblique reference to Akhilleus, softened by voov TTUKCC
TTEp 9pOV£OVTG0V.
555-8 The genealogies of the kings of Pleuron and Kaludon are intertwined,
as shown in the two stemmata. (For other offspring of Oineus and
Althaie see [Hesiod] fr. 25.14-17 M-W. The Aetolian saga (a sorry tale of
intestine murder) included Oineus' slaying of his brothers, Agrios and
Melas, sons of Porthaon (or Portheus, 14.115), and was linked to that of
Herakles through H.'s marriage to Deianeira, sister to Meleagros.)
The names in both stemmata form part of the Kaludon - Elis - Pulos
cycle in the Hesiodic catalogues and may have been consolidated into their
genealogy in the first half of the eighth century, as argued by West, Catalogue
134