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Book Ten
and a trophy. The death of Rhesos and twelve of his men, and the seizure
of his horses, must be taken to restore the military situation with which the
night began, so that when day dawns and a new sequence of themes begins
it can follow book 10 as easily as book 9. The Achaeans are all spirit and
resolution, and the poet looks forward to the construction of a great day of
battle and, unhelpfully to his commentators, makes no explicit reference to
any earlier Book.
Granted then that book 10 is adapted to its present place, there remain
the questions by whom, at what time, and for what purpose the adaptation
was made. Uniquely in the history of the Iliadic text there is external
evidence in support of the analytical position: T to 10.1 9CCCTI TTJV
pccvycoSiav 09' 'Ourjpou i8ia TETO^OOU KCCI \xr\ elvca uepos T^S 'IAI&SOS, OTTO 8E
FTeiaiaTpdTOU TETOCXOOCI eis TTJV 'lAid6a. Neither the date of the T scholia nor
their sources are easy to establish, so it is impossible to say who first made
this allegation and on what grounds. Written sources for sixth-century
Athenian literary history are not earlier than the fourth century and not
remarkable for their trustworthy colour ([Plato], Hipparchus 228B-229B,
from a passage that maliciously contradicts the historical account of the
Pisistratids). The scholium records a sensible inference that book 10 is a
foreign body in the Iliad, together with a guess as to its provenance that was
not unreasonable in the light of Hellenistic and later theories about the
early history of the Homeric text.
The Athenians need not have had more than the assurances of a rhapsode
for the authenticity of the Book, but what were the motives of the original
adapter? Book 10 has been called 'a disaster stylistically, because of its
folkloristic departures from normalcy; heroically, because of the disgraceful
conduct exhibited by Odysseus and Diomedes; thematically, because it
takes place in the dead of night; and structurally, because it leads to an
Achaean victory' (Nagler, Spontaneity 136). One might add to the derelictions
listed in that harsh verdict the 'philhellenism 5 of the Book, see 13-14J1.
Note also the analysis of van Thiel, Mas und Maden 327-40, who conceives
that the Friihilias had no Doloneia but an Embassy (of Odysseus and Aias),
whereas the Spdtilias put the Embassy at the beginning of what is now book
14 and inserted a Doloneia between the defeat of what is now book 8 and the
initial victories of book 11. Van Thiel's analysis rests on an interpretation
of repeated themes in the epic different from that assumed in this commentary,
but the result throws light on one of the possible functions of books 9
and 10 - possible, because notoriously there is no allusion to the events of
either Book in the ensuing battle. Having defeated the Achaeans in book 8
the poet should give them a plausible reason for renewed confidence to fight
again the following day and do better. Book 9 does that in a subtle way,
stripping away all extraneous aid and leaving the Achaeans (without
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