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Book Eleven
a hundred oxen for the de luxe model in gold, ibid.); its smooth surfaces
invited ostentatious decoration to express (as here) the status and vanity of
the wearer, cf. the corslet of Asteropaios (23.560-2). It seems also to possess
a special symbolism for the Homeric warrior. Its seizure took precedence
over tactical military considerations or personal safety, as if victory were not
complete without the spoils of war. The important pieces for that purpose
are helmet, shield, corslet and spear, cf. the lists at 13.264-5 and 19.359-61.
Special armour is noted at 6.235, 7-136, 8.191, 17.194, and of course
i8.478ff.
15 The narrative plunges immediately into the arming scene without
any notice of sacrifice, prayer, or meal, as in books 2 and 19 (the entry into
battle of the Myrmidons in book 16 is in response to an emergency, but even
there space is found for Akhilleus' prayer to Zeus). If the poet had intended
his hearers to suppose that Agamemnon had omitted those crucial precautions
he would have said as much; even so the tempo of the narrative
leaves an indelible sense of Agamemnon's impatience. 'ATpsiSris: this is
Agamemnon's great moment and a note on his royal ancestry would not
have been inappropriate, but this has already been given when he stood
before the assembly at 2. iooff. The Homeric poems know (or mention) only
Pelops, Atreus, and Thuestes in earlier generations of the Pelopidae, and
only Menelaos and Aigisthos in Agamemnon's; there is no mention of
Pleisthenes, whom the Cypria (fr. 10 Davies) and mainland and western
poets from Hesiod (fr. 194 M-W) and Stesichorus (fr. 219 Davies) onwards
insert at unspecific points into the genealogy. It is possible that these allusions
preserve the remnants of a memory of the Pelopidae at Mycenae lost
from the main Ionian tradition. Pleisthenes was made brother or halfbrother
of Atreus by schol. Pind. 01. 1.144 and inserted between Atreus and
Agamemnon by schol. Eur. Or. 4. See Fraenkel's note to Aesch. Ag. 1569
for further references.
16 e80creTo: the conjugation of sigmatic aorists with the thematic vowel
is an epic type confined to a few verbs, chiefly 5uouoci, paivco, and compounds,
see Ghantraine, GHi 416-17. The paradosis has often introduced
-era- forms in spite of ancient grammatical opinion that identified the
formation as an imperfect. See further West on Od. 1.330, Hainsworth on
Od. 5.194, 6.321 and the literature there cited.
17-19 =3.330-2=16.131-3=19.369-71. Apparently the greaves,
though often of metal in the Late Helladic (LH) period (and at 7.41,
18.613, 21.592) did not lend themselves to detailed description, at least no
attempt is made to elaborate their mention beyond the two-verse formula
17—18. Nor were they worth looting, in spite of their silver clasps. For a full
account see H. W. Catling, Arch. Horn, E 143-61. The obsolescence of the
tower shield made it necessary to protect the lower legs which could not be
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