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Book Eleven
linked since Iphidamas and Koon are brothers, but are related
as separate episodes within ring-composition (221 ~
261).
221-47 Iphidamas.
221-30: he is identified by an anecdote.
232-3: Agamemnon's spear misses.
234-40: Iphidamas hits but does not injure Agamemnon.
240: Agamemnon kills him with the sword.
241-45: pathetic observations on his death.
C 248-63 Koon.
248-50: he is briefly identified.
251-3: he wounds Agamemnon in the arm.
254—60: Agamemnon spears Koon.
D 264—83 Agamemnon withdraws.
269-72: simile.
Y 2841!. Hektor's counter-attack.
The alternation of general description and particular incident is typical
of Homeric narrative technique. The exegetical scholia (who are familiar
with the point that events may be parallel but narration must be linear)
call it Trpoavcn^aAodcocxis; bT comment on 906°. Iv K£9aAaiois eTirev cos
dvr|pr|VTai [sc. Bienor and Oileus], TO TTCOS eTT&yei Kcrrcc |i£pos. The poet's
remark on one reason for Agamemnon's success, Hektor's absence (A), is
developed into a foreshadowing of the termination of his aristeia (B), and of
Hektor's success (X). The former is fulfilled at C-D, the latter leads at Y
into the next sequence of themes. The exegetical scholia comment frequently
upon such linking trains of thought (Trpoavcttpcovrjcns, TrpoAriyis,
TrpooiKOVoaia) in which they perceive the poet's grand design formed and
finished before any verse was composed. For the technique of the anecdote
see C. R. Beye, The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition (London 1968)
94-6.
The second part of Agamemnon's aristeia is short-weight in content since
he is given only one straight slaying before being wounded, against six in
the earlier episodes, but the space allocated is not grossly disparate (the
latter half of the aristeia with its ancillary general descriptions has 70 verses
against 1 o 1 in the former).
91-147 First part of the aristeia of Agamemnon. In three brisk fights the
king attacks men mounted in chariots and despatches three pairs of minor
Trojans. The intention is doubtless to stress the ferocity of the hero's onslaught.
That does credit to the uevos of the King of Men, but it is not so
gallant as it may appear: the Trojans are mounted in order to flee, not to
fight at an advantage. On very few occasions in the Iliad is anyone said to
232