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Book Eleven
together in this Book at 395, and vultures again at 453-4. At this point, in
the mouth of the poet, the conjunction is pathetic, at 395 (Diomedes speaking)
it expresses the grim humour of the heat of battle.
163 Three combats described in some detail are about par for the course
in an aristeia: Diomedes has four (5.144-65) but not related at the same
length, Patroklos three (16.399—414) followed by a long list without annotation.
This then is the moment when a leading Trojan (Aineias in book 5,
Sarpedon in book 16) should 'notice' what is happening and intervene.
Only Hektor, the Trojan leader, is possible as the opponent of the
Achaeans' King of Men. If Hektor opposed Agamemnon and wounded
him there would be a nice irony - Agamemnon humiliatingly fails where
Akhilleus triumphantly succeeds. But the poet does not like to humiliate the
Achaeans, cf. the way in which he arranges the death of Patroklos, and has
Agamemnon, and later Odysseus (434-9), wounded by Trojans whom they
can immediately slay. It is therefore necessary to insert the note (163-4)
that Hektor was not present to 'notice' Agamemnon's rampage because
Zeus (whose inscrutable will explains everything) has removed him from
the battle. Note that this brief statement of the theme is presently followed
by its restatement in a highly elaborated form, see 181-2ion.
163-4 The polysyndeton is a deliberate trope to draw a picture of the
rout, cf. oca 96VOV, dv VEKUOCS, 8id T' EVTECC KOU |ieAav aiua (10.298). KOVITIS:
Greek warfare was typically a summertime activity (the Iliad seems to
assume the summer season) and dust was its natural concomitant. At
17.645ff. the murk (ocfjp) was such that Aias could not see the ships from his
place on the battlefield.
165 oxpeSccvov = c^oSpa, 'vehemently'.
166 "lAou a-qiaoc: Ilos was son of Tros and father of Laomedon, 20.23iff.
His tomb, the fig-tree (167), the oak (170), and the 'rise' (Opcocruos, 10.160,
etc.) are the permanent landmarks of the Iliad's geography of the Trojan
plain, cf. 10.415, 11.372 (Ilos' tomb); 6.433, 22 - r 45 (the fig-tree); 5.693, etc.
(the oak, near the Scaean gates (6.237, 9-354))- The fig-tree was near the
city, the tomb in the middle of the plain according to Nic/A, cf. 6.433^ The
Catalogue of Ships uses a different system, see nn. to 2.793, 2.811-15.
Another landmark, Kallikolone near the Simoeis river, is mentioned only
at 20.53 and 151. — It is unclear what monuments may have existed in the
Skamandros valley while the tradition of the Trojan war was developing,
see Cook, Troad 159-65 and n. to 2.813-14. Most of the tumuli visible
today appear to have been erected during the archaic period, but at least
one - Be§ik Tepe - is prehistoric. That may have inspired the mention of
the ofjiicc, but except in the most general terms the epic geography of the
Troad is clearly a poetical construction. See 22.i45n. on the location of the
fig-tree. How the ford of Skamandros (14.433 = 2lA = 2 4-^9 2 ) fi ts mto tn ^ s
2 43