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Book Eleven
geography is unclear (see 498-9^); it nowhere impedes the advance and
retreat of the armies.
168 KEKArjycos, an Ionic, or Ionicized, form, is the reading of the paradosis
everywhere for the nominative singular of this perfect participle.
OCT correct to the Aeolic KEKArjycov after the plural K£KAf|yovTES- KEKArjycos
was retained here in early impressions of OCT 3rd edn, and survives in
the sixteenth impression (1990) at 17.88 and Od. 12.408, apparently by
inadvertence. On the principle that where possible singers approximated
the Kunstsprache to their vernacular the paradosis may be retained (see
i6.43on.). For the plural form in -OVTES see I2.i25n.
169 AuOpos is a typical result of battle, cf. 6.268, but 169 = 20.503,
a verse that concludes an exceptionally savage aristeia (ten victims) by
Akhilleus. Both that and the present passage incorporate forest-fire similes
in order to complete the impression of indiscriminate slaughter. &&TTTOI/S is
mostly reserved for Akhilleus' hands. T. Eide, Symbolae Osloenses 111 (1986)
18, observes that of the epithets for the hand 'TTCXXUS and OTi|3ap6s (add
KpaTEpos) are used of the hand acting, while (3apus, Opacrus and docTrros are
emotionally laden and denote the hand primarily as a harmful instrument'.
daTTTOS is from dpeiTTOS by contraction and subsequent diectasis, i.e. 'inexpressibly
strong' (so LfgrE s.v.), but the poet probably associated this
obsolete word (only found in the formula X £ ip £ S doorroi and variants) with
dTTTOuou. See also I2.i66n.
170 For the gates and oak-tree see 9.354^
173-7 The simile continues the picture of Agamemnon's battle-rage
drawn at 113—5 and combines two points: a lion terrifies a herd of cattle
and brutally kills one of them. With 172-3 cf. 15.323-4, then 176-7 =
17.63-4, another lion simile; 18.583 iyKorra KOC! UEAOCV alua AcupucrorETOv is a
variant of 177. VUKTOS dpioAycp: an Iliadic formula (4X , all similes, and Od.
4.841). The etymological connexion with d|JEAyco, 'milk', is inescapable, so
that the expression ought to refer to morning (22.28, as the mention of
Sirius shows) or evening twilight (22.317); elsewhere, as here, 'at dead of
night' seems to be the sense, in which case the etymological sense of duoAycp
has been lost. See 22.28n. and Shipp, Studies 192, citing (from Kretschmer)
usages in modern Greek dialects and concluding that the formula is an
archaism, imperfectly understood.
175 See ii3-i9n. For the lion's tactics cf. 5.161 and many representations
in art, listed in Arch. Horn, j 21-30.
178 That Agamemnon kills the hindmost (easy victims?) has no especial
significance; the same verse is used of Hektor at 8.342.
179-80 The scholia (Did/A, Arn/A) are mutilated but clearly affirm
that Zenodotus omitted these two verses and probably that Aristophanes
athetized them as contradicting 160 (where the chariots were already
244