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Book Eleven
obscure. Ruijgh, op. cit. 111-67, discusses the Arcado-Cypriot element in
the epic vocabulary. It includes such basic epic words as ccTaa, ava£,
6aT£O|iai, 8€Tras, 8coua, and f)|iccp. Our ignorance of the early stages in the
formation of the Attic-Ionic dialect should prevent an easy assumption
that the cradle of the epic tradition must be sought in the Mycenaean
Peloponnese. (36A-, for example, is also attested in the Ionic of Euboea.
32off. The Trojans are in their chariots to hasten the pursuit, cf. 754-61.
The two Achaeans fight as a pair, like Menelaos and Antilokhos at 5.5766°.,
and continue the pattern set by Agamemnon's aristeia by slaying men in
pairs. Two heroes, not being fighting man and charioteer, do not act
together to attack a single opponent; that would not be heroic.
320 0u|j(3paTov: cf. 0O|j(3pri (10.430), a town on the Skamandros. This is
Thumbraios' sole appearance.
322 The dep&Ttcov performs the duties of an inferior; he attends his principal
in the field especially as charioteer, receives guests, serves food and wine,
assists at sacrifice, and acts as messenger. His civilian duties thus overlap
those of the KT)pu£, cf. 1.321 where Talthubios and Eurubates are described
as KfjpuKE KOC! depcorovTe. The dspdnrcov, however, is not a man of the people.
He might have wealthy parents (24.398); Patroklos could be so described
(16.653), an d tepocTTGOV 'ISouevfps is a formular description of Meriones
(6x). MoXiova: the name may be identical with Myc. mo-ri-wo PY Gn 1287.
-icov is not primarily a patronymic suffix, cf. Hsch. uoAioves* uccxsTcd. A
Molos was father of the Greek Meriones (10.269-70, 13.249). For more
famous Moliones see 710 and 750 below and nn.
324-5 The simile of boars and hounds again, cf. 292-3, only this time
the boars are the aggressors.
327 9EuyovT6S is transitive with "EKTopcc 5Tov as object. The hyperbaton
is unusual, but cf. 242-3.
328-34 The sons of Merops are not invented for this episode and are of
more consequence than their demise seems to imply. They are named in the
Trojan Catalogue (2.830) as Adrestos and Amphios of Apaisos, commanders
of a Hellespontine contingent (329-32 = 2.831-4). Their subsequent history
in the Iliad is curiously confused, as if the tradition about them was
real but half-forgotten: an Adrestos is killed at 6.63-5, an d another at
16.694, see n - *° 2 -^3°? while an Amphios of Paisos is slain by Diomedes at
5.612 (see nn. ad loo.). The names Amphios and Adrestos echo those of
the Theban cycle (Amphiaraos and Adrastos), a further complication, cf.
13.663-70 and n. It is odd that the two brothers are not named more
specifically, perhaps as Strasburger suggests, Kdmpfer 26, because the focus
of interest in the incident is the plight of the father not the fate of the sons.
Seers and priests are popular as fathers of the slain, their disregarded
warnings, or failures to give warning, being a ready source of pathos, cf.
5.i48ff., 13.6636°. Merops of Perkote (actually of Adresteia in the Trojan
262