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Book Eleven
that the Achaeans retreated within their fortifications by a gate VTJCOV tn'
dpiorTepd.
617 Patroklos runs off towards the centre of the Achaean encampment.
He does not start his return journey until 15.405. Many of the intervening
events, especially in book 12, though narrated in the usual linear fashion,
may be understood as simultaneous if Patroklos' absence seems unduly
prolonged. In the plan of the Iliad, of course, it is essential for the returning
Patroklos to bring news dire enough to motivate the events of book 16.
6i8-6g Patroklos finds Nestor taking refreshment after his return from the battlefield
and delivers his message. Nestor reports the disasters that have just occurred. All
this, however, is preliminary to Nestor's making an oblique appeal to Akhilleus
The passage, down to 654, illustrates the epic's characteristic love for the
detail of the heroic world: the unyoked horses, the slave woman and her
story, Nestor's refreshment, his special cup. Length, however (ccO^nais as
the scholiasts say), is correlated with significance in Homer. The reason,
therefore, why the love of detail is indulged at this point is that it is part of
the important scene between Nestor and Patroklos in which the fatal intervention
of the latter is adumbrated.
619-21 For a fuller scene of unyoking and stabling see Od. 4.39-42;
the horses are fed and the chariot carefully stowed.
620 Eurumedon is named as Nestor's charioteer at 8.114 also.
Agamemnon's charioteer was another Eurumedon (4.228). It is not clear
why the name was suitable for that profession, but cf. Automedon, Akhilleus'
charioteer. The simplex ue8cov means 'ruling', but could conceivably have
been interpreted as 'driving' vel sim., cf. Lat. rego for a similar development
in the reverse direction. The etymological dictionaries are unhelpful.
621 !5pco 6c7revyuxovTO XITCOVGOV clearly means that Eurupulos, despite
his injury, and Nestor dried off their sweat-soaked clothing in the seabreeze.
The same verb is used of washing off sweat at 21.561.
623 On the KAICTUOS and other Homeric chairs see West on Od. 1.130,
Richter, Furniture 13, and for ancient attempts to differentiate them
Athenaeus 192E (5i9pos, KAKJUOS, Opovos, in ascending order of grandeur).
Having seated himself on a KAKTUOS here Nestor arises from a Gpovos at 645.
Such sets of quasi-synonyms are regularly used to denote the same object
(see Introduction 13-14).
624 KUK8ico: see 638-4in. Hekamede, like other women in the Iliad,
is represented as a prize of war. Her name was perhaps suggested by
her role in preparing the restorative KUKeicov, cf. 'Ayapir|6r|v, f\ xoaa