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Book Eleven
cf. the nymph 7\pcriv6r| of Messene, Paus. 4.31.6 (< dpSeiv, 'to make wet',
+ vod 'spring'), as if the present context put the poet in mind of Pylian
traditions. For a female as oivoxoos, a service usually performed by Koupoi,
one may compare Hebe among the gods (4.2ff.). Hekamede reappears at
14.6 preparing a hot bath for Makhaon.
625 Another note of Akhilleus' raids on the satellite towns of Troy,
see 9.328-9. Tenedos, however, was the Achaeans' rendezvous on their
way to Troy in the Cypria. Tenedos' roles as host and victim are by no
means incompatible, for Akhilleus' forays are a reminder that heroic war
was the pursuit of plunder, not a calculated strategy. (In another strand of
tradition Lemnos figured as the Achaeans' staging post, see 2.718-22,
8.23on.)
628-9 TpdTTe£ocv: Greek tables were low, light, and portable. For
Homeric furniture in general see 9.2oon. The decoration is reminiscent of
that listed on the Pylos Ta series of tablets, see Ventris and Chadwick,
Documents 332-5.
630 A metal Kdveov ('bowl' therefore or 'basin' rather than 'basket')
is attested also at Od. 10.355. An onion' (Kpouuov) 'as seasoning for the
drink' is an unexplained complication of the recipe for the KUKSICOV. This
incidental onion is one of the few mentions of vegetables in the Iliad, see W.
Richter, Arch. Horn, H 123-7. Meat is the food for heroes (and for gentlemen
- Pepys and Woodforde, for example, on the evidence of their diaries, dined
almost exclusively on flesh). Athenaeus (24F—25E) discusses the Homeric
diet.
631 dAqnTou iepou dKTf)v is probably formular, recurring at Od. 2.355,
14.429 without fepou. dAcpiTOU is genitive of dAcpiTa; there is no singular
dAcpiTOV, but dAcpiTCOV would be unmetrical. Shipp, Studies 191, aptly points
to the correspondence of TraAuvocs dAcprrou oncrf) (Od. 14.429) to dAcpiTCC
AsuKa TTdAuve (ibid. 77). Hesiod had naturally more use for dicrfi; his principal
formula is Ar|ur|Tepos iepov OKTT\V (3X Hesiod Erga) - whence the v.l.
iepov here - or more briefly Ar||if|T6pos OKTT\V (2X //., Erga 32, Aspis 290).
Outside these formulas (apart from a few imitations) the word is unknown,
and must be an epic fossil. The sense 'meal' suggested a connexion with
dyvuui to the D scholia (but that is pdyvuui); LfgrE compares Skt af-nd-H,
'eat'.
632-5 The description of Nestor's famous cup, see G. Bruns, Arch. Horn.
G 42-3, Lorimer, HM 328-35. The word SSTTOCS is apparently of Anatolian
origin, cf. Hitt. tapifana-. Commentators' conceptions of the vessel change
as archaeological material accumulates, see E. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze
Age (Chicago 1964) 309-11. The doves recall the well-known gold cup from
the fourth shaft-grave at Mycenae, but that is probably a libation vessel and
the birds that decorate its handles are falcons (so S. Marinatos, Festschrift
292