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Book Twelve
region of Troy (the tomb of Ilos, 10.415, etc., that of an unknown warrior,
23.331) but it is unclear whether the poet wishes to imply that these were
visible in his own day. See 10.415^ for the monuments in existence c. 700
B.C. The present passage reads like a naive device to explain why no
Achaean wall, or its ruins, stood in the poet's day. This is the view taken by
bT here and at 7.445, cf. Aristotle fr. 162 Rose [TO TEIXOS] OU5' Eysvexo, 6
6E TrA&oras TroirjTris fjcpaviasv (= Strabo 13.1.36). It may also be noticed that
since the wall is to be the centre-piece of this Book it is appropriate to
comment on its history outside the time-span of the epic, cf. the story of
Odysseus' bow, Od. 21.11-41, here (since it has no history to speak of) on
the fate of the wall. For the view that the emphasis on destruction and death
in these lines reflects the idea known from the Cypria that Zeus designed the
annihilation of the race of heroes see R. Scodel, HSCP 86 (1982) 33-53.
The building of the wall is plausible as something that a real army might
do, but it is not introduced into the Iliad because in the saga of Troy the
Achaeans did in fact build it as related in book 7. Thucydides (1.11.1), who
argued that the wall, or a wall, was built in the first year of the war, would
have saved himself and Homer's commentators much speculation (see
7.327-43^) if he had been able to recognize the existence of fiction in
Homer. The point of the wall is not to record a fact but to give structure
generally to the central battle for the ships and specifically to permit the
introduction in this Book of an Assault.
Strabo (13.1.31-2) locates the vauoTOcOuov near Sigeion 20 stades from
classical Ilium, but also reports a place called 'Axoucov Aiufjv only 12 stades
distant at least half of which, he says, was post-Homeric accretion to the
delta of the Skamandros.
1—8 Fragments of these verses are contained in the third-century papyrus
Pap. 5 (see 1 i.788n.). There are no plus-verses. For the papyrus' failure
to mark the book division see 11.848^
1-2 The Book begins in the same way as book 9 (see 9.in.) with a
reference to the last scene of the preceding book using the formula cos 6 (oi)
Ui6v...X6e (auTdpZ).
3 6|iiAa56v: the ouiAos is the mass of warriors around or behind the
Ttpouaxoi, so that the battle has now become general just as it was at the
beginning of book 11 (11.67ff.). A simile to illustrate the ferocity of the fight
could be expected to follow, but the description of battle is overtaken by the
digression about the Achaean wall.
5-6 = 7.448-9. This description, and especially the words TEIXOS UTTepBEV
in 4, seems to envisage the ditch and wall as a single composite fortification.
That would be a sensible arrangement that increased the effective height of
the wall, but it is at variance with the narrative of books 9 (see 9.67 and n.)
and 10 (see 126, 194) and of this and the following Books, which envisages