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Book Twelve
sc. the Achaeans were read in 142 for Aristarchus' eovTes sc. the
Lapithai. They can encourage the troops from their station outside the
gates.
i27ff. Verses 127-31 are contained in Pap. 432, for which see 11.265^
Verses 128-40, 176-91, 249-63, 355-71, 399-414, and 446-59 are contained
in Pap. 121 + Pap. 342. (The two papyri are from the same roll,
according to G. M. Boiling, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 14 (1928) 78.)
The stichometry used by the scribe indicates that he wrote up to five
plus-verses between 192 and 249, two certainly after 347 and 350 corresponding
to 360a and 363a in the parallel passage, and at least four more
between 263 and 355, or 371 and 398, or 414 and 446. No more precise
indications survive.
127-38 Zenodotus and Aristophanes read the dual throughout this passage
according to Did/AT (so £Trepxo|Jievco 136 in Pap. 59). The dual is
obviously impossible at some points, e.g. eupov 127, and introduces improbable
hiatus in 127-8. Nevertheless it was adopted by Leaf.
128 Despite the fame of their battle with the Centaurs the Lapithai were
an embarrassment to genealogists, see West, Catalogue 85—6. As a tribe they
have no role in the Trojan saga and accordingly have only the briefest
mention in the Iliad, here and at 181. They are mentioned once in the
Odyssey at 21.297. Their leaders, Polupoites and Leonteus, are listed in the
Catalogue as coming from northern Thessaly (2.738-47), without a note of
their tribe, and their father Peirithoos is mentioned at 1.263 in Nestor's
recollection of the fight with the Centaurs. They took part in the Games of
Patroklos (23.836-7). The oddity is the neglect of the tribal name in the
earlier allusions.
130 T reports a plus-verse (TIVES Eirayoucriv), uiov OirepOuiJioio Kopcovou
Kaivet5ao (130a = 2.746). The commentator takes the addition seriously
and praises the style of the passage in the light of it: TrapaTf)p£i TO TTOIKIAOV
7T\s ETrayysAias; he means the alternation between father's name + own
name and own name + father's name. One of T's Tives is Pap. 432, which
also inserts the verse as 190a. Pap. 121 omits the verse here but has it as
190a. For further discussion see West, Ptolemaic Papyri 99-101, who thinks
its omission was accidental (contra van der Valk, Researches 11 408-1). —
PpoToAoiyco TCTOV "Aprfi: an extravagant compliment, though not so extravagant
as Agamemnon's comparison to Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon at 2.478-9.
The formula is otherwise reserved for Akhilleus and Hektor, see 11.604.
Leonteus is 6£os "Aprjos at 188 and twice elsewhere, but that formula is
clearly generic (applied to seven heroes in the Iliad and four others in the
Hesiodic corpus).
132-6,146-51 G. Murray objected that 'People who stand firm in front
of a gate, like oaks, are not very like wild boars that rush out and tear up
332