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Book Twelve
it, or hack it with axes, but that would be teamwork not the heroic action
of a single leader of men; so Hektor is made to achieve the same end
single-handed by a superhuman feat of boulder-hurling.
258—60 The passages in addition to the present one that shed some light
on the nature of the Achaean wall as the poet conceived it are 7.436—41 (its
construction), 7.461-3 (its destruction), 12.3-32 (its destruction in detail),
12.177-8, 12.397-9 (i ts damage), 15.361-4 (its partial destruction). Since
the aim of an attacking force is TEI/OS priyvuvai and the destruction of the
wall by flood is described as TSIXOS duaA8uv£iv (7.463, 12.18, 12.32), the
poet cannot have in mind the Cyclopean masonry of the Mycenaean citadels
of the mainland, or be using diction devised for their description. The
stated materials for the construction of the wall were cpiTpoi, 'logs' (12.29),
and AOCES, 'stones', (12.29, I2 - I 78), and in the context of the Iliad it is a
hastily improvised defence completed in one day. One may compare the
works achieved by the Athenian army in two and half days at Delion in 424
B.C, cf. Thuc. 4.90 Td9pov uev KUKACO Trep! TO ispov Kai TOV vecbv IcjKaTTTov,
6K 8E TOO dpuyuaTos dve(3aAAov dvTi TEIXOUS TOV X OUV » Ka * o"Taupou$
TrapaKaTaTrnyvuvTes, auirsAov KOTTTOVTES TT|V TTEpi TO ispov £(7E(3aAAov Kai
AiOous OC^JLOC Kai TTAIVOOV EK TGOV OIKOTTESGOV TCOV syyus KaOaipouvTEs, Kai iravTi
TpoTTcp E|j£T£cbpi£ov TO ipuua. m/pyous TE £uAivous KOTEaTTjaav f) Kaipos f)v.
Where an army was less apprehensive of immediate attack it would, like the
Peloponnesians before Plataea in 429, make use of mud-brick, digging
the material out of a trench alongside the wall, see Thuc. 2.78. TETXOS
duaA8uvsiv would be an appropriate description of the effects of water on
such material. Homer, however, conceives the ditch as separated from the
wall (see 65—6n.) and having its own ramparts. However, the substantial
foundations and superstructure described in these verses are more appropriate
to permanent town-walls than to an improvised fieldwork, cf. the description
of the walls of Skherie at Od. 7.44-5, and are reminiscent of the
walls of Old Smurne and their reconstructed timber fittings, as described
byj. V. Nicholls, BSA 53-4 (1958-9) 112-13, figs. 34, 35, and more briefly
by H. Drerup, Arch. Horn, o 44—7. Descriptions of walls are a necessary part
of siege-poetry, but fieldworks (except here) do not figure in Iliadic battle
scenes and specific diction for them seems to be lacking. — Kpocrcrai is
an Ionic word with some currency in late Greek. It was intelligible to
Herodotus or his informants, see History 2.125 dvapaducov TOCS UETE^ETEpoi
Kpoacras, oi 8E (3co|jii8as ovoud^oucri, describing the stepped construction of
the Great Pyramid (see A. L. Lloyd, Herodotus Book ii m (Leiden 1988)
67-8), cf. Porphyry 1.180.8 TOUS Trpo(3E(3Ar|UEVous TOU TEIXOUS AiSous.
Aristarchus was uncertain, cf. Arn/A Kpoaaas EV UEV TOTS UTrouvfjuacTi
K£9aAi8as, EV 8E TCO TTEpi TOU vauciTdOuou KAiuaKas. If ladders are meant
then TTUpycov must be understood to be genitive of the point of aim (AEITTEI
345