Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Twelve
warrior (Sarpedon) encourages his comrade (Glaukos); they go off to battle;
an inferior opponent (Menestheus) calls for assistance; a major warrior
(Aias with Teukros) joins him and averts the danger (with 331-91 cf.
11.463-501).
Sarpedon's ranking as a hero has already been established by his slaying
of Tlepolemos (5.627-59); it is confirmed now by his near-success at carrying
the Achaean wall. He is thus established, as e.g. Aineias is not, in the
mind of the poet's audience as the one hero on the Trojan side, other than
Hektor himself, who is capable of confronting Patroklos (16.419-507).
290—4 It is hard to understand why Leaf should condemn these lines
as 'practically meaningless,' except as a consequence of his view that in
one version of the assault Sarpedon was successful, a trace of which he finds
at 16.558 [ZapTrf)8