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Book Twelve
isolated from that of the wider heroic world. Meve-aOeus is a Kurzform for
MEVE-O-OEVTIS, which would not scan in the nominative. An alternative form
of the name, for different persons, is MeveoOios (7.9, 16.173).
332-3 TronTTodvEiv is always a symptom of fear, as explicitly at 11.546.
TTUpyov: the best sense would be given to these two verses if in 332 irupyos
is taken to be a 'bastion' protecting Menestheus' gate and in 333 to be the
phalanx of defending spearmen, cf. 7rupyr|86v 43 and n., but the collocation
of different uses of the word would be strangely harsh. Leaf, with some
reason, contends that in Homer m/pyos refers generally to a fortification
rather than specifically to a 'tower', so that Menestheus may be said to be
defending a sector of the wall, his Trupyos, and looks along it, dvd Trupyov,
to the adjacent sectors for support.
334 For dpfjv, 'disaster', see 14.484-5^ and West on Hesiod, Theog. 657.
This dpf] is an old word of uncertain origin and formation (conjectures in
Chantraine, Diet, s.v.), which survived in the formulas dpf)v uu-u duuvEiv
(3X //., 2X Od. with a variant at Od. 22.208) and dpfis dAKTfjpa (2X //.).
335-6 For the sense of AICCVTS see 265-76n. If 336 is original (there is no
athetesis), the poet understood Aiavxe as the two Aiantes. Teukros had been
wounded by Hektor and taken to his hut at 8.324-9, which may account
for this tardy realization that a battle was taking place, but no direct
allusion is made in this Book to his previous injury.
337 (3coaavTi: (3co- is the Ionic contraction of por|-. yEycovEiv implies
'reach by shouting', 'make to hear', as in the Odyssean formula oaaov
(oaov) TE yEycovE (3of)aas (4X ).
340 iraaai... ETTCOXOCTO (so Aristarchus, Arn/Did/A): Trdaas ... ETTCOXETO
was read by Zenodotus and appears in the majority of MSS. ETTCOXCCTO, 3rd
person plural of the pluperfect of ETTEXEIV, is cited in Ap. Soph. Lex., and may
have been what Aristarchus intended to write (= ETrcoxAiaiJEvai fjaav, Ap.
Soph., £TriK£KAi|i£vai fjaav, ETTEKEIVTO, bT), although the scholiasts are insistent
that ETTCpx aTO (5id TOO a KCCI auv TCO 1) was his reading: that would be
from ETToiyco (ETripoiyco would probably be the Homeric form), for the sense
of which ('close') the late compound TTpoaoiyvuui may be compared. The
plural verb carries with it the change of Trdaas to iraaai ( = 'the whole').
Aristarchus wished to have only one gate in his text and appears therefore
to have emended the vulgate, which may stand, see van der Valk, Researches
1 575-80. With ETTcpxeTO understand dOrr), 'noise of battle', from 338 as
subject. — TTUAECOV: Ionic EGO (by metathesis of an immediately antecedent
r|o) is normally scanned as a single syllable in the epic as in the Ionic
iambographers, cf. Chantraine, GH 1 64, as if it were phonetically diphthongal.
But metathesized EGO is often dissyllabic in Attic and may occasionally
be so in the epic, cf. 'AKpovECOS, 'AvapriaiVECOS {Od. 8.111, 8.113), which,
however, are from vapos. Anapaestic TTUAECOV occurs also at 7.1.
342 As a line introducing direct speech but not containing a verb of
355