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Formulas
with ocAs at Od. 8.111. Archaisms may be replaced even if understood:
f)Top > vriXea 0u|i6v, ddaTov ^Tuyos OScop > duEiAiKTOv Z. 0. (HyDem 259);
Ait 91A0S (with archaic dative Aipei?) occurs 17X in the Iliad but is dropped
in the Odyssey, Hymns, and Hesiod.
Personal names in -eus on the evidence of Linear B tablets were popular
in the Mycenaean epoch and are still well represented in the Iliad; alongside
them are names with a more classical appearance, Antilokhos, Eurumakhos,
Antinoos, Telemakhos, which must be placed in the first hemistich and
require different sentence patterns: TOV 8' aO(T J ) name + epithet dvTiov
r|06a. The evolution of the Ionic dialect, especially the loss of digamma and
the contraction of vowels, wreaked potential havoc on the formular diction;
there are nineteen expressions scanned uu-uu-u which make use of the
oblique cases of adjectives in -T]s; forty-five adjectives in -6(p)eis or -f)(p)Eis
used in the feminine or the oblique cases to fill the last colon became
archaisms; basic parts of the formular diction based on neuter nouns like
dAysa, Kf|8ea, uf|8ea, TEuxea, etc., were threatened with obsolescence. Corresponding
opportunities arose: new forms like (ecr)f)AOCTO, OUTCCCTE, yejorro,
are already in the text, but the advantage taken of the evolving dialect is
still tentative in the Iliad: some contracted forms, 'AxiAAeT, dyrjpcos, fjous;
TEUxeoc, 8EO£i8£a at the verse-end; connectives may be slipped in where they
would not go before: OEOS 8' cos TIETO 8f|uco, XapoTroio T' dvcncros, TOV 8'
'EAEVTJ. The differences observable in the diction of Hesiod and the Hymns
- slight but sufficient with careful analysis to establish a relative chronology
(Janko, HHH) - show that the Kunstsprache continued to undergo a gradual
evolution.
A few formulas must be relatively new because they embody contractions
or neglected digamma: Kpovou Trdi's dyKuAopif|T£CO, IAEAIT|8EOS OIVOV, 69P'
EITTCO. UEAIT)8EOS otvou (< the accusative u£Air|8Ea oivov) is replacing UEACCVOS
OIVOIO with its archaic genitive, lost digamma, and anomalous epithet, cf.
'ATTOAAGOVOS (P)EKOCTOIO and EicnpoAou 'ATTOAACOVOS. Kpovou ir&'i's dyKuAolifjTECo
competes directly with Tronrrip dv8pcov TE OECOV TE (contrast 15.12 with
16.431) and has the advantage of a word-break at the bucolic diaeresis so
that it can be shortened, cf. 2.319 and 6.139; even so Trcnrip dv8pcov TE 9ECOV
TE is unchallenged in introductory and resumptive formulas.
The language and diction of the epic tradition was never static; it was
always an amalgam of old and new, and the old was constantly being
eroded. For this reason the heroic tradition by Homer's time could remember
the Trojan war and preserve isolated details of its Mycenaean past, or
of even earlier incarnations, but had lost touch with the real nature of
Mycenaean culture and economy as it is now revealed to us. doi8oi, guided
by an infrastructure of habits in localization and sentence structure, could
invent, improve, improvise, and expand their diction according to their
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