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Book Nine
resumptive formula is used to introduce books 12, 16, 18, 20, 22, and 23;
but it is a regular formula of transition between episodes, and implies
nothing for the origin of the present division into books. [Plutarch], Vita
Horn., affirms that Aristarchus (i.e. a Hellenistic scholar, not necessarily
Aristarchus himself) made the Book division. Indeed a Hellenistic date is
very likely; see R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968)
115-16. See also 1 i.848n. and Introduction to vol. vi 20-21.
1 9UAOK6CS EXOV: by the tomb of Ilos, according to 10.415, though the
geography of that Book is idiosyncratic, see 10.428-3 in., and the location
of the tomb is never precisely conceived. Night has fallen (8.485-6), though
very little notice is taken of the fact in the narrative, apart from a passing
reference at 85.
2 With their usual precision the scholia (Arn/A bT and Arn/A on 14.10)
seek to separate 9o|3os as f) UETOC TOO 8EOUS 9uyr| and 91/^a as f) (JETCX 9uyqs
SeiAicccns, and suggest IK-TTAT^IS as the sense of 9u£cc here. 'Panic' is a suitably
ambivalent rendering between the state of mind and its manifestation. The
Achaeans of course are presently within the safety of their wall. — 9oj3ou
KPUOEVTOS: the correct form Kpuoeis is here secure, as at 5.740, Hesiod, Theog.
936 and [Hesiod], Aspis 255. For the secondary form OKpuoeis, a creation
(according to Leumann, HW 49-50) of Homer's predecessors, see 6.344^
and 64n. — The metaphor 6TCCipr| recurs at 4.440-1 (ipis the sister and
comrade of Ares).
3 (3epoAf|aTO, as if from |3OAECO (only the medio-passive perfect is attested),
is properly used metaphorically according to Aristarchus (Arn/A). |3£(3Af|orro,
read by Zenodotus 'and others', would imply physical wounds, cf. 9,
and Od. 10.247, where pE(3Ar|[iEvos is read by many MSS for pe(3oArmevos.
4-8 The Book division conceals the contrast, clearly deliberate, between
this simile of wind and storm and that of the calm night fourteen verses
earlier that illustrates the Trojans' confident bivouac at 8.555-9. The
oblique idiom 'as two winds stir up the sea', for 'as the sea is stirred up', is
typical of Homeric similes.
Similes in general, like the narrative, are composed from the standpoint
of an observer and comment upon external signs from which, of course,
internal states of mind may be inferred. This simile therefore is unusual in
that it comments on a metaphysical entity, the Oupios, which cannot be
observed except in so far as a person may be aware of his own duuos and, as
here, of its palpitations. Storm similes, e.g. 11.297-8, 11.305-8, usually
illustrate furious action.
4 The basic formula is prepositional, ETTI TTOVTOV ... IXOVOEVTOC (5X
Od.) or TTOVTOV ETT' IXOUOEVTCC (7X including variants, in several positions).
The sea bred KT)T£OC that might attack a man {Od. 5.421, cf. the expression
|i£yocKT|TEa TTOVTOV, Od. 3.158 and West's note ad loc), and the heroes had a
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