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Book Nine
would have been appropriate at the beginning of Diomedes' speech at
32ff.), (2) that resounding silences concerning preceding events are more
characteristic of the Iliad than the exploitation of backward reference, and
(3) that the reuse of blocks of verses in widely different contexts is part of
the Homeric technique of scene building. It does not follow that a passage
cannot recall a previous context (see 34n.), only that such a recall may be
read into the text at some risk of over-interpretation and should rest on
thematic correspondence rather than verbal repetitions. Agamemnon will
propose retreat for the third time at 14.65-81, where it will be Odysseus
who leads the objectors. If a despondent Agamemnon is traditional, then
for an educated audience the irony is not so much in the present passage as
in book 2. bT wish to see in Agamemnon a regal character and defend his
dubious actions; here they entertain the idea that this second proposal for
retreat is a TreTpa, like the first; that must be discounted, for lack of any hint
in the text.
18 ZEUS us ... OCTT] 6V65r|(76: Agamemnon was indeed deceived by Zeus
with a dream at the beginning of book 2 and Zeus is responsible for his
present plight, but Agamemnon does not know this and in his mouth the
words are equivalent to his saying &acr&|jir|V, as he does at 116. It is possible
that the reference may be more specific, to the prophecy of Anios of Delos,
that Troy would be taken in the tenth year, cf. Lycophron 569-76, but see
2on.
19 CTX6TAIOS is not so much a moral characterization (but see on 2.112)
as a protest at one whose behaviour is incomprehensibly perverse, cf. Aias'
characterization of Akhilleus at 9.630. Trpiv, the vulgate and preferable
reading, is taken by Arn/A and bT to refer to the omens at Aulis, TOTE (read
by Aristarchus) to the dream of book 2.
20 =2.113 = 2.288 = 5.716. This promise of success and safe return is
variously attributed to Zeus, the army, and the goddesses Here and Athene,
as if it had no place, or no recognized place, in the tradition. EUTEIXEOV is an
artificial form for EUTEIXEOC ( < EUTEIXTIS) and is confined to this repeated line
and the formula Tpornv EUTEIXEOV E^aAocTr&^ai (2X). At 1.18-19, uuiv ...
EKTrepcrai npidiaoio TToXiv, EU 6' OIKOCS' iKEaOai, this formular verse is modified
(note neglected p- of oiKa8') in order to accommodate the plural number.
— dTTOvEEaOai etc. are popular forms (20 x ) in spite of requiring an exceptional
metrical lengthening of the first syllable, cf. Hoekstra, Mnem. 30
(1978) 15-23. Wyatt's comments on this form {ML 85-7) based on a
hypothesized d-Trov££o-8ai, 'gain release from toil', are not persuasive.
21 ZEUS ... KEAEUEI (like many references to the influence of Zeus) is
readily taken as an inference from the general situation; T discern a specific
reference to the thunderbolt of 8.133-6, but that is over-precise.
22 SUCTKAEOC (for SUCTKAEECC, Chantraine, GH1 74): the point is naturally
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