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[27] The star that goes forth in harvesttime, Sirius, is the “ἀστὴρ ὀπωρινός” of 5.5, where see note (and cf. 11.62, 13.244-45). It is strange that the shining ‘in the darkness of night’ should be brought into connexion with the heliacal rising (i.e. the first perceptible appearance in the dawn) of the star in summer, the time of fever; Sirius is, of course, seen at night only in winter and spring. We must either say that the combination of brightness and deadliness which renders this such a splendid simile, is poetically legitimate, though astronomically impossible; or, which is perhaps more reasonable, admit that we do not rightly understand νυκτὸς ἀμολγῶι. The precisely similar difficulty in 317 (q.v.) suggests that the words really mean in the twilight, whether of morning or evening. There is nothing in any of the other passages where the phrase recurs (11.173, 15.324, Od. 4.841), to make this explanation impossible, and it is in fact given by But Eust. it still leaves the difficulty that it is only in the depth of night that Sirius ‘shines bright amid the host of stars.’

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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