παλτῷ πυρί, i.e. with the thunderbolt which Zeus brandishes in his hand before hurling it: Aristoph. Av. 1714 “πάλλων κεραυνόν, πτεροφόρον Διὸς βέλος.” βαλβίδων ἐπ᾽ ἄκρων, at his topmost goal, i.e. at his goal on the top of our walls. “ἄκρων” might mean merely ‘uttermost,’ but is rather associated in the poet's mind with the object meant by “βαλβίδων”. In Eur. Phoen. 1180 Capaneus is struck by Zeus at the moment that he is surmounting the “γεῖσα τειχέων”, the coping of the walls. The “βαλβῖδες” were the posts, to which a rope was attached, marking the point from which runners in the double foot-race (“δίαυλος”) set out, and to which they returned: hence both starting-point and goal. ὁρμῶντα: for the partic. as subst., without either art. or “τις”, cp. El. 697 “δύναιτ᾽ ἂν οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἰσχύων φυγεῖν”: Plat. Gorg. 498A “ΚΑΛ. εἶδον. ΣΩ. τί δέ; νοῦν ἔχοντα λυπούμενον καὶ χαίροντα”; The name of Capaneus could be left unmentioned, since the story was so famous. No leader of the Argive host, except Polyneices, is named in this play. The attack of Capaneus was said to have been made at the “Ἤλεκτραι πύλαι” on the s. side of Thebes ( Aesch. Th. 423, Paus. 9.9.8). His fall from the scaling-ladder, as the lightning struck him, was often represented in art. νίκην, cogn. acc. with ἀλαλάξαι, to raise the cry “ἀλαλαί” for victory: Aristoph. Av. 1763 “ἀλαλαί, ἰὴ παιήων, ι τήνελλα καλλίνικος”.
This text is part of:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.