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[339] ἀμφοτέροισι may be understood of the dam and her young; for though numerically more than two they really represent the two divisions of the family. Fäsi compares Aen.1. 458‘Atridas Priamumque et saevum ambobus Achillen.’ This intrepretation seems to bring the parents of the suitors into the comparison; so Eustath. “ἔλαφοι δὲ οὐκ ἀπεικότως ἂν νοηθεῖεν οἱ τῶν μνηστήρων γονεῖς, οἳ ἀνάλκ δες αὐτοὶ ὄντες ἀγεννεῖς τούτους νεβροὺς ἀφῆκαν εἶναι παρὰ τῷ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως οἴκῳ”. But Eustath. also remarks, “διδυμοτόκον ὑποτίθησιν ἔλαφον ἵνα μὴ παρεικάσῃ νεβρῷ ἑνὶ τοὺς τοσούτους μνηστῆρας”. And this seems to be the true interpretation, for the picture represents the slaughter of the fawns as taking place during the absence of the dam, which would settle the limitation of “ἀμφότεροι” to the pair of fawns; and this is the view held by Cp. Aristot. H. A. 6. 29, who reckons one or at most two as the number of fawns at a birth.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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