previous next

[498] The ‘left of the battle’ can hardly be from a Greek point of view here, as the river is regularly on the Greek right, i.e. to the W. of the battlefield. But in details such as this it is useless to look for exact accuracy. See 5.355, 13.765, 17.116. There is, however, something awkward in the sudden shifting of the centre of interest, as we have been led to believe that the hottest of the fight was about Aias, and are now suddenly told that it was on the opposite wing. Indeed the words of Kebriones in 523-30 directly contradict μάλιστα in 499. Most modern critics have therefore pronounced for the omission of 497-503 at least, with more or less of the context. Fick, omitting 489-503 (the first eight lines with hardly sufficient reason), suggests “Ἀτρεΐδης” for “Ἰδομενεύς” in 510, as Menelaos has not left the field, but only entrusted Odysseus to his “θεράπων”. This would remove all cause of offence; 504 comes much more naturally after the stubborn resistance of Aias than after the account of Hector's ravages. These difficulties all have to be taken into consideration in deciding whether the wounding of Machaon, which the passage introduces, may not be subsequent to the original “Μῆνις”. (See Introd. to the book.)

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
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.

hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: