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[258] κρόσσας was explained by Ar. to mean scaling-ladders; he then had to make πύργων mean towards the towers just as in 36, q.v. This is clearly impossible; the word must indicate some part of the fortification and be distinct from the ἔπαλξις, which we may presume to have been a wooden breastwork. It is not possible to give a closer explanation of the word, which recurs in H. only in 444. Herodotos uses it once (ii. 125) of the steps of the pyramids. It might seem reasonable therefore to understand it here of courses of masonry; but such courses would hardly have been arranged so as to form steps for an assailant, as would follow, if this interpretation be right, from 444, and the last desire of assailants would be to destroy so convenient a construction. Others take it to mean a single course of coping-stones on which the breastwork was built; others again explain it of the battlements proper, i.e. high pieces of the breastwork between the embrasures; but there is no other indication of such construction. The question is not elucidated by the adj. “προκρόσσας” in 14.35, nor has any convincing derivation been proposed. πύργων probably means no more than fortification; see 7.338. The στῆλαι προβλῆτες are evidently posts, probably of wood, the “φιτροί” of 29, fixed into the ground in order to hold up the earth and give a steep face to the ‘profile’ of the works, like the modern ‘revetment.’

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

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