previous next

[237] Literally there is a united prowess (a prowess due to union) even of very sorry warriors. For this pregnant use of πέλει compare 3.287 with note. It might be thought possible to make “ἀνδρῶν” part of the predicate in a quasiablatival sense, ‘a valour of union arises from, is produced by, even sorry men,’ on the analogy of “αἵματός εἰς ἀγαθοῖο” Od. 4.611, cf. also 6.211, Od. 16.300; but this use is rare in H. (see H. G. § 148), and the assumption is unnecessary. Ar. (ap. Nikanor) apparently explained “συμφορητή τις ἀνδρῶν ἀρετὴ καὶ τῶν ἀσθενεστάτων, οἷον οὐ μόνον κατὰ ἕνα, ἀλλὰ καὶ κατὰ πλῆθος ἔστι τις ἀρετὴ νοουμένη, κἂν εἷς ἕκαστος ἀσθενὴς ἦι καθ᾽ αὑτόν”, which is the same as that given above. But acc. to Lex. he explained “σφόδρα καὶ κακῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐς ταὐτὸν συνελθόντων γίνεταί τις ἀρετή”. This seems to indicate a reading “συμφερτῶν”, which would certainly make the construction easier.

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 (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: