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[358] 358-60. The text, the reading of Ar., gives the best sense to this difficult passage; the two gods knotted the rope of strife and war and drew it tight for both sides. This sense of “ἐπαλλάξαι” is given by Schol. A: “τῶι δὲ ἐπαλλάξαι ἐπὶ τοῦ συνάψαι χρῶνται καὶ τῶν πεζολόγων τινές, πλεονάζει δὲ Ἀριστόξενος μουσικὸς ἐπηλλαγμένα λέγων τὰ συνημμένα”. The word seems to mean literally crossing over a rope upon itself: similar uses will be found in the Lexicon, e.g. “ποὺς ἐπαλλαχθεὶς ποδί”, Eur. Heracl. 836, foot linked to foot. For the metaphor see note on 7.102; the gods tie the two armies to the rope of strife, and by it pull them backwards and forwards. A somewhat similar explanation was given by Ar., only he distinguished two ropes, one of war and one of strife, “τὸν πόλεμον τῆι ἔριδι συνέδησαν . . ὥσπερ οἱ τὰ ἅμματα ποιοῦντες” (Did.). This is very artificial and needless. The general sense of the passage would be better given if we could translate “ἐπαλλάξαντεςalternately. The use of “ἀλλάσσειν” makes this possible, but we should require the pres. part. in place of the aor. There appears to have been a different reading of the passage in which “τοί” took the place of τώ, and “ἀλλήλοισι” of ἀμφοτέροισι (the vulgate “τοὶ . . ἀμφοτέροισι” being conflate from the two). “τοί” now means the two parties, Greeks and Trojans, and the metaphor is taken from the ‘tug of war’; the two sides are regarded as having hold of a rope and pulling one another backwards and forwards. This is in itself intelligible; the objections to it are (1) that the metaphor of rope-pulling in battle elsewhere always indicates divine interference; (2) that the reading “ἀλλήλοισι” has very weak support. (In the ordinary reading “τοίmight be understood of Zeus and Poseidon; but the dual is far more Homeric in this sense.) It seems likely that the original reading was “ἐπαλλάξαντε”. Confusion began when this was altered to the plural to avoid hiatus; “τώ” was changed to “τοί”, and so seemed to belong to the two armies, and the alteration of “ἀμφοτέροισι” to “ἀλλήλοισι” was a necessary consequence.

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    • Euripides, Heraclidae, 836
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