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[685] This line is remarkable as containing the only mention in H. of the Ionian name. It is very probable that the whole passage is an Attic interpolation, with the object of giving respectable antiquity to the hegemony of Athens over the Ionian tribes, with whom in 689 the Athenians seem to be identified. The epithets ἑλκεχίτωνες and φαιδιμόεντες are “ἅπαξ λεγόμενα” in H. The former indicates the use of the long flowing chiton, which was borrowed, as its name shews, from the Semitic nations (Hebr. Ketoneth), and in the classical period was considered as peculiarly Ionian, being worn chiefly by the elderly and dignified and on solemn occasions (see Strabo x. p. 466; Thuk.i. 6; iii. 104; Helbig H. E. 176; Studniczka 15-20). Hence the epithet is appropriately applied, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo (147), to the Ionians assembled at the great Delian festival, but is out of place here when used of Ionian soldiers, who can never have worn in war a dress which was quite incompatible with active exertion. The word here is therefore only a national epitheton ornans. The analogous “ἑλκεσίπεπλος” is restricted to Trojan women. The formation of φαιδιμόεντες is irregular, as it comes not from a substantive but from an adjective; cf., however, on “ὀξυόεις,” 5.50 (“φαίδιμοι ἔντεσ᾽” Bentley). The name Φθῖοι also recurs only in this passage (693, 699); they are not mentioned among the inhabitants of Phthia in the Catalogue (2.684), and the name is therefore probably of later origin, when “Μυρμιδόνες, Ἕλληνες”, and “Ἀχαιοί” were either forgotten as tribal names or altered in their extension.

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

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  • Commentary references from this page (3):
    • Homer, Iliad, 2.684
    • Homer, Iliad, 5.50
    • Thucydides, Histories, 1.6
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