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[745] Here again MS. authority is nearly unanimous for “ἀποτίσωνται”, exact the debt of yesterday. For this sense of “ἀποτίσασθαι” cf. Od. 23.312. The lengthening of the “ο” is however intolerably harsh, and there seems to be no choice but to accept the variant ἀποστ́ησωνται, pay back the debt. This use of “ἀποστήσασθαι” (lit. weigh out, or rather get weighed out) does not recur in H.; the nearest analogy is “στῆσαι” = weigh, 22.350 etc. But this is of less importance in so late a passage, for the verb is attested in Attic, e.g. in an inscription “ἀπαριθμησάσθων καὶ ἀποστησάσθων τὰ χρήματα”. The use of the article in τὸ χθιζόν has also an Attic look. Both readings give equally good sense. The reference is evidently to the defeat of the Greeks in “Θ”, so that the passage is later than the incorporation of that book. Düntzer rejects 74147; but then Polydamas never gives the advice which he announces; and no half-measures will put things right.

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

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