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[35] προκρόσσας can have only one meaning here, in rows or ranks, one behind another; the “αἰγιαλός” in the narrowest sense not being able to hold all the ships, they are drawn up on to the land as opposed to the beach. The only difficulty in the interpretation of the word is caused by attempts to explain it from the far more obscure “κρόσσας πύργων” in 12.258, q.v. Ar. taking the word there to mean ‘scaling ladders,’ explained “προκρόσσας” here to mean “τὰς κλιμακηδὸν νενεωλκημένας ἑτέρας πρὸ ἑτέρων, ὥστε θεατροειδὲς φαίνεσθαι τὸ νεώλκιον”, i.e. drawn up on the steep curving beach in rows one above another like the ladder-like seats of the Greek theatre. The way in which Herodotos understood the word is perfectly plain (vii. 188) “αἱ μὲν δὴ πρῶται τῶν νεῶν ὅρμεον πρὸς γῆι, ἄλλαι δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνηισι ἐπ᾽ ἀγκυρέων: ἅτε γὰρ τοῦ αἰγιαλοῦ ἐόντος οὐ μεγάλου, πρόκροσσαι ὁρμέοντο ἐς πόντον καὶ ἐπὶ ὀκτὼ νέας”, they anchored in ranks eight deep. The word recurs also in Herod.iv. 152, but does not explain anything more. The arrangement in ranks is not elsewhere mentioned in the Iliad; it is evidently an invention of the moment to explain the long absence of the wounded chiefs in the crisis of the fight, due to the interposition of N.

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

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