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[151] The reference of κε is obscure; 166 forms a natural protasis, but is so far off that a connexion is difficult. Hence Düntzer and Nauck read “οὐδ᾽ ἄρα”, a variant mentioned by Schol. A: ‘after all it was not the Achaians who saved him but Achilles alone.’ But 153-65 look like an interpolated description of the fight over the body of Patroklos alternative to that at the end of P — the two accounts can hardly be reconciled, and the general picture has entirely altered. Nothing is said here about the carrying of the body by Menelaos and Meriones with the Aiantes as a rear-guard (P 715-61); the Greeks are dragging it (“ἐρύσαντο”) by the arms, the feet trailing in reach of Hector's hand. Yet αὖτιξ (153) must refer to a preceding narrative in which Hector had been beaten off for a time. περ seems to imply that though they themselves had reached the ships it was more than they could do to save Patroklos.

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

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