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[418] εἰοικυῖαι, a very doubtful form for the correct “ϝεϝικυῖαι”, which occurs everywhere else in H. The best remedy is to write “νεήνισσιν ϝεϝικυῖαι” with Brandreth (“νεηνίδεσιν” P. Knight, which will not do). If we condone the -“οι”- on the analogy of “εἰδυῖα” (17.5), we can compare “εἰληλουθώς” Od. 19.28, which Schulze not very satisfactorily attributes to metrical necessity (?) in an antispastic(?) word; see vol. i. App. D, A 2 and p. 597. The animated handmaidens of gold are a relic of the tradition which everywhere attributes magical powers to the mythical founders of metallurgy, e.g. the Telchines of Rhodes, the Daktyloi and the bronze man Talos of Crete, the Weyland Smith of Teutonic mythology, etc. Thus Pindar says of the Telchines in O. vii. 52 “ἔργα δὲ ζωοῖσιν ἑρπόντεσσί θ᾽ ὁμοῖα κέλευθοι φέρον”. The only analogy in H. is to be found in the gold and silver dogs (sphinxes?) which Hephaistos made, “ἀθανάτους ὄντας καὶ ἀγήρως ἤματα πάντα”, to guard the palace of Alkinoos (Od. 7.91); the “χρύσειοι κοῦροι ἐυδμήτων ἐπὶ βωμῶν” (Od. 7.100) are to be regarded as statues (Helbig H. E. 390-92). See on 376.

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

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