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[374] This line has been suspected from the days of Hermann and Heyne, as it does not go well with the following simile; in other cases where comparisons are accumulated they illustrate different aspects of the subject (see on 2.455); but this is not the case here. The comparison to the moon, too, shews that the poet was thinking of a round shield (cf. 23.455) which we have no ground for thinking that Achilles bore. The line is of the familiar type where a rhapsode thought a verb necessary or apt to complete the sense of a phrase, and added it at the beginning of a line, which he then filled out as best he could.

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

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