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[370] The admiration felt for the beauty of the corpse recalls Herodotos' description of the finding of the body of Masistios at Plataiai (ix. 25). A parallel to the taunting words of 373-74 may be found in Sir G. Dasent's Burnt Njal, ii. 194, ‘All men said that it was better to be near Skarphedinn dead than they weened, for no man was afraid of him.’ As for the stabbing of the dead body (alluded to again in 24.421), we may say in palliation of this apparently insensate brutality (which the poet evidently regards as quite natural) that there is a widespread belief that a dead man's ghost is maimed and harmless to his enemies if the body be mutilated. For this superstition see note on 18.180; the old English custom of running a stake through the body of a suicide is equally due to it. It has also been suggested that each Myrmidon may have claimed his individual right to a share in revenge for kindred blood shed by Hector.

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

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