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[149] It is clear that if the now aged Nestor took the armour in question in his early youth (153) from the man who had it from Lykoergos in his old age, the Areïthoos from whom Lykoergos took it cannot by any reasonable chronology have left a son young enough to be fighting in the tenth year of the siege of Troy; yet in l. 10 this would seem to be implied. Moreover the Areïthoos of l. 8 lived in Arne in Boeotia, whereas Areïthoos here seems to be an Arkadian. The only way in which the two passages can be brought into harmony is by supposing that “ὅν” in l. 9 refers to ‘King Areïthoos’ of the line above, so that ‘Areïthoos the Maceman’ had a son, ‘King Areïthoos,’ who, we must suppose, migrated from Arkadia to Boeotia; and that Menesthios is grandson of Areïthoos I. and son of Areïthoos II. This explanation is so forced as to drive us to the conclusion that the author of the present passage was as vague about his legendary history as about his geography. But difficulties of this sort are familiar in the tales of Nestor's youthful exploits, all of which bear the mark of late work, introduced with no special applicability to the context, but rather with the intention of glorifying the ancestor of Peisistratos.

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

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