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[213] 213-65. The repeated lines here are 216 = 11.300, 19.204; 220 = 13.167, 208; 221 cf. Od. 8.84; 222-6 = 11.5-9; 227 = 11.275 etc.; 228 = 5.787; 232 cf. Od. 2.431; 235 cf. 15.507, 22.374; 242 cf. 1.455; 244 = 15.376; 245 = 16.648; 246 cf. 1.117; 247 = 24.315; 252 = 14.441; 258-9 = 11.4478; 260 = 5.294; 262-5 = 7.164-7.

It seems impossible to get a good sense out of the text as it stands, and the few variants recorded do not materially help, with the exception of Zen.'s “καί” for “ἀπό”, of which more below. There are two possible explanations of the space filled by the Achaians: (1) ships and wall may be regarded as close together, and the trench at a considerable distance off; the Greeks are driven behind the trench but not inside the wall. (2) Wall and trench are regarded as close together; the Greeks are driven inside both, and fill the space between them and the ships. Of these (2) is by far the most natural, and is what we should like to get; but (1) in one form or another is what the words seem to imply. While ἐκ signifies origin from, and does not connote distance, “ἀπό” distinctly implies far away from, e.g. 9.353 “ἀπὸ τείχεος”, far from the wall; so that whether we take “ἀπὸ πύργου” with “ἔεργε” or attributively with “τάφρος”, emphasis is laid upon the separation of wall and trench. The same sense comes from Zen.'s “καί” for “ἀπό”, for this makes ships and wall one limit, the trench the other. Now in some places the trench is clearly conceived as being at some little distance from the wall; see particularly 18.215 “στῆ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τάφρον ἰὼν ἀπὸ τείχεος”. The interval between them is the station where the sentinels are posted in I and K. But we are nowhere led to believe that the distance is such as to afford a place d'armes for the whole Greek host; if the trench were virtually a separate first line of defence, we should look for more recognition of the fact in the long battles from M to O. This is the serious objection to Zen.'s “καί”. With the text we have the following alternative renderings: (a) the space which, beginning from the ships, the trench cut off at a distance from the wall. This is a clumsier way of expressing the same thing, and “ἐκ νηῶν” seems entirely otiose. We cannot take “ἐκ νηῶν” as outside the ships, i.e. in a space separated from them, for “ἐκ”, unlike “ἀπό”, implies connexion (“ἐκ βελέων” in 14.130 is the nearest analogy; but that means ‘in a space measured from the (range of) darts’). This would involve reading “ἐκ πύργου ἀπὸ νηῶν”. (b) Take “ἀπό” with the verb, and join “πύργου τάφρος”, all that the moat of the wall enclosed, starting from the ships. This gives the desired sense (2), but the order of the words is intolerably harsh. (c) We might take “πύργου” not in the Homeric sense, wall, but in the later, tower; all that, starting from the ships, the trench, away from the tower, enclosed. This involves the entirely unsupported assumption that there is some definite tower (the common grave?) used as a landmark, and that the space enclosed is defined as being ‘away from’ this. Apparently there is no alternative but conjecture. Monro suggests “ἐπὶ πύργωι” for “ἀπὸ πύργου”, the trench at the wall, i.e. ‘the wall with the trench.’ This gives the required sense; but still better would be “ἐπὶ πύργους”, ‘all the space that the trench enclosed, from ships to walls.’ “ἐπί” with acc. is the regular word for expressing extension, as far as a limit, e.g. 224 “γεγωνέμεν ἐπὶ κλισίας”: and “πύργοι” is rather commoner than “πύργος” when the fortification of the camp is spoken of as a whole. The loss of the final “ς” of “πύργους” would easily lead to the change of “ἐπί” to “ἀπό, ἐπὶ πύργου” being meaningless. (“ἐπὶ πύργον” would of course be wrong, as a syllable long by position only cannot stand in the second half of the fourth foot.) The relative sentence “ὅσον .. ἔεργε” is the nom. to “πλῆθεν, τῶν” anticipating “ἵππων τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν”.

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

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