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[548] 548 and 550-2 have no claim whatever to be in the text. For all we know the passage quoted in the Alcib. II may come from some other ‘Homeric’ or Cyclic poem than the Iliad; if it ever stood in this place it is no more than one of the many unauthorized additions of which we have evidence from quotations as well as in the recently discovered early papyri. 548 is an adaptation of 1.315, 2.306, suggested probably by the resemblance of 549 to 1.317; a hasty bivouac on the plain is no time for a solemn sacrifice; and though “κνίση” is commonly used of the savour of the burnt offering, this is not always the case; see 21.363, Od. 12.369. So 551 is adapted from 24.27; the hatred to Troy there attributed to Hera, Athene, and Poseidon is at variance with the whole spirit of the Iliad if ascribed to the gods at large; the destruction of Troy, in spite of the piety of its inhabitants, is always represented as distasteful to Zeus himself and to many other Olympians. δατέοντο with gen., apparently meaning taste, has no analogy in Homeric or later Greek, except in a few MSS. of Herod. ii. 37, 66, where “πατέονται” is rightly read by the rest; the verb always takes the acc. and means cut up, divide, apportion. The fact that this spurious quotation is found in a spurious Platonic dialogue only emphasizes the fact that to the real Plato Homer is our Homer, neither more nor less.

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

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