Thomas D. Seymour, Commentary on Homer's Iliad, Books I-III

[4] ἡρώων: did not have the later meaning of heroes in the Eng. sense (§ 2 v).

αὐτούς: themselves, i.e. their bodies as contrasted with their souls, as “Ψ 66, ζ 329, λ” 574, 602. They would have cared less about the rites of burial, if they had not considered the body to be the man himself.

ἑλώρια: booty, cf. “κυσὶν δ̓ ἔπειθ̓ ἕλωρα κἀπιχωρίοις ι ὄρνισι δεῖπνον” Aesch. Supp. 808 f., “canibus date praeda Latinis | alitibusque” Verg. Aen. ix. 485 f. For the preceding hiatus, see § 9 b.

τεῦχε κύνεσσιν: since the bodies often had to lie unburied, cf. “Β 393, Θ 491, Λ 395, Σ 271, 283, Χ” 66 ff., 339. Dogs are the scavengers of the East. cf. ‘Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat’ 1 Kings xxi. 24, ‘And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field”’ 1 Sam. xvii. 44. To be left unburied was a dreaded fate; so Hector at the point of death besought Achilles, “μή με ἔα παρὰ νηυσὶ κύνας καταδάψαι Ἀχαιῶν Χ” 339.

τεῦχε: for the omission of the aug., see § 25 a, e.