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[175] 175-81. These lines, which the ancient critics unanimously rejected, are plainly an addition meant to explain that the gate where Asios attacked is not that where Hector ultimately breaks in. On this see the Introd. The question probably did not arise in the mind of the author of the Asios episode. Ar. discussed the question in his treatise On the Naval Camp, maintaining that there was only one gate, and that on the left (118). Such an arrangement would be absurd, and a comparison of 13.312 and 679 shews that, in N at least, Hector is conceived as having attacked in the centre, where, if there was only one gate, it must have been. But it is useless to expect consistency in such details from a composite work like the Iliad. 175 is plainly adapted from 15.414. Furthermore, the introduction of the poet's personality in 176 is a mark of a late origin, cf. 2.484, 761, etc. In 177 τεῖχος is violently separated from λάϊνον, and the mention of fire is quite out of place, as the Trojans have not yet reached the ships, and indeed only a few have even crossed the trench. It has been proposed to join λάϊνον with πῦρ and explain it of ‘the flame of battle carried on with stones.’ This is, however, even less possible than to join λάϊνον with τεῖχος, however unnatural the order of the words is, and however feeble the adjective in the emphatic place. Bentley conj. “δήϊον”, which would evade the difficulty, but is too familiar to be corrupted, unless from the Attic form “δάϊον”. Besides, when an epithet of “πῦρ, δήϊον” never has the first syll. in arsis; see on 9.674.

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

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