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[496] The idea seems to be that Rhesos is breathing heavily under the influence of an ominous dream which has actually appeared to him, but fails to save him. But κακὸν ὄναρ was taken to mean not an actual dream, but in bitter irony, Diomedes himself, by some rhapsode, who, in order to explain his idea, interpolated the next line. This was accordingly athetized by Ar. and omitted by Zen. and Aph., with justice. The acc. τὴν νύκτα is wrong, for the sense required is not ‘all night through,’ but ‘in the night.’ It has been remarked also that Homer is true to nature in making those only appear in dreams who are known to the sleeper, which would not be the case here. The dream is prominent in the Rhesos, but there, from dramatic necessity, it appears not to Rhesos, but to the charioteer, in the form of two wolves leaping on his horses (780 ff.). Οἰνεΐδης is Tydeus, 5.813.

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

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