previous next

[498] “κλ̂ηρος χωρικὴ περίκτησις καὶ οὐσία, ἐπεὶ οἱ πρῶτοι καταλαβόντες χώραν κλήρωι” “αὐτὴν διενέμοντο”, Schol. This A. is nearly right, except that the reference is doubtless not to an original partition of conquered land, but to the periodical division by lot of shares in the land of the community, ‘allotment’ in the most literal sense (so also Od. 14.64). The meaning is that when a man dies his right to a share in this allotment is reserved intact to his family. So under the Spartan rule, when a child was born, “τῶν φυλετῶν οἱ πρεσβύτατοι . . τρέφειν ἐκέλευον, κλῆρον αὐτῶι τῶν ἐνακισχιλίων προσνείμαντες”, Plut. Lyc. xvi. 1.The last clause “εἴ κεν κ.τ.λ”. is strange, as Hector should rather be confident of gaining his end, which is to prevent the departure of the Achaians. 499 recurs in 7.460 where it suits the context, but we can hardly suppose it borrowed here from so late a passage unless we reject 498-99 altogether, with Ribbeck, Düntzer, Nitzsch, etc.: the mention of the “κλῆρος”, however, is not like an interpolator's work.

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: