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[43] The use of ὅς τις with a definite particular antecedent is almost unique, and is rendered stranger by the addition of the generalising τε which is nowhere else joined to “ὅς τις”. Even in 5.175 and Od. 17.53, the only other cases where “ὅς τις” refers to a particular antecedent, the use is intelligible, as there the actual person is unknown to the speaker, and may thus be thought of as one of an indefinite number. ‘The line, however, is evidently an old formula. The meaning may be “Zeus, or by whatever name the highest of the gods is to be called”; cf. Aisch. Ag. 160 “Ζεύς, ὅστις ποτ᾽ ἐστίν”’ (Monro); and so Eur. H. F. 1263 “Ζεύς, ὅστις ὁ Ζεύς”, Eur. Tro. 885 “ὅστις ποτ᾽ εἶ σὺ δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι, Ζεύς”. Grashof has ingeniously conj. “ὅς τ᾽ ἐστί”, the objection to which is, apart from the absence of authority, that in similar phrases “ἐστίν” is regularly omitted (e.g. 13.313, 16.271). See however Hymn. Ven. 37 “Ζηνὸς . . ὅς τε μέγιστός τ᾽ἐστί, κτλ”.

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

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