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[69] ἐτίταινε, drew out at full length, so as to leave the scale-pans clear; ἕλκε (72), lifted off the ground. For the metaphor of the scales cf. 16.658, 19.223, (perhaps 11.509), Aisch. Pers. 346 “δαίμων τις κατέφθειρε στρατόν, τάλαντα βρίσας οὐκ ἰσορρόπωι τύχηι”. The exact relation which this balancing of fates, and the general power of destiny, bear to the omnipotence of Zeus, is a question which has greatly exercised the minds of students. It is perhaps enough to say that such problems would have been perfectly unintelligible to the men of Homer's time; in a primitive state of thought man does not seek for a rational consistency in his abstract ideas. Such conceptions of fate and of supreme divinity as he has, have in all probability been evolved in his mind by two quite different processes, and he sees no necessity to reconcile them. Indeed the weighing may be taken rather as a declaration by Zeus that the turningpoint has come, than the seeking of a decision from any other power superior to himself. In all cases the result is a foregone conclusion; there is no uncertainty implied. The appeal to the scales recurs in the same words in 22.209-10, when the death of Hector is at hand. In that passage it is in place, as the fates are really fatal; whereas here the only result of the ordeal is a temporary repulse of the Greeks, which before long is decisively reversed.

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

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