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πρὸς γῇ and ἐπ᾽ ἀγκυρέων are opposed, the innermost row of ships was moored to the land, the outer rows swung at anchor.

πρόκροσσαι: probably ‘with beaks turned seawards’. κρόσση = κόρση head (cf. κόρυς, κόρυμβος) is used apparently for battlements (Hom. Il. xii. 258, 444; and cf. H. ii. 125. 1). Thus in iv. 152. 4 the griffin-heads encircling the bronze bowl in the Heraeum stood out in relief. Here the ships are in eight rows, and the high prows turned seawards stand out like battlements; cf. Il. xiv. 33 f. οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδ᾽ εὐρύς περ ἐὼν ἐδυνήσατο πάσας αἰγιαλὸς νῆας χαδέειν, στείνοντο δὲ λαοί: τῷ ῥα προκρόσσας ἔρυσαν, καὶ πλῆσαν ἁπάσης ἠιόνος στόμα μακρόν, ὅσον συνεέργαθον ἄκραι, which, as Eustathius observes, is completed and interpreted by this passage. The Achaean ships were drawn up in parallel rows on the beach, row behind row landwards, just as the Persian ships here lay at anchor in eight rows off the shore. Aristarchus takes κρόσσαι as ‘ladders’, and explains that the ships in the Iliad were drawn up on the shelving beach one above the other, like the audience in a theatre, but the explanation is inapplicable here. Schweighäuser, however, would construe ‘in quincuncem dispositae’.

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