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[314] With φυλόπιδα (elsewhere “φύλοπιν”) στήσειν compare “ἔριν στῆσαι” Od.16. 292; 19.11. φύλοπις (often used in the Iliad, but found in the Odyssey only here and in 16. 268; 24. 475) is referred by some to “φῦλον” only, the rest of the word being terminational. Curtius proposes to connect “-οπις” with root “οπ”=‘work,’ as in “Πηνελ-όπεια” and Lat. op-us; but the common etymology gives “φῦλον-ὄψ” in the sense of the ‘battle cry of the hosts’ or the ‘slogan yell of gathering clans.’ With this last view we might compare the use of “βοή” and “ἀυτή”.

315, 316. See crit. note. Eustath. remarks upon the passage that these lines are rejected, “εἰ καὶ οἱ λυτικοί” (the professed elucidators) “φασιν ὅτι μέμασαν οἱ παῖδες ποιῆσαι τὸ ἀδύνατον, οὐ μὴν ἔπραξαν”, that is to say, they felt the difficulty of supposing the circumstances to have taken place, and so laid all the stress upon μέμασαν, as though the Aloidae had had the will but not the power to achieve. The objection felt by Aristarchus no doubt was how to reconcile “ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ” of v. 313 with “Ὄσσαν ἐπ᾽ Οὐλύμπῳ μέμασαν θέμεν”. In one verse Olympus is the scene of the fight; in the other, the gods are far above Olympus, which must itself be used as only the first step in a gigantic staircase, by which they might be reached. Eustath. might say on v. 315 “ἐνταῦθα Ὄλυμπος ὁ οὐρανός”, but Aristarchus laid it down as a rule (Lehrs, Aristarch. 175) that “Ὄλυμπος” in Homer was always the mountain of that name. Nitzsch objects to the explanation suggested by Lehrs (p. 176); but if the two lines are to be retained, it is the best that can be offered: “‘Olympum ascendunt Aloidae; tum Dii illos fugientes in altiora caeli effugiunt; quae caeli altiora ut et ipsi ascendere possint … montes superstruere moliuntur.’” It is very likely that the two lines are a later interpolation from some “Γιγαντομαχία”. The legends about the wars of gods and giants are not found in Homer, but are already developed in the Hesiodic epic. The presumptuous pride of the Aloidae in attempting to scale the skies has its prototype in the building of the tower on the plain of Shinar, ‘whose top should reach unto heaven.’

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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