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[268] The fight of the Centaurs and Lapithai is mentioned at some length in Od. 21.295-304, and is alluded to in 2.743, where the word “φῆρες” is again used. It is commonly said to be an Aeolic form for “θῆρες”, ‘wild men’; but for this there is only the authority of grammarians, and both H. and Pindar seem to use it as a tribal name. The identification with “θήρ” may well be a later fancy (Meister Dial. i. 119). There is no allusion in H. to the mixed bodies of the later legend, and it is possible that he conceived them as purely human beings (note, however, the opposition to “ἄνδρες” in Od. 21.303); the myth may very likely refer to ancient struggles with a primitive race of autochthones. The present passage seems to imply the existence of a prae-Homeric epic dealing with the story. The last half of the compound ὀρεσκῶιοι is possibly connected with “κοῖ-τος” (“κεῖμαι”), and means ‘couching in the mountains’; or else with “κῶς” or “κόος” = a cave (Hesych.); cf. Od. 9.155 “αἶγας ὀρεσκώιους”. In that case we should read “ὀρεσκόϊος” for “-κόϝ-ιος. ὀρέσκοος” occurs in Aisch. Sept. 532.

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

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