previous next

[56] ἱερόν, in virtue of the dignity of so important an office; see note on 1.366, and compare 24.681 “ἱεροὺς πυλαωρούς,” Od. 24.81 “Ἀργείων ἱερὸς στρατός”. Frazer suggests (Ency. Brit. s.v. ‘Taboo’) that the word indicates something of the nature of a ‘war-taboo’ imposed for the protection of such important persons. τέλος: cf. 470 “Θρηικῶν ἀνδρῶν τέλος”. The various senses of the word often correspond closely to our post, by which it can be translated in both these passages, as well as in the phrase 11.730, etc. “κατὰ στρατὸν ἐν τελέεσσι”. The connexion seems to be end — final decision — authority — office — post (occupied by soldiers) — post (the soldiers occupying it'. All the steps will be found fully exemplified in the Lexica. The Homeric use seems to have stopped at the last stage but one, which with its suggestion of dignity well suits the word “ἱερόν”. It is not clear why or what orders are to be given to the sentinels, who have been appointed only a few hours, 9.80; nor as a matter of fact are any given in the sequel.

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: