previous next

[127] ἐόντε: see note on 103. ὀμοῦ δ᾽ ἔχον seems to mean ‘they were both trying to drive,’ i.e. the charioteer had lost command of the horses and the “παραβάτης” was trying to help him get them under control, as is explained by the “γάρ” in 128. So Schol. A. “ σφεας ” then really means only one of them, sc. the charioteer who had lost the reins; but the poet is engaged with the picture of the moment in which both are equally concerned, and does not care to express accurately what has gone before. (Others take “ὁμοῦ ἔχον” to mean ‘they were accustomed to drive both at once,’ and then “γάρ” 128 must explain “λάβε”. But apart from the difficulties of such a proceeding, it is hard to see why they should go out to battle at all if neither of them meant to fight.)

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 Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: