previous next

[72] 72-83. These lines have all the appearance of a later addition from the same hand as 1-55. The last six (78-83) were condemned by all the old critics, and the rest fall into the same category, with the obvious allusion to the sending of Eris in l. 3, and the probable reference to the commands of Zeus to the gods at the beginning of “Θ”.

The idea seems to be that the contest holds the heads of both parties on a level, does not suffer either to go down before the other. Ameis thinks that the ὑσμίνη is personified as a twoheaded monster, which keeps its heads, typifying the opposite parties, on a level. However we take the phrase, it is a strange one; the vulg. “ὑσμίνηι .. ἔχον” is no better, as οἱ δέ without a change of subject is very awkward.

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: