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[660] Both the reading and interpretation of this line involve difficulties. Why do the Lykians only now perceive that their king is stricken? The fight over his body has been going on for more than 100 lines; yet the wording of the sentence implies that the sudden change is due not to the flight of Hector, as we should expect, but to the recognition of Sarpedon's fall. Two theories seem possible: (1) The lines belong to an earlier recension of the story, in which the fight over the body was described only summarily in 661-62; 659 originally followed immediately after Sarpedon's fall (perhaps after 505), all the intervening lines being later expansion. (2) 661-62 are a later addition; “βασιλῆα” in 660 is Hector, not Sarpedon (Paley). In favour of (1) it may be urged that of the intervening lines we have already had on other grounds suspected a large portion as a later addition (see on 508, 555); while the rest from 569 on is quite colourless; the short battle-pictures relating the deaths of unimportant warriors are of a type which could easily be made to order, and in fact shew a suspiciously large proportion of borrowed lines (see e.g. the note on 604-05). If this solution is adopted, as I think it should be, then we must read either “δεδαϊγμένον” or βεβλημένον: the balance of authority is rather in favour of the former, but the latter best explains the variant “βεβλαμμένον”. If on the other hand we adopt (2), the last form is right. “βεβλαμμένον ἦτορ” might indeed mean ‘brought to a stop in his life,’ but the phrase is unique and by no means natural. “βλάπτω” is commonly used (a) in the literal sense, of impeding; (b) in the metaphorical, of divine interference causing mental blindness — 15.724 “βλάπτε φρένας Ζεύς,” 22.15 “ἔβλαψάς μ᾽ ἑκάεργε”, cf. 9.507, 512, Od. 23.14, and note on 15.484. In this sense of course Hector is “βεβλαμμένος” in heart, for Zeus has sent panic upon him. We must then separate “πάντες” from “Λύκιοι”, and take it to mean all the (Trojan) army. This is not satisfactory; and though Hector might perhaps be called a “βασιλεύς” (cf. 4.96 “Ἀλεξάνδρωι βασιλῆϊ,” 20.84 “Τρώων βασιλεῦσι”), as a matter of fact the title is never applied to him; least of all should it be used here, where, after the (ex hypothesi) ambiguous “πάντες”, it cannot but be referred to the king of the Lykians. It is of course this ambiguity which is held to explain the addition of 661-62; but it is much easier to suppose that 506-658 are a later addition, and that “βεβλαμμένον” is a mere corruption of “βεβλημένον” (note the transitional variants “βεβλαμένον, βεβλημμένον”).

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

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