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[297] παρ᾽ αὐλόν is susceptible of two quite different explanations. (1) The spear-head sometimes ended in a hollow tube into which the shaft was fixed; that this was called “αὐλός” appears from the epithet “δολίχαυλος” in Od. 9.156. The meaning will then be the brain ran out along the socket of the spear-head. The Mykenaean spear-heads all have such sockets, though those from Hissarlik are of a different type (see Schuchh. pp. 63, 211 and note on 13.162). (2) “αὐλῶπις” probably implies that the opening in the front of the helmet was called “αὐλός”: see App. B, vii. 7. This also gives good sense, the brain ran out past the vizor. But the former is to be preferred, as the scholia say. Another alternative which they give, according to which “αὐλός” means the jet of blood, has nothing to recommend it here, though the word occurs in that sense in Od. 22.18 “αὐλὸς ἀνὰ ῥῖνας παχὺς ἦλθεν αἵματος ἀνδρομέοιο”. Another explanation, per conum galeae (Heyne, the socket in which the crest was fixed) implies an untenable explanation of “αὐλῶπις”.

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

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