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[219] The appearance of the purely Attic hero Erichthonios in a Trojan genealogy is startling. Fick has suggested with great probability that the passage is of Attic origin, and dates from about 610 C.B., when the Athenians were endeavouring to gain a footing at Sigeion; we know from Strabo (xiii. p. 604) that they claimed kinship with the Trojans on the ground of this community of mythical “ἀρχηγέται”, and it is quite possible that political considerations may have brought this passage into the text. Fick therefore joins 219 to 230, reading “Δάρδανος αὖ τέκετο Τρῶα Τρώεσσι Ϝάνακτα”, and remarking that the divine horses were given acc. to 5.265 not to Erichthonios but to Tros. But it is quite conceivable that the whole genealogy is of a piece, and was introduced whole with the remainder of the ‘Aeneid.’

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

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