previous next

[850] The following contest is in its way even more confused and obscure than the sham-fight. The idea of providing a prize beforehand for the man who, while failing to hit the bird, should perform the purely accidental and ridiculously unlikely feat of cutting the string, is the extreme of absurdity. Virgil ( Aen. v. 485-521) and Scott (Anne of Geierstein) have both copied the scene, while avoiding this blot. — The iron is apparently identical with the axe-heads; but the scholia give an interpretation of “πελέκεας” and “ἡμιπέλεκκα” which is worthy attention, viz. that they indicated a certain weight of iron. So Schol. A “ἔστι δὲ σταθμὸς σιδήρου ἔχων μνᾶς δέκα”. Schol. T “οἱ δὲ ὄνομα σταθμοῦ ἑξάμνουν παρὰ τοῖς Βοιωτοῖς οὕτω λεγόμενον. οἱ δὲ κατά τινας τάλαντον σιδήρου, κατὰ δὲ ἐνίους ἑκατὸν μνᾶς”. Such a standard of weight is by no means impossible; for if, as was the case with gold and silver, iron was bartered in the shape of wedges of known weight, such pieces might easily enough come to be called ‘axes’ and ‘half-axes.’ We should thus escape the awkwardness involved, if actual axe-heads for use are meant, in their being named first from their material only. Ar. seems to have considered the case analogous to the axe-heads in the trial of the bow in Od. 19.572, Od. 21.120: “ὅτι καὶ ἐν Ὀδυσσείαι ὁ αὐτὸς τρόπος: πελέκεις γὰρ τίθησι δι᾽ ὧν παρακελεύει τοξεύειν τοὺς μνηστῆρας: καὶ νῦν τὸ αὐτὸ ἔπαθλοϝ γίνεται”. This is quite unintelligible. ἰόεντα is generally taken to mean dark, like “ἰοειδέα πόντον,” Od. 11.107, in place of the usual “αἴθωνα” or “πολιόν”. Ar. preferred to explain suitable for making arrows, “τὸν εἰς ἰοὺς εὐθετοῦντα, οἰκεῖον γὰρ τὸ ἔπαθλον τοξόταις”. This might look as though he took “πελέκεας” as indicating weight, not manufactured form, were it not for his comparison with the axe-heads in the

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 References (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: