previous next

[513] It is not impossible to take μή here in the usual Homeric sense, chariot; to assume, that is, that Diomedes has, on the intervention of Athene, adopted one of the first two alternatives in 504-5, and brought out the chariot. The words of 527-8 and 541 are those commonly used of chariot-riding, and the phrase ἵππων ἐπεβήσετο here is certainly awkward if taken to mean he mounted one of the horses (and, presumably, Odysseus the other). Yet a general view of the passage leads to the conclusion that the two heroes do actually ride on the horses bare-backed — a practice elsewhere known to Homer only in similes (see 15.679, Od. 5.371). Otherwise we must suppose that after Athene's warning Diomedes not only carries off the chariot, but that he and Odysseus wait to harness the horses, which is too much to assume sub silentio. And κόψε τόξωι clearly means that the whip, which is in the chariot (501), has not been brought. Moreover the author of the Rhesos (783 ff.) evidently conceives the two as riding off. This must therefore be included among the marks of lateness in this book.

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 (2 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (2):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: