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[507] Authority is fairly divided between λίπεν and “λίπον”: but the latter makes no good sense, as the meaning evidently is that the Myrmidons capture chariot and horses; there is nothing whatever in the narrative to explain how or why the horses could have broken away, as for instance in 6.39-41. On the other hand, there are formidable difficulties in the way of Ar.'s reading. He took “λίπεν” to be the 3rd plur. of a passive aor. “ἐλίπην”, of which there are no other traces in Greek (in the pass. sense H. always uses the mid. “λιπέσθαι”), and understood it to mean either since the chariots of their lords were deserted, or, taking “ἀνάκτων” with “λίπεν”, were deserted by their lords (cf. Soph. Ant. 548 “σοῦ λελειμμένηι”), a construction which is quite without analogy in H. There would be no difficulty as to sense or construction if we could read with Jortin (Heyne ap.) “ἐπεὶ λίπον ἅρμα ἄνακτες”, but we can say with confidence that if such a reading ever existed it had entirely disappeared before the time of Ar.; and it is one which could hardly have been misunderstood or corrupted. Bayfield's suggestion “λίπεν . . . ἀνάκτωρ” deserves consideration; the noun does not occur in H., but we have “ἀνακτορίηισι” in Od. 15.397.

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

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