Wounding and Death in the ‘Iliad’: Homeric Techniques of Description 9781472540492, 9780715629833

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To Kurt Latte On his 65th birthday

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Foreword Though Friedrich’s attempts to use stylistic criteria to draw conclusions about authorship will remain controversial, there is much of interest in this study of Homeric style, a subject that in the latter half of the last century has been rather hijacked by oral poetics. The Preface explains Friedrich’s principles and suggests ways in which his work can sharpen our understanding of an oral Homer. Friedrich’s assessment of the plausibility of the battle wounds described by Homer is central to his literary analyses. This has aroused considerable interest among doctors and medical historians in its own right, quite unrelated to Friedrich’s critical concerns. K.B. Saunders, professor of medicine at St George’s Hospital Medical School (1980-96) and Treasurer of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, has added an up-to-date Appendix on the issue. The translation is the work of Gabriele Wright and Peter Jones. The bulk of the work has fallen on Dr Wright’s shoulders; Dr Jones must take responsibility for the final form. Dr Jones wrote the Preface. Newcastle upon Tyne 2003

Peter Jones K.B. Saunders G.M. Wright

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Preface Peter Jones Friedrich argues that different styles in the Iliad indicate different authors. His conclusions will not find many supporters: indeed, since the need to believe in a single composer of the Iliad seems to be almost an article of faith in western scholarship at the moment, it is hard to think of any case that would. The fact that Homer’s poetry is oral in nature certainly weakens, if it does not destroy, many of the traditional arguments for multiple authorship, but that single fact does not automatically preclude the possibility that the work of more than one oral poet may help to constitute today’s text. After all, we can at the moment say nothing for certain about the conditions of the production of epic poetry in Homer’s time, let alone how the Iliad came to be in the form we have it. But if we were to make any case at all for multiple authorship, my sense of the matter is that style would be an important determining factor. However far one may justify the content of y 297- w 5481 on thematic grounds, for example, I find its stylistic ineptitude quite inconsistent with most of the rest of the Odyssey.2 In this context it is interesting that oral stylistics is a field that remains, if not exactly virgin, then pretty thinly ploughed.3 Such judgements can be perilously subjective, and Friedrich is well aware of the problem. His Introduction is suitably scathing about earlier efforts to carve up the Iliad stylistically and aesthetically (see e.g. [5-7]),4 and his own solution is to produce stylistic and aesthetic, or value, judgements by restricting himself to comparing like with like – in this case, battle scenes [8] – and distinguishing between authors on grounds of the varying levels of plausibility or implausibility of the wounds and deaths suffered by the heroes [10]. This is where the medical interest of Friedrich’s work lies. Two points need to be made. First, as Kenneth Saunders argues in his Appendix, Friedrich’s categories range over a spectrum of physical possibilities, so that his distinctions between ‘fantasy’, ‘pseudo-realism’ and ‘low realism’ are not as sharp as they might be. Second, though Friedrich does indeed argue on medical grounds for the plausibility

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Preface or otherwise of a wound, he had no strict need to since, for literary purposes, it is the effect of the description on the imagination of the reader that counts. Herein, of course, lies the potential weakness of Friedrich’s analysis: what seems plausible or implausible to him may not in all cases have seemed so to the poet (just as, indeed, the death of Thoon will appear fantastic to the twenty-first-century doctor, but a layman might see little more to it than a hearty blow to the spine). For all that, since ancient scholia thought it worth commenting on some of the grislier wounds, often for moral purposes, the awareness of different styles of wounding is not a modern prejudice. We may summarise the situation today as follows: it is rather as if a doctor, an art-historian and a man-in-the-street were to react to (say) all the arrow wounds in all the paintings of St Sebastian’s martyrdom. The categories ‘likely’ and ‘unlikely’ would have different meanings to all parties (diagnosis of the consequences for St Sebastian of an arrow piercing the liver would not come into the art-historian’s thinking, for example, nor would artistic genre come into the doctor’s thinking, and neither criterion would come into the layman’s), but the conclusions of the one would not necessarily invalidate the perceptions of the others. By way of exemplifying Friedrich’s method, I take the scenes in which a warrior, and/or his attendant charioteer, are killed, after being rendered somehow helpless [11ff.]. The scene in which Idomeneus kills Asius and Antilochus then kills Asius’ (nameless) attendant who is at his wits’ end, hunched up in the chariot (N 387ff.), seems to Friedrich a model piece of action. But the scene at P 399ff., where Patroclus kills Pronous and then his terrified, hunched attendant Thestor, seems to him far less satisfactory: Thestor’s terror is not related to Pronous’ death, and Thestor (who is named) is a nobody anyway, elevated into importance by being pictured in a lengthy simile which describes him as being hooked and lifted out of the chariot like a fish out of water, an image Friedrich finds fantastic. Things worsen at E 576, where Menelaus kills Pylaimenes (‘standing stock still’, for reasons Friedrich guesses may be related to the ‘terrified attendant’ theme); and Antilochus then kills his attendant Mydon with a sword-blow to the head. Friedrich points out that the poet does not make clear that Pylaimenes is even in, or indeed anywhere near, his chariot at the time, and finds the death of Mydon even more fantastic – falling out of the chariot to stick upside down in the sand before being kicked over by the horses. Friedrich now turns to N 434ff. Here Alcathous is not in a chariot, but on foot. He too is incapable of action – this time because Poseidon has put him in a trance and shackled his limbs – and his armour gets a special mention because it ‘rings out drily’ as the spear cuts through into his heart,

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Preface whose ‘dying palpitations shook the spear to the very butt’.5 This, says Friedrich, is a magical, nightmarish scene, full of special effects. On this basis Friedrich starts to cast his net wider over the poem, and gradually it emerges [40] that much of N and X is a combination of realistic and unrealistic warrior-actions, that the realistic episodes relate only to the wounding and retreat of Priam’s sons, and the additional material helps to delay the major battle between Ajax and Hector, which should surely start at N 802 but does not in fact occur till X 402 (in which, as a climax to the ‘retreat’ theme, Hector too, the most important of Priam’s sons, gives way). Friedrich draws some parallels with the series of Greek woundings in L, and concludes that fantastic scenes, constructed by some other poet, have been added to the realistic scenes in N and X, and that one of the purposes is to highlight heroes like Meriones, who are generally associated with such scenes and whom he sees as typical of ‘newcomers’ to the epic, introduced in its final stages; not being able to compete with the established heroes, they are described in such way as to offer stronger literary stimuli to the audience [78].6 In other words, small-scale analysis by style can have wider ramifications for conclusions about composition. This summary pursues only one thread among a large tapestry, but it shows, broadly, how Friedrich works. It is, of course, ironical that at one point he uses the phrase ‘variation and theme’ in relation to scenes like the death of Asius’ charioteer and its multiforms [17], since in musical composition that phrase celebrates above all unity of authorship. But Friedrich also talks in terms of ‘motifs’, language with which neither the musician nor the oral critic would have complaints. And this, surely, is the point. Friedrich’s method of working is entirely compatible with that of the oralist – comparing scenes in terms of motifs – even if the oral critic would deny that it is thereby possible to reach conclusions about authorship of the sort to which Friedrich is drawn. Indeed, Friedrich’s work is used consistently by Bernard Fenik in his definitive Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad (Hermes Einzelschriften 21, Wiesbaden 1968), and even Fenik, committed to the view of an oral Homer as he is, still acknowledges that there may be something to be said for e.g. Friedrich’s view of interference in N and X. Fenik writes (157): ‘The traditional explanation for this situation [i.e. why Hector and Ajax do not fight at N 382] is simple: the section between lines N 832 and X 402 has been inserted into an originally unified context, splitting it apart and arresting its conclusion. It is, indeed, difficult to escape the conclusion that something has gone seriously awry here, however it may have happened. The

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Preface feeling that N 832 and X 402 belong together is further strengthened by their stylistic relation, as Friedrich has established. One of the stylistic categories that he isolated is what he calls ‘biotischer Realismus’. This is a manner of describing things or events simply and straightforwardly, but with an eye for detail. It is to be contrasted, for example, with that style which describes details that are weird, fantastic, or grisly, or the monumental style where details are held to a minimum and only what is necessary or most important is described. Friedrich concludes [39, this translation]: ‘For if we contemplate all the passages in which books N and X show the “true-to-life” style which observes meticulously, is concerned about motivation, and is sober rather than effusive, then from all the individual fights, the following stand out: [40] The death of Asius and his charioteer N 384-401; Deiphobus’ appearance N 156-8, his attack on Idomeneus N 402-12, but above all his wounding and his retreat N 527-39; Helenus’ duel with Deipyrus, his attack on Menelaus, his wounding, retreat and nursing by Agenor N 576-600; Hector’s attack N 803-8 (cf. N 145-8), his duel with Ajax, his wounding, fainting and rescue X 402-39 (his awakening is to be included, O 240-3). This selection according to stylistic criteria brings together material which is separated by much material of a different nature. This obscures the idea which links together the pieces that have been emphasised: Priam’s sons are wounded one after the other….’ These are startling observations, and a check of all the fighting in N and X will show that Friedrich is right. This particular stylistic tendency appears only in these two books and, with the exception of N 384-401 (the death of Asius and his charioteer), it is always in connection with one of the sons of Priam, who are wounded one after the other. Other explanations for this stylistic phenomenon besides ‘disturbance of the original context’ are possible. The poet could have had scenes in mind from another poem, his own or somebody else’s, from which he borrowed, and where these men’s woundings were related in this particular style.7 Perhaps the deaths and woundings of certain persons were more fixed in the tradition, stylistically and otherwise, than we might expect. But the transition from one of these stylistically identifiable sections to another where the style is different, and vice versa, is not abrupt or difficult elsewhere as it is here between N 832 and X 402. It is this combination of stylistic relatedness and the abrupt break at N 833, plus the thematic connection of N 832 with X 402, that forces the conclusion that some violent disturbance has taken place.’

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Preface This is, I think, striking confirmation that Friedrich’s approach to style is on the right lines; and Janko too, even though he rejects the idea of interference in this passage, finds persuasive Friedrich’s style-based analysis [25] that ‘the crescendo of horror contributes to the [Trojan] rout’.8 If Friedrich’s general approach to style is, then, compatible with oral practice and may still be able to make a useful contribution to our understanding of it, what of his broader concerns with layers of authorship? Here the case is more difficult to make. Yet I still think there is much that oral poetics can learn from the now old-fashioned analytical view of Homeric epic, Friedrich’s or anyone else’s. First, then, a very brief review of the history of analysis. In his Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795), the German scholar F.A. Wolf decisively articulated what some other scholars had felt for some time: that more hands were involved in the production of our Iliad and Odyssey than just the one.9 His reason was that Homer could not have used writing. His poems must therefore have been preserved by rhapsodes, whose faulty memories and desire to intervene corrupted the original words. Further, in Wolf ’s view, no oral poet could produce works of such size: for who on earth could ever listen to them? So he concluded that Homer composed short, oral lays c. 950 BC; that these were taken over and expanded by rhapsodes for four centuries; and (when writing became available) enlarged even more by ancient literary editors, who put the poems in the form we have them today and were responsible for their high degree of artistic unity. The job of scholarship was therefore to decide what was Homeric, and what was not – the Homeric question. ‘Analysis’ had begun, and with it the long battles between analysts themselves and the wider conflict between analysts and ‘unitarians’, who were committed to the view that there was one, and one composer only, of the Iliad.10 Howard Clarke provides a useful summary of the main theoretical hares that Wolf ’s successors set running.11 Did Homer, for example, compose one or more short songs himself, or did he assemble short songs composed by others into a larger structure? Was the Iliad once a brief poem – say, about Achilles’ anger – which was then expanded? If so, was it expanded by the addition of episodes, or by enlarging existing episodes? And where did Homer feature in all this? Further, what evidence did one prioritise to determine an answer to these questions – language? logic? style? history? How far should we apply our canons of taste to a primitive illiterate like Homer? Analysts used images like peeling away layers (as of an onion) to get to an original core, or sorting out pieces (like a puzzle), or dough into which new ingredients were blended, or a house with superstructures added, or a series of layers, like a cake (see e.g. [80-1], where Friedrich himself

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Preface comes up with the idea of a three-colour, and at times strongly speckled, stylistic ‘map’). But we are all oralists now. We take the view that, by and large, a single ‘Homer’ was responsible for the Iliad as we now have it; that its unique size is indicative of a special poetic effort, generated by whatever inclinations and social and poetic circumstances; that ‘Homer’ comes at the end of a tradition of oral story-telling going back hundreds of years (so that ‘Homer’ has, in a sense, inherited the work of hundreds of earlier oral poets); and that his art consists in the unique way he has re-worked these traditional, typical materials devised to enable the oral poet to recite in the first place – from phrase and sentence at one level to ‘theme’ and story-pattern at larger levels – into the masterpieces we have today. Images of onions, houses, dough and cakes are irrelevant to this unique, individual process – though perhaps they would not be if we had any evidence of what an Iliad looked like in the hands of earlier poets. The strength of the German analysts in my view is that they imagine all sorts of alternative, shorter Iliads which might pre-date our Iliad, and then try to trace their development into our Iliad by suggesting (on various, often aesthetic or logical, grounds) how the expansion took place. In so doing, analysts had to envisage the narrative implications of earlier Iliads with, and without, the episodes that our Iliad possesses. This surely is the point at which oralists should become interested, since addition, expansion and contraction of episodes is at the heart of oral epic technique and thoroughly exemplified in the Iliad we possess. What, for example, would the Iliad lose without (say) Thersites, the catalogue of ships, the duel between Ajax and Hector in Q, or the seduction of Zeus? What does it gain, with them? On the much larger scale, if you assume that the earliest Iliad told how Achilles, insulted by Agamemnon, withdrew from battle, lost Patroclus to Hector and returned to take successful revenge, the poet could have got by without any of the ethical dimension that our Iliad possesses. Much of the first half of the Iliad would therefore have been redundant. But if you want to explore the idea of what an insult might mean to a man like Achilles, and you conceive of an embassy to Achilles and his rejection of it, then not merely do you add I but you must also add Q in order to motivate the embassy in the first place. What then if you conceive of an Achilles so enraged by Patroclus’ death that he refuses to hand back Hector’s corpse? That will require the poet to think about how to end the tale – it will no longer be a mere revenge story – and will generate further ethical considerations that may motivate W and deepen exploration of the person of Hector (and therefore, perhaps, suggest the idea of Z). A poet who wanted to use

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Preface the interaction of the heroes further to create a framework within which to e.g. examine the rights and wrongs of the Trojan war will then probably find a place for Menelaus, Paris and Helen – and Pandarus too.12 And so on. I hasten to add that I am not proposing that the Iliad was constructed like this, or that these were the thought-processes that motivated the poet of the Iliad: I simply point out that in purely narrative terms one decision leads to another, and that oral poetry is by its very nature a highly fluid form. This is where the sort of analysis beloved of nineteenth-century scholarship can, in my view, be so stimulating. To ask in the light of Friedrich’s work e.g. ‘what would be the implications for the structure of our Iliad if it did not have N X O in their present form, or if Meriones and Meges did not feature, or if Sarpedon died in E’ is not to ask counter-factual questions for the sake of it but is to force oneself to confront the narrative implications of different sorts of Iliads and in so doing to understand more clearly the structure and priorities of this one. One could do worse, for example, than start by considering the implications of Walter Leaf ’s analysis of the Iliad in his great commentary on the poem (Macmillan 1886-8), especially the table in vol. II, p. xi with its eight columns, each (broadly) representing a different poet’s contribution. On Leaf ’s analysis, the real star of the show, introducing Q, I and W and adding much of S, seems to me to be poet IIIB, but authorship is not the point: this sort of analysis opens up major narratological questions about the Iliad that oral poetics should (in my view) be trying to address, but currently does not.13 Notes 1. We use Friedrich’s convention for indicating books of the Iliad and Odyssey, i.e. letters of the Greek alphabet, capitals for the Iliad, minuscules for the Odyssey. 2. See P.V. Jones and G.M. Wright, Homer: German Scholarship in Translation (Clarendon 1997), pp. 38-41, and the translation of Erbse’s essay on the linguistic problems associated with the end of the Odyssey (263-320). R.D. Dawe, The Odyssey: Translation and Analysis (Book Guild 1993) takes these matters very much further in a shamefully enjoyable 879 pages, wielding his flaming obelos against the True Believer to awesome effect. 3. See e.g. R.P. Martin, The Language of Heroes (Cornell 1989) passim, especially pp. 159ff. 4. References in square brackets are to the page numbers of Friedrich’s text. 5. Translations from Homer: The Iliad by E.V. Rieu, revised by Peter Jones (Penguin 2003). 6. Nasty slayings are restricted to Agamemnon and Achilles alone among

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Preface the major heroes, but Friedrich thinks that only Achilles possesses the elemental passions and contradictions of character that makes sense of a first-rank hero indulging in such terrible behaviour [60-1]. 7. This comes as close as it could to Friedrich’s view – Friedrich would argue, however, that this insertion did disturb the original context, and was therefore probably someone else’s work. 8. See R. Janko (ed.), The Iliad: a Commentary, Books 13-16 (Cambridge 1992), pp. 212-13. 9. Prolegomena ad Homerum has now been translated from its original Latin, with introduction and notes, by Anthony Grafton, Glenn Most and James Zetzel (Princeton 1985). 10. J.A. Davison’s ‘The Homeric Question’ in A.J.B. Wace and F.H. Stubbings (eds), A Companion to Homer (Macmillan 1963), p. 254, describes the fury with which the unitarian views of D. Mülder in his Die Ilias und ihre Quellen (1910) were greeted by analytical critics and points out how measured they now seem: (i) the Iliad is a unified work with a unified plan; (ii) inconsistencies arise from the problems raised by the massive poetic task Homer had set himself; (iii) the poem comes at the end of a long evolution; (iv) its sources are works produced during that evolution; (v) only a few of these had any connection with Troy; (vi) much of the work of the Iliad was turning the non-Trojan into Trojan tales; (vii) such work demands a single poet, not an editor or committee or random process like interpolation. Mülder, of course, was writing well before oral practice was understood. 11. H.W. Clarke, Homer’s Readers: a Historical Introduction to the Iliad and Odyssey (Associated University Presses 1981), a brilliant account of the way Homer has engaged readers’ imaginations over two millennia, discusses German ‘analysis’ in ch. 4. 12. J.B. Hainsworth, The Idea of Epic (California 1991), talks of the ‘greatness of soul’ as a defining feature of epic (8-10). 13. It should be clear that I use ‘narratology’ here in the sense that the German tradition uses it: the logic of the linear structure of the plot and the way the material has been arranged into a story, with its episodes (and their relationships), its anticipations, retrospectives, digressions, mis-directions and so on.

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Introduction Translators’ note: numbers in square brackets indicate original page numbers of Friedrich’s text.

[5] About one hundred and fifty years ago F.A. Wolf established that the Iliad and the Odyssey do not differ from each other just stylistically, but that each of the two epics combines several styles in itself, with the following words: ‘In the poems themselves there is diversity. Shortcomings in the art of writing etc. would not be a reason for saying that it could not have been written by one person; but he who can read the whole well cannot but find this diversity. The first books of the Iliad have far more calm and naturalness than the last ones, the last ones from Book 18 onwards are far stormier and more poetical. It is quite the opposite with the Odyssey, where from Book 16 onwards the books are often stale’ (F.A. Wolfs Vorlesungen über die vier ersten Gesänge von Homers Ilias, ed. by L. Usteri, Berne 1830, p. 11). The father of German Homeric criticism was not the only one to hold this view.1 Chr. G. Heyne, who was attacked so fiercely by him, stated the same conviction in volume 8 (pp. 770ff.) of his great edition of the Iliad of 1802, as did G. Hermann in his Orphica of 1805 (p. 687).2 As early as 1795 in his famous Prolegomena, Wolf himself had maintained (p. 137) that the last six books of the Iliad differed strongly from the preceding ones and then (p. 138) had emphasised rightly that such variety could exist very well alongside a general family likeness within all hexameter poetry, including the Hymns. The Homeric poems, he wrote, ‘aequabili in universum … facie fallunt. quippe in universum idem sonus est omnibus libris, idem habitus sententiarum orationis numerorum’.3 Although Wolf suggested to his listeners that the diversity of the individual parts of the epic implied more than one author for the Iliad as well as [6] the Odyssey, he had still been wary in the Prolegomena of substantiating his hypothesis on a stylistic level as well. Rather, he quotes an important warning there (p. 137): ‘Ruhnkenius quidem, optima sententia dicta, res, inquit, a peritis sentiri potest, imperitis, quid sit, explicari non potest.’4 Lachmann acted correspondingly. He

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad certainly sensed the diversity within the Iliad and took it for granted without a second thought, but for his theory of its construction he brought other observations to bear, e.g. contradictions within the narrative. His doubt whether aesthetic impressions could be used in scholarly work was only too understandable. At that time, aesthetic distinctions implied distinctions in authenticity as well, and no agreed judgements could be reached at all, particularly about individual episodes. Wolf already lamented the disagreement on this matter and, for all the brevity of his suggestions, Hermann did not manage without polemics (against Schneider’s Argonautica of 1803). R. Volkmann, the historian of the movement created by Wolf, therefore got everything off his chest with the words: ‘Whereas J.G. Schneider without a second thought sees in Book 18 the sorry effort of an imitator, … Lehrs … cannot find enough praise … specifically for the beauty of this book … They are the same books in which Schneider fails to notice the author of the first books … which Wolf … at the same time declared to be stormier and more poetical, therefore at least more beautiful than the earlier ones. This sort of thing certainly makes the mind boggle’ (Geschichte u. Kritik der Wolfschen Proll. z. Hom., Leipzig 1874, p. 145). If Volkmann were to survey the literature on Homer today, the eight decades which have gone by since would give him at least as much reason to shake his head as the eight decades he was looking back on. One should simply compare several judgements about the death of Patroclus!5 By finding the last books of the Iliad ‘more poetical’ than the first ones and finding a good many things towards the end of the Odyssey ‘stale’, he did work with value judgements6 but still not, as most of his successors [7], exclusively with them; he rather tried to classify the different styles, at least approximately, with terms such as ‘calm’ and ‘stormy’. One can doubt whether one can avoid asking the question about value-judgements at all; the history of Homeric philology shows that it must be very difficult even just temporarily to distinguish neatly between stylistic and value categories. However, instead of making this distinction, it would be easier to establish one elementary condition under which characterisation as well as value judgements, and indeed any type of judgement, can be made. It is easiest to pronounce on stylistic and value judgements if one compares like with like, or content which is as similar as possible. For anyone who wants to grasp the artistic differences between pieces which are completely different in terms of content must first investigate which of the actual divergences (for instance of vocabulary) could be caused by the subject matter, and which ones need not be caused

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Introduction by this; and only in particularly favourable cases will he be able to say from the outset whether, at the end, we will be left with a solid argument, and not merely an appeal to a feeling for style. Perhaps Bethe, for instance, felt the difference between the seduction of Zeus and the reawakening of wounded Hector correctly (even though he certainly judged it wrongly);7 but such feeling is of no use as an argument. Conversely, anybody is at liberty to declare, on the basis that the subject-matter is completely different, that things are artistically homogeneous which, at first and also at last sight, seem so distinct from each other as anything might be from anything else in the Iliad. It was a paradoxical spectacle when, in his famous work about the Iliad and Homer, a Homeric critic as critical as Wilamowitz connected the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles (A) with the deception of Zeus (X) and thought that he recognised in both the unmistakable mark of the same genius.8 It is true that anyone who assumes that there are several Iliad poets could assert here that both episodes are outstanding in their own ways, and equally deserved the name of the most illustrious author, that of Homer. But this would not be a proof of stylistic affinity at all, and one could also argue about equal value on a poetic level. [8] Therefore we will use the kind of passages which, though expressed differently, are similar in terms of content or at least sufficiently comparable. Since such similarity is generally likely to last for only short stretches of narrative, we shall have to make do with smaller passages of similar content, which are not simply repetitions.9 The similes, which are the obvious choice here, have the disadvantage for us that they are too unevenly scattered and too frequently detachable from the context of the narrative. We therefore prefer the battle scenes, which offer more than enough in terms of thematic repetition and poetic variety. Since our path leads us amongst others in particular through the least popular parts of the Iliad we may hope to be able to draw attention to matters which to date have received less consideration.10 It is an encouraging rather than a discouraging fact that aesthetic judgement about Homeric battle depictions in their entirety does not vary any less than in the case, as we have seen, of individual episodes, e.g. the death of Patroclus. Margarete Riemschneider recently wrote in a pugnacious essay (Homer, Entwicklung und Stil, Leipzig 1950, p. 99): ‘When you take an overall view of the many battle books – if you have the courage to be unbiased – you cannot help thinking that there was actually nothing which was further from the mind of this most famous battle narrator of all times and countries than war and battle’, and furthermore (p. 101) she calls Homer’s battle descriptions

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad ‘strange and unwieldy’.11 But Sainte Beuve, about whom it can hardly be said that he does not have the courage to be unbiased, had affirmed in 1856: ‘quand on lit l’Iliade, on sent à chaque instant qu’ Homère a fait la guerre’,12 and medical experts, whose works we shall use extensively, have again and again extolled the realism of the Homeric descriptions of death and wounds. Frz. Albracht too (Kampf und Kampfschilderung bei H., Progr. Naumburg 1895, II, p. 1) admittedly expressed himself carefully: ‘Homer is a poet and not [9] a military author … but the poet and his audience have an understanding of battle and war’, but his view still cannot be reconciled with M. Riemschneider’s. As is so often the case, the contradiction can be explained by the unjustifiable generalisation of individual observations which are actually correct: there are convincing examples of realistic as well as unrealistic descriptions in Homer,13 and both one and the other party are in the right, as well as in the wrong (although not to the same extent). So careful distinction is necessary here. The question whether one and the same poet can deal with his subject with such variation, and use means of representation which are so different, is to remain unanswered for the time being. The comparison of what is thematically comparable has been familiar to the educated since H. Wölfflin’s Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (since 1915); in classical philology R. Heinze has carried it out particularly thoroughly and successfully.14 Where the radically different nature is already given – if we are dealing with different artistic forms, different authors or recognisably early and late works of the same author – the use of this procedure suggests itself, but not within the same work where such radical differences are not a datum but emerge only as the result of the investigation. Not that this method is alien to criticism of the Iliad. For instance, almost seventy years ago E.H. Meyer compared Apollo’s arrow shot with that of Pandarus, and by means of these two episodes tried to distinguish between two epic styles.15 Now we intend to replace such isolated observations with a connected series of experiments. Like any other poem, the Iliad can be read either as poetry, i.e. for its own sake, or as a document, i.e. for the sake of [10] other things. A commentary, to which a few contributions are supposed to be provided here, would have to attempt to do justice to both claims. If nevertheless the antiquarian examination here comes second to the literary one, that is not only because of the restricted inclinations and knowledge of the author, but essentially because of his prejudice that the latter has to precede the former. Admittedly, the Iliad can in many cases be readily examined as evidence for past conditions, opinions and materials; but in many places it resists this approach and fobs off the researcher with answers which, when you look at them more

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Introduction closely, turn out to be completely ambiguous. As much as one feels that one owes a debt of gratitude to past and present people dealing with Homeric realia (in the widest sense), one will still often notice that they approached the texts too innocently. Right at the beginning, in the first chapter, we shall become acquainted with a Homeric style from which one can hardly glean any conclusive evidence about ancient weapons or ancient conceptions of the soul. As a result, one will do well to exclude it from examination for the time being and, even afterwards, to call it in only with the strongest of reservations. We shall therefore consistently occupy ourselves with the relationship of statements to a reality which can still be experienced, or also reconstructed, today, not because we might regard it as the highest intention of art to portray nature as faithfully as possible, but because further information is vouchsafed by closeness to or distance from nature. In fine art, closeness and distance might often be given to us with such immediacy that one does not need to say a word about it, whether e.g. the anatomy of a mediaeval figure in a garment, or the statics of pieces of architecture presented in an illuminated book, are accurate or not. But here, where we have to shape the picture for ourselves first and can only learn by the process of investigation how far the statements are aiming at clarity, coherence and comprehensibility and how far they are able to achieve their intention, we must after all assume a simple reality and always ask anew about its validity.16

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I. Phantasmata 1 [11] Asius, Hyrtacus’ son, attacks the Cretan prince Idomeneus (N 385): pezÕj prÒsq, ∑ppwn: të d5◊ pne8onte kat, êmwn a95n 4c, =n8ocoj qer£pwn. But Idomeneus gets his blow in first and Asius, who was recently so full of confidence, is now lying, felled like a tree, stretched out in front of his horses and chariot and, groaning (or even bellowing) loudly, clutching at the bloody dust. Asius’ usually level-headed charioteer is so horrified by his master’s unexpected and particularly terrible end that he is not capable of turning the horses in flight, but lets himself be killed by Antilochus, without resistance (394ff.): 1k d2 o; =n8ocoj plˇgh fr2naj, §j p£roj e!cen, 395 oÙd, Ó g, 1tÒlmhsen, dˇiwn ØpÕ ce√raj ¢lÚxaj, .y ∑ppouj str2yai: tÕn d, ,Ant8locoj menec£rmhj dour< m2son perÒnhse tucèn: oÙd, |rkese qèrhx c£lkeoj, {n for2eske: m2shi d, 1n gast2ri pÁxe. aÙt>r Ó g, ¢sqma8nwn eÙerg2oj 4kpese d8frou, 400 ∑ppouj d, ,Ant8locoj, megaqÚmou N2storoj u;Òj, 1x2lase Trèwn met, eÙknˇmidaj ,AcaioÚj. The sad fate of a defenceless man is related here so concisely, so clearly and so vividly that one might want to think, on considering the few other comparable incidents, that epic could modify the persons and the particular situation but not the details of presentation. However, one episode of the Patrocleia shows us how one can relate the same incident completely differently with epic devices (P 401ff.): [ d5 Q2stora, -Hnopoj u;Òn, deÚteron [rmhqe8j – [ m5n eÙx2stwi 1n< d8frwi Âsto ¢le8j: 1k g>r plˇgh fr2naj, 1k d, ¥ra ceirîn

7

Wounding and Death in the Iliad Ânia(#)º8cqhsan1 – [ d, 4gcei nÚxe parast>j [12] 405 gnaqmÕn dex8teron, di> d, aÙtoà pe√ren ÑdÒntwn, 3lke d5 dourÕj 0lën Øp5r ¥ntugoj, æj Óte tij fëj p2trhi 1p< problÁti kaqˇmenoj ;erÕn 9cq)n 1k pÒntoio qÚraze l8nwi ka< |nopi calkîi, ìj 3lk, 1k d8froio kechnÒta dour< faeinîi, 410 k>d d, ¥r, 1p< stÒm, 4wse: pesÒnta d2 min l8pe qumÒj. Here an insignificant attendant, Thestor, has become an individual warrior, and with that the follow-up to the killing of Asius and the interlude in Idomeneus’ aristeia, which did not count any further as an achievement, changes into an action which is at least equal in status to the preceding and the following one. The stylistic elaboration corresponds to this: the chariot is called well-polished, the spear shining, and a simile, itself powerfully elaborated (;erÕj 9cqÚj, l8nwi ka< |nopi calkîi), underlines the exceptional quality of the event. This elevation of the charioteer and with it of Patroclus’ achievement, however, severely damages motivation. That ‘the faithful servant of his master’ is at his wit’s end is a consequence of the catastrophe as understandable as it is moving. Thestor’s consternation, however, if it has any closer relation to the previously related death of Pronous than to the general slaughter around, could have been triggered off just as well as by any other loss of the Trojans. Together with the context, the ethos of the N passage does not apply either. Although Patroclus’ opponent has a name, he does not mean anything to us as a person. As if the poet had felt the loss, he tries to make something special out of the actual killing: Patroclus stabs his opponent, who is crouching2 and thus difficult to attack from the front, i.e. across the horses, from the side into the ‘right’ jaw. Up to now the description has been most clear. But if then the spear, which apparently penetrates between the upper and lower row of teeth, is able to pull the unfortunate man, now open-mouthed, from the chariot, as a fishing rod does a fish, and Patroclus then ‘plants’ him on his face: here obviously the extreme and barely credible is supposed to be won from a motif which appears more simply and more convincingly in M 395: nÚx,, 1k d, 4spasen 4gcoj, [ d5 spÒmenoj p2se dour< prhnˇj.3 However, Patroclus’ deed is not characterised by variation only in this detail, but also as a whole. It can be understood as a variation on Antilochus’ deed, but Antilochus’ deed cannot be taken as a variation of Patroclus’ deed. We are not compelled here to construct an archetype outside the Iliad from which both episodes would be derived;4 the Iliad itself supplies everything required; it [13] also supplies, as we shall see, the spear theme which in P helps to vary the charioteer theme. In the stemma the sections in P and N do not rank side by side, but one after the

8

I. Phantasmata other: the former hovers above the ground in which the latter is rooted. If Patroclus’ deed already shows a daring imagination, then a further variation of the theme appears downright adventurous. We read in E 576ff. a scene which is closer to the episode from N with which we started than the Thestor episode, in that one pair of warriors, master and servant, are overcome by another pair, Menelaus and Antilochus. But inasmuch as the motif of stunned terror is (admittedly) presupposed but hardly expressed any more, the affinity between E and N, too, is again less clear than that of P with N: 576 4nqa Pulaimen2a 0l2thn ¢t£lanton -Arhi, ¢rcÕn PaflagÒnwn megaqÚmwn ¢spist£wn. tÕn m5n ¥r, ,Atre8dhj dour8kleitoj Men2laoj 0staÒt, 4gcei nÚxe kat> klh√da tucˇsaj. We shall pause for a moment to note that here the success of the attack is not expressed as is usual, for instance with doÚphsen d5 pesèn or k£ppesen 1n kon8hi. So far it has not been said either that Pylaimenes is in the immediate vicinity of his chariot (we remember the precise details when Asius appears); only when the poet calls the next victim =n8ocon qer£ponta does the situation belatedly become clear to us.5 What was the main thing in N, the death of the ‘master’, has [14] become a minor matter here and vice versa the minor matter, the death of the charioteer, has become the main thing. For a four-line sketch is now followed by a ten-line painting: the pretension of the episode is the same as in P. So the charioteer has a name, too, which is even underlined by the epithet 1sqlÒj. So we are dealing with a qer£pwn of a very special kind: 580 ,Ant8locoj d5 MÚdwna b£l,, =n8ocon qer£ponta, 1sqlÕn ,Atumni£dhn – [ d, Øp2strefe mènucaj ∑ppouj (Like Areithous in U 488, Mydon at least manages what the charioteers in N and P were unable to do) cermad8wi ¥gkwna tucën m2son: 1k d, ¥ra ceirîn =n8a leÚk, 1l2fanti cama< p2son 1n kon8hisin (we notice the same colouring as in P. When there the word º8cqhsan was used of the reins, this was a second degree metaphor: at first the word was very expressively transferred from living things to arrow and spear, and from there highly catachrestically to the completely

9

Wounding and Death in the Iliad passive reins; here the imagery does not lie in the single word but in the phrase cama< p2son 1n kon8hisin, which has been coined for dying warriors). ,Ant8locoj d, ¥r, 1pa8xaj x8fei |lase kÒrshn (if you are standing on the ground, it is impractical to attack someone who is standing on a chariot with your sword; it is with good reason that the Iliad in other instances of this situation uses a spear), aÙt>r Ó g, ¢sqma8nwn eÙerg2oj 4kpese d8frou kÚmbacoj 1n kon8hisin 1p< brecmÒn te ka< êmouj. dhq> m£l, 0stˇkei – tÚce g£r ", ¢m£qoio baqe8hj – Ôfr, ∑ppw plˇxante cama< b£lon 1n kon8hisi. to)j ∑mas, ,Ant8locoj, met> d5 stratÕn |las, ,Acaiîn. We already know 585 as N 399. There the word ¢sqma8nwn has an important task to fulfil: the charioteer is giving his death rattle: nothing more is to be reported about him. Besides, the word is used more appropriately for the situation in N. [15] For from a man whose head is buried in sand, we hear neither gasping nor death rattle; at the most we can assume that he too will probably do this under these circumstances (even when we make the charioteer give the death rattle while still falling, we only produce an event which can perhaps be reconstructed, but not observed). This further elaboration, this extension of what can be perceived into what can only be assumed, expands the body of motifs immensely, but brings with it problems which will cause us much difficulty. So N 399 is either itself the model of our passage in E or is considerably closer to a model common to both passages. The point of the Mydon story is fantastic,6 even grotesque.7 Whether in rigor mortis or not, one would have to fall from a much greater height than the chariot, which is well-known to be low, in order to perform such a header, and one would have to ‘bore one’s way’ into sand which has been heaped up very high and very loosely in order to get stuck in this way, especially for a longer period of time. For this is how we must understand it, in spite of Leaf ’s objection (the argument that something is practically impossible is acceptable only within a style which commits itself to what is practically possible). But even the person who agreed with his far more complicated interpretation would still have to admit a considerable strain on our imaginative capacities. So it would all come to the same thing: our problem is not what remains unclear here, but the fact that everything which one could possibly think of appears more or less

10

I. Phantasmata ‘surrealist’. – Finally, the horses throw the wretched man with their (hoof?)beats (from the heap of sand?) down into the dust (it is better not to ask how we are supposed to imagine this). [16] Only when Antilochos carries off the horse and chariot into the Greek camp (as in N 401f.) are we released from this dream world. The person of Antilochos, too, is a point in favour of the theory that when composing the passage in E the poet had the charioteer episode from N in front of him. But something else also comes into it. Twice in the Iliad it is said that someone fell down ‘like a diver’, and Mydon does indeed dive into the depth, though actually, because there is no water, into the loose sand. The comparison with the diver is used most convincingly at M 385, because the man there plunges down from a considerable height: ¢rneutÁri 1oikëj k£ppes, ¢f, Øyhloà pÚrgou. We need to exert our imagination somewhat more when in P 742 Hector’s charioteer is said to fall to the ground ‘like a diver’, for the chariot is quite low (compare on the other hand the proper description in Z 42f. 1k d8froio par> trÒcon 1xekul8sqh prhn]j 1n kon8hisin 1p< stÒma). Even if we are not quite so particular in Cebriones’ case, we will still recognise in P the transition from M to E. This order cannot be reversed, even though, in favour of a prejudice about the age and model character of the Patrocleia, people have tried to derive the passage in M from P. At the most, one could ask whether E did not connect motifs from M and N independently of P, and would have to be regarded as having originated at the same time as, rather than after, the Patrocleia. A decision can hardly be reached here, although the Mydon passage goes one disturbing step further than the Cebriones one. Between passages such as E 585ff. and a reality which can be experienced, there stands literature, separating both from each other, unleashing the imagination but undermining its roots in the ground. Here we have reached a point which linguistics recently began to contemplate. For the difficulties of our verses culminate in the word kÚmbacoj which here can mean nothing else but ‘forwards, headlong’. M. Leumann in his Homerische Wörter (especially p. 281) postulated as a model a sentence in which kÚmbacoj = ‘helmet top’ was put in such a way that it could be misunderstood as ‘forwards (headfirst)’. This conclusion, which Leumann regards as inevitable, confirms our stylistic analysis and is in turn confirmed by it. The derivative character of the passage shows in the whole, as well as in individual instances. 2 Whereas in E the chariot and horses are kept, but the consternation motif is dropped completely or reduced to one little word, a different

11

Wounding and Death in the Iliad variation conversely keeps the consternation and does without the chariot. We refer to Alcathous, companion in death to the nameless charioteer in N, who is not only called }rwj in N 428 but also demands special attention as son-in-law of Anchises and brother-in-law of Aeneas respectively. He is also incapable of [17] confronting the danger which threatens him, indeed, he is not even capable of perceiving it properly (N 434ff.): tÕn tÒq, Øp, ,IdomenÁi Poseid£wn 1d£masse, 435 q2lxaj Ôsse faein£, p2dhse d5 fa8dima gu√a: oÜte g>r 1xop8sw fug2ein dÚnat, oÜt, ¢l2asqai, ¢ll, éj te stˇlhn À d2ndreon Øyip2thlon ¢tr2maj 0staÒta stÁqoj m2son oÜtase dour< }rwj ,IdomeneÚj, "Áxen d2 o; ¢mf< citîna c£lkeon, Ój o; prÒsqen ¢pÕ croÕj |rkes, Ôleqron – d] tÒte g, aâon ¥use 1reikÒmenoj per< dour8. doÚphsen d5 pesèn, dÒru d, 1n krad8hi 1pepˇgei, } "£ o; ¢spa8rousa ka< oÙr8acon pel2mizen 4gceoj: 4nqa d, 4peit, ¢f8ei m2noj Ôbrimoj ¥rhj. As is said of the charioteer, so it is simply said of Alcathous that he was incapable of flight, as if from the outset resistance was as far from him, the }rwj, as from the qer£pwn. Also, as it is emphasised with the hero that the armour, which we can take for granted without hesitation for an individual fighter, was of no use to him, so it had to be said of the charioteer specifically that he was armed, if we were supposed to obtain a precise visualisation. This time the armour is mentioned, not because it had to be mentioned in order to understand fully the actual combat, but because it is supposed to ‘grate roughly’ when the iron cuts through it.8 Although Alcathous is not driving a chariot but engages in combat (or rather, does not) on foot, N 434ff. represent a new variation of N 394ff., and in fact this, like P 401ff., uses the motif of the spear sticking in the body. Both variations, when compared with the theme, have this in common as well, that they do not describe in advance a special battlefield incident which caused the horror. In the case of Alcathous a god has a hand in it, but it is not just the need for motivation (which of course is not there in P) which seems to have brought him into the arena, but also the intention to remind us again of Poseidon, who organises the Greeks’ counter attack in N. Outside this purpose, the miracle creates an atmosphere of magic, a veritable [18] nightmare mood. The victim’s eyes9 and limbs are bewitched (instead of 1k plˇgh fr2naj), a simile10 paints the paralysis (instead of oÙd, 1tÒlmhse), the armour grates, and the spear jerks about in and

12

I. Phantasmata with the heart of the dying man: the poet is certainly not so thrifty with his devices that we might misjudge what kind of effect he has in mind. From the host of killings which the Iliad describes, these four stand out because they have motifs in common which make them comparable with each other. It is obvious that, in terms of subject matter, version A (Asius) goes together with B (Thestor) more than with C (Mydon) and D (Alcathous). Only in A and B are we dealing with a charioteer filled with consternation, in C with only a charioteer and in D with consternation only. On the other hand B and D correspond in the use of the spear motif against A and C, and also in the fact that in B one stands against one, but in D, on the other hand, two pairs confront each other. Style decides the grouping. The gulf lies between the harsh matter-of-factness of A and the chosen lavishness of B, C, and D. C and D are admittedly even more fantastic than B,11 but apart from the similarity of devices, the tendency towards the incredible is also apparently common to all three. If we put aside the difference in degree, two styles separate themselves (A on the one hand, B, C, and D on the other), into whose area of influence we shall now have to enquire. One of them (B, C, and D) displays such striking, even obtrusive, features that, wherever it appears, it can in fact hardly be overlooked. Is it used rarely or frequently, deliberately or arbitrarily, is it detachable or indispensable? If we now assume that from all the fairly comparable sections of the Iliad we had picked out those which are more closely or more remotely related to the Alcathous episode – is then everything which remains stylistically related to the charioteer scene A? Does this scene represent the normal narrative technique? Or does it, too, apart from subject matter, show peculiarities which prevent us from classifying them under a rule from which the Alcathous episode and its relatives would have to be made an exception? Apart [19] from the syntax (397f.), it incurs the suspicion that it does not correspond at all to what is predominantly customary in the Iliad, through the one word perÒnhse. It means that the charioteer is speared like an insect. As Eustathius notes, it is supposed to underline what an easy job Antilochus has with his opponent, who is not a real opponent at all. The almost contemptuous extremity of the expression makes us sit up and take notice, just as much as its rarity.12 Apparently it fits exactly with the treatment of Asius whom the poet made die such a wretched death, and yet, unless our Homeric memories thoroughly deceive us, it gives us cause for some astonishment. We shall later return to this type and its distribution.

13

Wounding and Death in the Iliad 3 As miraculous as things are, thanks to Poseidon’s intervention, in the Alcathous episode, the most peculiar element in it is really the ending, although here, as we are assured from the medical side, we are dealing with a possible, or at least not completely impossible, occurrence (N 442ff.): dÒru d, 1n krad8hi 1pepˇgei, } "£ o; ¢spa8rousa ka< oÙr8acon pel2mizen 4gceoj: 4nqa d, 4peit, ¢f8ei m2noj Ôbrimoj ¥rhj. A general practitioner, Dr Küchenmeister from Zittau, exactly a hundred years ago calculated the weight of the spear which is here moved by the heartbeat to be about 15 pounds (7.5 kilos) (in Fr. Günzburg’s Ztschr. f. klinische Medizin, Breslau 1855, p. 40), whereas Körner (op. cit., p. 45) is only prepared to think an arrow capable of beating in such a way with the heart into which, or next to which, it has penetrated.13 One can assume the physical possibility of the phenomenon and nevertheless describe it as extremely unusual, even incredible. Again, something unparalleled is wrested from a motif which we occasionally meet in the Iliad. We first read in E 664ff. that a spear is lodged for quite a long period of time in the body of the man who has been hit, [20] when Sarpedon drags it along in his thigh; Helenus drags it along in his bow arm in N 597. More daring is the claim that Patroclus pulled Thestor off his chariot on his spear as a fisherman would his catch on a rod. X 498ff. is thematically most comparable and equal to our section in terms of abnormality, when Peneleus cuts off his opponent’s head and lifts it up as a trophy, together with the spear which is still there sticking in his eye. The compositional importance of this close affinity between the horror in N and X will soon emerge. However, the ambition of the section in N takes a further direction. For here, too, as Leaf notes, the motif of the spear hitting the earth and quivering afterwards is modified (P 611ff. = R 527ff.): dÒru makrÕn oÜdei 1nisk8mfqh, 1p< d, oÙr8acoj pelem8cqh 4gceoj: 4nqa d, 4peit, ¢f8ei m2noj Ôbrimoj ¥rhj. R 523 plays a remarkable role of mediator: Automedon’s spear is lodged in Aretus’ stomach; there it quivers, like the spear in Alcathous’ heart, even violently,14 but it quivers from its own momentum, like the spears which are lodged in the ground: 1n d2 o; 4gcoj nhdu8oisi m£l, Ñx)

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I. Phantasmata kradainÒmenon lÚe gu√a. In the Alcathous scene, this has been developed further by a process of virtual logic, so that it was possible, even without a corresponding example, to think of making the heart the motor of the spear. For with such improvements, it is not absolutely necessary for something completely impossible to emerge. So we are confronted with a combination of motifs. The poet does his utmost to make Alcathous’ death unforgettable.15 At the news of this event Aeneas, the brother-in-law of the man killed in action, rushes over – the one hero who, within the stylistic area in which we have been principally moving until now, occupies a key position. The ascent to the heights of the Alcathous episode follows a flat area in the epic. The first deed which, after the most prolonged [21] exposition, Idomeneus is allowed to perform, hardly satisfies even modest demands when taken in isolation. Othryoneus, not mentioned in the index of the Poseidon peripeteia (M 93ff.), is introduced to us as a suitor of Cassandra’s who was brazen enough to pay the bride-price by repelling the Greeks (N 363ff.). Idomeneus meets him Ûyi bib£nta, and this self-confident strutting could impress us if Deiphobus had not strutted in quite a similar way just a moment ago (156ff.): Dh8foboj d, 1n to√si m2ga fron2wn 1bebˇkei Priam8dhj, prÒsqen d, 4cen ¢sp8da p£ntos, 18shn, koàfa pos< probib>j ka< Øpasp8dia propod8zwn. Next to these lively verses v. 371 looks like a lifting, behind whose formation G 22 (where Menelaus catches sight of Paris makr> bib£nta) was the force. The words immediately following show that we are not doing an injustice to the Othryoneus section with this assessment: oÙd, |rkese qèrhx c£lkeoj {n for2eske, m2shi d, 1n gast2ri pÁxe. We know them from Asius’ charioteer. But whereas the observation {n for2eske made sense there, it is completely pointless here. For Othryoneus must, after all, be wearing some protective armour, although we do not find out whether he is carrying even a shield.16 Besides, he is the shadow of another, bright figure, of Imbrius, a real son-in-law of Priam. We met him, too, only a few verses earlier (N 170ff.) and there heard of his fate which was about to be fulfilled by Teucer. It is no disgrace for the Othryoneus episode to take second place after such a section (whose beauty shall be specifically acknowledged by us later). But it makes us reflect that, for the three things out of which this is composed, parallels can be found in the very near vicinity, of which each individual one in its context is more persuasive than the Othryoneus episode is in detail as well as in its entirety. But even if we refuse to look at any nearby incidents at all, we cannot

15

Wounding and Death in the Iliad possibly be satisfied with it. For Idomeneus, strangely enough, knows his opponent’s personal circumstances and scornfully challenges the dying man to ask rather for the hand of the most beautiful of the Atridae’s daughters, in return, naturally, for the corresponding service, i.e. the capture of Troy. Only Agamemnon or at best Menelaus can really speak like this, but not Idomeneus, who does not have the daughters of the Atridae in his gift (we do not even ask how he, a mature man who only recently delivered the wisest of speeches, comes to be given this outburst17). But, [22] badly as the speech is exposed, its severe scorn is still effective, especially as it accompanies a grim action (381ff.): ¢ll, 3pe, Ôfr, 1p< nhus< sunèmeqa pontopÒroisin ¢mf< g£mwi, 1pe< oÜ toi 1ednwta< kako8 e9men. æj e9pën podÕj 3lke kat> krater]n Øsm8nhn. If this had been invented especially for our section, the poet, impatient to play his trump card, cannot have worried too much about the general context; but if the final effect, as the contradiction to the person and to the situation suggests, itself had also been borrowed, the whole episode would really show off someone else’s glory as its own. We can deny it all appeal without worrying: it owes its right to exist to its function rather than its beauty. Idomeneus’ mocking speech is a prelude to the exchange of words between him and Deiphobus. To the excessive gloating of the Trojan, the Cretan prince responds with deed and word; with this he concludes the first series of his victories. The position and shape of the speeches, together with the position and character of the last one, the killing of Alcathous, create at the same time a clear relation to the end of X.18 Since Asius is killed between Othryoneus and Alcathous without any speeches at all on this occasion, a ring composition results. But this is not realised solely in the recurrence of the speeches. Whereas Asius appears here only as a warrior, the two other opponents of Idomeneus are also presented as people with private lives, in fact as contrasting figures. Intentionally enough, the arrogant would-be sonin-law of Priam is contrasted with the ¢n]r êristoj who is well worth marrying the most beautiful and most loved daughter of Anchises.19 4 There is no lack of miracles in the Iliad, but not only do comparatively many happen to Aeneas, but also particularly miraculous ones. Again and again things happen around him and to him [23] which we can

16

I. Phantasmata (with the work On the Sublime 9, 6) describe as Øperfu© fant£smata. Thus his second removal from battle in U (in contrast with the first in E and the removal of Paris in G) receives its special character through the fact that the poet gives a more precise detail of his enormous leap through the air: this chains our imagination to the hero and, so to speak, forces it to leap as well (U 326f.): poll>j d5 st8caj =rèwn, poll>j d5 ka< ∑ppwn A9ne8aj Øper©lto qeoà ¢pÕ ceirÕj ÑroÚsaj. When in O Apollo restores Hector back to health from his ‘contusion of the thorax’ (Körner 77f.), a moderate miracle occurs; on the other hand people have regarded Aeneas’ cure from a hip pan fracture as extreme: instead of crediting Leto or Artemis with this achievement, Küchenmeister rather assumed that Homer had made a wrong diagnosis and regarded a mere contusion as a fracture.20 The question cannot be avoided whether the fracture (of Aeneas) is an intensification of the contusion (of Hector), i.e. whether the former was not derived from the latter (the fact that both injuries are caused by a stone being thrown makes it inevitable when one happens to remember the other).21 Anyhow, the removal in E with the worsening of the wound, and even more so with the creation of the phantom for Aeneas,22 is such an extravagantly supernatural scene that, when we look at the whole, the removal in U appears modest by comparison (and looks like a precursor, rather than a successor, of the E removal). Fighting at Aeneas’ side, Pandarus the Lycian is killed. It can no longer surprise us that the description of his death is completely irrational. From Aeneas’ chariot he has managed to hit Diomedes, who is fighting on foot, but not wound him. On the other hand the spear thrown by the Greek serves its purpose (E 290ff.): b2loj d, ∏qunen ’Aqˇnh "√na par, ÑfqalmÒn, leuko)j d, 1p2rhsen ÑdÒntaj. toà d, ¢pÕ m5n glîssan prumn]n t£me calkÕj ¢teirˇj, a9cm] d, 1xelÚqh par> ne8aton ¢nqereîna. |ripe d, 1x oc2wn, ¢r£bhse d5 teÚce, 1p, aÙtîi. [24] ‘The path of the spear is most peculiar’ (Von der Mühll p. 95). It remains a mystery23 how, from a lower position, one could hit an opponent in the bridge of the nose in such a way that the root of the tongue is also cut through and the spear, instead of coming out in the neck, comes out again near the base of the chin.24 We shall have to admit to ourselves that, on the one hand, the poet gives detailed information about the progress of the spear and with this feigns

17

Wounding and Death in the Iliad greatest precision, but on the other, reconciles the irreconcilable. We shall come across this pseudo-realism so many more times in the Iliad that it would make little sense to interpret it away in one individual section. One dimly senses25 an affinity between Pandarus’ catastrophe and Mydon’s fall. They both have in common not only the striving for the unusual and the irrationality of the occurrence, but above all the annoying way in which they tease the audience and, particularly successfully, philologists. Apparently tangible details are held out as baits which stimulate the imagination into making impractical reconstructions. It is not that they display their freedom from obligation in the way fairytales do, but they falsely present us with peculiar things, as if they were possible. Whether this suspicion of an affinity will be confirmed depends on whether both sections can be included in a larger group. 5 We say goodbye to Aeneas for a while and turn to those fights in X which we have already related to Idomeneus’ aristeia, and especially to the Alcathous episode. We are dealing with a self-contained series of five fights (440ff.), like [25] the first group fight of the Iliad (D 457-504), and in fact both times Ajax is at the centre.26 Again, as was to be expected with an uneven number, a Greek victory forms the beginning, middle and end respectively, whereas the second and fourth successes fall to Trojans. No. 1 [Locrian Ajax kills Satnius] presents itself as a kind of prelude, and then 2/3 run parallel with 4/5: Polydamas kills Prothoenor and boasts about it excessively (4kpaglon); Ajax replies with the killing of Antenor’s son Archelochus and besides punishes Polydamas with a counter speech. After that Acamas, a brother of the last man killed, kills the Boeotian Promachus who was on the point of pulling away the corpse. Acamas, too, boasts excessively (4kpaglon); but the punishment does not fail to materialise here either, the Boeotian Peneleus dreadfully avenges his countryman on Ilioneus and, just as Ajax did, pays the Trojans back for their vainglory with triumphant scorn. Both series are artistically braced together through the participation of the two sons of Antenor; the deed of Ajax, who does not stand at the centre of the overall series by coincidence, participates in both sub-series. But, apart from their concluding speeches in reply, these remain clearly parallel through the corresponding monstrosity of the injuries. Now since 3 is even outdone by 5, a relatively tame beginning (through a stab in the side, Locrian Ajax seemingly renders a Trojan merely unfit for battle) is intensified into the gruesome, wild end: its compositional purpose is to trigger off the Trojan flight (506).

18

I. Phantasmata This structure is well calculated, with individual details carefully shaped all through, and immensely effective. Yet the horrors are also unmistakably there for their own sake. Polydamas had enjoyed success in what is hardly ever granted to a Trojan, a spear-cast. Reversing this, the poet here does not mind that Ajax misses Polydamas and instead hits Archelochus,27 and thus like the Trojan Antiphus D 489ff. he is successful only by mistake28 (465ff.) tÒn ", 4balen kefalÁj te ka< aÙc2noj 1n suneocmîi ne8aton ¢str£galon, ¢pÕ d, ¥mfw k2rse t2nonte. toà d5 pol) prÒteron kefal] stÒma te "√n2j te oÜdei plÁnt, | per knÁmai ka< goàna pesÒntoj. [26] We would like to do without the last two verses, for a doÚphsen d5 pesèn or Ûptioj 1n kon8hisi k£ppese would also do (and would correspond to the section N 545ff. which has its eye in similar fashion on anatomical interest) but if anything was deleted here, one would also have to modify the conclusion of the other series at 493ff., if the balance was not to be severely disturbed. But what are 467/8 actually supposed to mean? The commentaries rightly consider several possibilities, for instance that the head has been cleanly cut off and has fallen to the ground, or that the man who has been hit executes a kind of diving header. This must remain open. It belongs, as I think, to the teasing nature of this pseudo-realism that it leaves various things to the imagination, without allowing it finally and decisively to resolve the matter. So finally Peneleus stabs Ilioneus (493ff.): tÕn tÒq, Øp, ÑfrÚoj oâta kat, Ñfqalmo√o q2meqla 1k d, (se glˇnhn. dÒru d, Ñfqalmo√o diaprÕ ka< di> 9n8on Ãlqen, [ d, 3zeto ce√re pet£ssaj ¥mfw: Phn2lewj d5 1russ£menoj x8foj Ñx) aÙc2na m2sson 4lassen, ¢pˇraxen d5 cam©ze aÙtÁi s)n pˇlhki k£rh: 4ti d, Ôbrimon 4gcoj Ãen 1n Ñfqalmîi, [ d5 f] kèdeian ¢nascën p2frad2 te Trèessi ka< eÙcÒmenoj 4poj hÜda etc. Even if the poor wretch had neither time nor consciousness to grab the spear in his eye, nevertheless the stretching out of the hands is less expressive than D 523 and F 115, since there is no person opposite at whom it is aimed, and ¢mfot2raj, which comes strongly to the fore through its position at the end, is likewise an essential part of the occurrence in the section mentioned last, but is here only a decorative

19

Wounding and Death in the Iliad postscript. The expression aÙc2na m2sson 4lassen has also been devalued: in E 657 and U 455 it indicates a brilliant shot: if here, as in K 455, it is used of a blow, m2sson is pointless. The explanation that it has been inserted because the neck is between the head and trunk does not change anything here – there is no neck which could not be there. We would not make so much fuss about this trivial matter if it did not recur again and again in stylistically strikingly similar contexts, and, as we will be able to show in the chapter on fake realism, represent a characteristic as inconspicuous as it is unmistakable. Further details need not be discussed now; as a whole, the section X 493ff. speaks loudly enough for itself, or maybe against itself. In any case, it stands out from its surroundings to such an extent that it points across to a summit of the same kind in which a long, well calculated gradation also reaches its climax – to the Alcathous episode with its gripping magic and its spear horror. [27] That Idomeneus and Peneleus in particular become affiliated is no coincidence. The Patrocleia associates them closely, and again distinguishes them through particularly gruesome heroic feats (P 335ff.). Lycon’s sword has broken on the Boeotian’s helmet, [ d, Øp, oÜatoj aÙc2na qe√ne Phnel2wj, p©n d, e∏sw 4du x8foj, 4sceqe d, o!on d2rma, parh2rqh d5 k£rh, Øp2lunto d5 gu√a … ,Idomene)j d, ,ErÚmanta kat> stÒma nhl2i calkîi nÚxe, tÕ d, ¢ntikr) dÒru c£lkeon 1xep2rhse n2rqen Øp, 1gkef£loio, k2asse d, ¥r, Ñst2a leuk£. 1k d5 t8nacqen ÑdÒntej, 1n2plhsqen d2 o; ¥mfw a∑matoj Ñfqalmo8, tÕ d, ¢n> stÒma ka< kat> "√naj prÁse canèn: qan£tou d5 m2lan n2foj ¢mfek£luyen. The two killings share with each other (and with Pandarus’ fate) not only the gruesomeness but also the incredibility. That a head which has been cut off falls down sideways and in doing so is held only by the skin is imagined more easily than it is observed; one would really have to ask an executioner whether something like that can occur. The effect which Idomeneus then literally achieves may at first sight appear more plausible. However, the description of the bones as ‘white’ shows that literature here too has emancipated itself strongly from nature. For this is how at first the bleached bones of a dead man are described (cf. Y 252, W 793), so the epithet points beyond the immediate visual content of occurrence. And one may accept that the skull bone is split, although it does correspond more to the effect of a blow with a sword on the vertex; but that the teeth (one has to understand: all the teeth individually) are shaken out would have

20

I. Phantasmata more of a basis in reality if it were an exaggeration arising from a blow with a fist or a club29 than from a stab with a spear. So, without consideration of probability, the poet endeavours to unleash the greatest degree of devastation, and to plunge into a river of blood. Virgil advances further along this path when in Aen. 9, 749 he conflates these two horrors. This grotesque variation on the hideous is unusual even in the bloodthirsty Patrocleia, and consequently there too stands out from its immediate surroundings.30 Unless it depends on the characters as such, then [28] it is still connected with the association between Peneleus and Idomeneus; i.e. the person who in N, X and in P31 related them to each other was a representative of that movement in art which reaches its climax in the two pairs of atrocities. 6 But the closely related horrors in N 601 ff. and P 740 ff. make the most demands on us. In a first armed encounter, Peisandrus and Menelaus have unsuccessfully fought each other with their spears; at this point Peisandrus draws an axe, Menelaus his sword. Whereas nothing is said about the effect of the blow with the axe which hits the helmet, the following is reported about the sword-blow (N 615ff.): [ d5 (|lase) prosiÒnta m2twpon "inÕj Ûper pum£thj. l£ke d, Ñst2a, të d2 o; Ôsse p>r pos d, aƒma neout£tou 4rree ceirÒj. The pitiful retreat of a man [Deiphobus] who had been introduced as m2ga fron2wn and koàfa probib£j (N 156ff.) and had then shown himself quite vainglorious, is apparently supposed to arouse satisfaction.1 But if one takes away everything which the person of Deiphobus brings with him in terms of difference from Odysseus, then the vividness of the event still remains, which justifies the extravagance in terms of verses. There we see Menelaus and Odysseus merely departing; here, however, a closely intertwined, far more threedimensionally executed group. Furthermore [31], the swift horses and the colourful chariot form a cheerful contrast to the sufferings of the wounded man and to his blood which we see dripping down. This last picture differs from [e.g.] the magnificent "2e d, aƒmati ga√a m2laina

23

Wounding and Death in the Iliad like a full stop from a conclusion: our passage is not summative, but intensifying, aiming at one detail. At any rate, on our way we here encounter for the first time the high art of the conclusion, which looks forward to Virgil. Compared with this description, Odysseus’ retreat appears meagre – the narrative so to speak completely withdraws into his great soul; his unbroken courage and the effort which he wrings from his tortured body are the real subject of the poet.2 This contrast does not represent an isolated case. Shortly before Odysseus, Agamemnon was wounded (L 252ff.), kat> ce√ra m2shn ¢gkînoj 4nerqen, ¢ntikr) d5 di2sce faeinoà dourÕj ¢kwkˇ. Agamemnon is startled, but like Odysseus he continues fighting, and even kills his opponent. Then, when the wound closes up and acute pain sets in, he jumps onto the chariot and, spurring on his men, leaves the battlefield. The fact that Agamemnon and Odysseus do not withdraw from the field groaning like Deiphobus corresponds to their high heroic rank in the Iliad. They differ in this from one of their most dangerous opponents not as Greeks, but as great Greeks. Teucer on the other hand, who is certainly not unimportant but takes second place behind those two, and even more behind his brother Ajax, is allowed to abandon himself to his physical pain when, like Agamemnon, he sustains an injury to his arm (Q 332): tÕn m5n 4peiq, ØpodÚnte dÚw 1r8hrej 0ta√roi, Mhkiste)j ,Ec8oio p£ij ka< d√oj ,Al£stwr nÁaj 4pi glafur>j fer2thn bar2a sten£conta. The manner of his wounding, with its visible consequences, recalls the elimination of another archer from the battle, the Priamid Helenus; and the exceedingly vivid ØpodÚnte dÚw 1r8hrej 0ta√roi brings before our eyes once more the leading away of the Priamid Deiphobus. Obviously, since here neither Book Q can be derived from N nor N from Q, we are occasionally dealing with the same art in both books. As has happened to Deiphobus, the Priamid Helenus has his forearm pierced (N 594ff.): 1n d, ¥ra tÒxwi ¢ntikr) di> ceirÕj 1lˇlato calk2on 4gcoj. .y d, 0t£rwn e9j 4qnoj 1c£zeto kÁr, ¢lee8nwn, ce√ra parakrem£saj: tÕ d, 1f2lketo me8linon 4gcoj –

24

II. Truth to Life [32] so again an image which is seen, unsurpassably sharply, as a conclusion. This time, too, the difference between the passages cannot be completely traced back to the characters. Even if the ‘Nevertheless’ of heroic courage was out of the question for the two Trojans, the vividness of the passages in N is still not a mere case of omission. One may attribute the omission of the emotional dimension, if need be, to the poet’s national standpoint; the increase of a quite peculiar manner of observation is not explained by this. But if it had been available in L just as in N, and had only been switched off, this should not make us lose faith in the perception of two styles. For a different intention, expressed with different artistic devices, is of course nothing else than a different style. A further comparison will confirm to us that Greeks and Trojans are not simply measured with a double standard here, as is, of course, quite often the case in the Iliad, and that the border between the two styles does not run between the two fronts. Diomedes has been shot in the foot by Paris; covered by Odysseus, he crouches down and pulls out the arrow (L 398): ÑdÚnh d5 di> croÕj Ãlq, ¢legeinˇ. But the wound and the pain do not prevent him from jumping onto his chariot: 1j d8fron d, ¢nÒrouse ka< =niÒcwi 1p8telle nhusr kÁr. Is a Homeric hero not allowed to limp? This apparently depends on the hero; if not Diomedes, Eurypylus is still allowed to, whom Paris also wounds in the leg shortly afterwards (L 583): ka8 min b£le mhrÕn Ñistîi dexiÒn. 1kl£sqh d5 dÒnax, 1b£rune d5 mhrÒn. Eurypylus withdraws amongst his companions; we hear that he is protected by them, especially by Ajax. Then, at 595, the poet ends this episode. Only at the end of the long book do we encounter the wounded man again (811ff.), sk£zwn 1k pol2mou, kat> d5 nÒtioj "2en ;drëj êmwn ka< kefalÁj, ¢pÕ d, 3lkeoj ¢rgal2oio aƒma m2lan kel£ruze. nÒoj ge m5n 4mpedoj Ãen. tÕn d5 9dën êikteire Menoit8ou ¥lkimoj u;Òj. The sight is more suitable for rousing pity than the heroic retreats of Agamemnon, Diomedes and Odysseus. Patroclus, whose sympathy and readiness to help the poet proposes to describe, does not meet these sublime heroes, but a soldier, who is laboriously dragging

25

Wounding and Death in the Iliad himself along, as we have already witnessed for ourselves – or at least believe we have witnessed; so closely does Homer bring us up to him. The remark that Eurypylus was fully conscious presupposes that from such a wound, which in itself is not [33] all that serious, one could quite probably pass out. Like the Trojans Deiphobus and Helenus, so too the Greek Eurypylus is measured by the standard of ordinary people. Apparently the style in L separates the great heroes from the minor ones. With this, the question of the influence of national prejudice is pushed into the background, but not excluded (for the bias could only regard Greeks as heroes of the first rank). However, it is not the worst Greeks who are shown to us in just as unheroic a state as the Priamids in N. After the great heroes in L have made their exit, the artistic world changes thoroughly. At the core of L, Homer speaks to us differently from N – or a different Homer speaks. 2 If we look around further in N for this precise manner of narrating, we find a few more short but exquisite examples. Remarkably, they are connected with the sons of Priam. After the wounding of Helenus, his treatment by Agenor is described as well and during this, the woollen dressing material is recalled (N 598f., see below, p. [93]). Helenus’ preceding fight with Deipyrus (576ff.) also goes into small details: the Greek’s helmet is struck off, we hear, with a long Thracian sword, rolls along between the feet of the fighting men, and is eventually picked up by someone. It is worthwhile following the path of that helmet which remained in Menelaus’ hand during his duel (G 377f.), because this trophy attests a victory out of whose fruits Menelaus, as winner, is cheated. In N, however, we are dealing with a commonplace feature, which can be observed only at close quarters and virtually transfers the reader right into the middle of the fighters. The appearance of Deiphobus is shaped in quite an unheroic but very lively manner (156ff.),3 and his wounding is seen and heard with exceptional sharpness (527ff.): with a crash, the helmet which he had just pulled from a dead man’s head falls from his hand.4 Also the amusing comparison between Helenus’ arrow, which ricochets off Menelaus’ armour, and [34] beans or peas jumping around on the threshing floor, apparently lives up to expectations in this unpathetic, true-to-life style. Otherwise, not much of this kind is to be found in N (for the realism of Meriones’ deeds does not reflect the human, but the horrible), but if we look across to the end of X, which we have already connected with N several times, we find in the rescue, fainting and reawakening of

26

II. Truth to Life Hector, who has been gravely hit by Ajax, very similar devices to those used in the woundings of Deiphobus and Helenus. Bethe (295) and following him Von der Mühll (225) assign Hector’s wounding to the very last stratum of the Iliad, and therefore endeavour to belittle the artistic value of the passage. However, the former attempt fails, because the sequence is interrupted in order to insert Hera’s deception. This tactic presupposes the duel (at the end of N Hector and Ajax meet and exchange provocative words; but only towards the end of X, after Zeus’ outwitting has been accomplished, do they compete against each other with their weapons). If the duel poet inserted his product into an otherwise complete narrative, one cannot see why, in doing so, he split it up and only created the difficulty which he could then solve only by suspending the action on the battlefield for four hundred verses. On the other hand, the interruption of an existing sequence, especially in favour of a scene involving the gods, is a popular trick in the Iliad. Now, as far as the quality of the passage is concerned, it is completely arbitrary and unfair to pass it off as an inferior piece of epic which has been put together from passages borrowed from elsewhere. It is most annoying that Bethe generally only puts the verse numbers next to each other, and thus creates the impression that we are dealing with the repetition of concise phrases. But this is the case only in exceptions, and the apparent wealth of his arguments dwindles pathetically under the hands of anyone who looks them up. Since Von der Mühll called Bethe’s argumentation ‘splendid’ it should be examined in what follows. X 421: o; d5 m2ga 9£contej 1p2dramon uƒej ’Aca8wn is supposed to have been borrowed from E 343: = d5 m2ga 9£cousa ¢pÕ 3o k£bbalen u;Òn, 427f.: ¢ll> p£roiqen ¢sp8daj eÙkÚklouj sc2qon aÙtoà is supposed to stem from E 453: dˇioun … boe8aj ¢sp8daj eÙkÚklouj laisˇi£ te pterÒenta. Here, apparently, the prejudice that E is a particularly old part of the Iliad shows its influence. But E 452f., in its place, certainly gives the impression of being less original than the parallel in M 425f.: the precise detail about the arming is not natural in the fantastic context, but in the realistic one. – That the verse ending 409: m2gaj Telamènioj A∏aj is also used elsewhere, that the verse ending 416: Ój ken ∏dhtai also appears in S 467 and not, in fact, more succinctly, does not mean the slightest thing, and when Bethe, for X 408, refers to G 32 then he should at least have added that the verse appears no less rarely than seven times in the Iliad, and that in our passage it does not fit any less well than in any of the remaining six. Even more misleading is the note ‘X 419bf. = N 543bf.’. For on the assumption that 0£fqh really means ‘fainted’, everything in X is clear: the spear falls out of Hector’s hand, his shield and helmet fall with him. This is

27

Wounding and Death in the Iliad now supposed to be derived from a passage which does not describe the fall of a man who has been hit at all, and does not mention the contrast with the shield and helmet, i.e. the spear. As long as etymology does not ascertain a completely different meaning for this rare word, which would be possible solely for the passage in N, one has to come to the opposite conclusion to Bethe’s, viz. that the Ajax-Hector passage is the model of the Aeneas-Aphareus passage about whose stylistic connections we have already spoken (an analyst would, of course, hardly be allowed to claim that the appearance of Aeneas might speak in favour of its great age). For the time being, there is no reason to derive both passages from a lost third passage. [35] If furthermore we compare verses X 421ff. with N 551ff. – both passages have quite a few things in common, not so much in formulation as in the subject matter – we will again at most be able to establish a priority of X over N. Not even the parallel X 406f. : C 291f. compromises X. Even if one admits that Hector perhaps had more reason for his wrath when his spear (as in C) simply bounced off his opponent’s shield than when (as in X) it stuck fast in the latter’s armour, one could still object against C that stÁ d5 kathfˇsaj does not really go with his wrath. If kathfˇsaj were written in X, one would certainly have emphasised that this verb occurred ‘only here’, and used this as an argument for the inequality of X. If one wants to make the wrath passage in X dependent on any other passage at all, the one which suggests itself most strongly is N 160ff., where Meriones, after the aforementioned mishap with the spear, retreats, burning with wrath, into the crowd of his comrades. But an analyst cannot get involved in this for, as will be discussed below, Meriones in the Iliad came into favour only very lately; furthermore, his retreat in N mediates between different episodes and scenes, so it does not belong to the older passages, but presupposes them, just as the seduction of Zeus presupposes the duel between Ajax and Hector. In short, Bethe has not produced a single argument which could not be turned effortlessly on its head, and would only thus become a real argument. Not much can be done analytically even with the linguistic modernisms which were discovered by Wackernagel and brought to bear by Bethe and Von der Mühll. The most striking, prÕj 9qÚ o; (403), stands at the beginning of our passage which could not but be particularly exposed to adaptations, the word order in 427 can be changed only too easily (oÙc eÛ tij 1kˇdeto instead of t8j eá) and the rest are deposited in the simile (which, incidentally, is brilliant). The artistic quality is not impaired by these things. Hair-raising catachreses, confused constructions, and other symptoms of a declining technique, are completely absent.

28

II. Truth to Life Hector’s fainting is described in X in such a way that one really has to shut one’s eyes persistently not to be impressed (433ff.): ¢ll, Óte d] pÒron !xon 1urre√oj potamo√o X£nqou dinˇentoj, {n ¢q£natoj t2keto ZeÚj,5 435 4nqa min 1x ∑ppwn p2lasan cqon8, k>d d2 o; Ûdwr ceàan, [ d, 1mpnÚnqh6 ka< ¢n2draken Ñfqalmo√sin, 0zÒmenoj d, 1p< goàna7 kelainef5j aƒm, ¢p2messen, aâqij d, 1xop8sw plÁto cqon8, të d2 o; Ôsse n)x 1k£luye m2laina. b2loj d, 4ti qumÕn 1d£mna. [36] This description stands out through a harsh matter-of-factness. Hector is lifted out of the chariot, laid onto the ground and has water poured on him; as a result his breathing, which seemed to have stopped, starts again, and he even opens his eyes. The addition Ñfqalmo√sin is certainly not otiose, but exceedingly expressive, because it newly invigorates and intensifies the basic meaning of 4draken.8 Hector does not yet perceive his surroundings; only later (O 241) will it be said: ¢mf8 0 ginèskwn 0t£rouj. He sits up, spits out blackish blood over his knees, and sinks back again. This second fainting is not an invention but precisely what usually happens after severe physical shock. If the poet had not been particularly concerned about this pathology, he could have allowed Hector to remain prostrate in his first swoon. This would have completely satisfied the compositional intention (viz. to eliminate the main Trojan hero so that the Greeks can gain a temporary victory). So the second fainting is not a mere doubling, any more than his second awakening in O. In fact, we could be justified in seeing in these doublings signs of a secondary lengthening (the duel between Ajax and Hector seemed lengthened to us in this way just recently); but the fact that Hector awakens differently the second time – he does not merely open his eyes but begins to recognise his surroundings – provides the decisive criterion that the context of the narrative has essentially, i.e. in its development, remained preserved for us. The passage, as expressive as it is sharply observed, where Apollo finds Hector: }menon, oÙd, 4ti ke√to, n2on d, 1sage8reto qumÒn, ¢mf8 0 ginèskwn 0t£rouj, is, however much its surroundings may have suffered during their insertion into the final narrative of the Iliad, not the lucky hit of an imitator,9 but something precious which has fortunately been preserved.

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad 3 [37] With the half verse: b2loj d, 4ti qumÕn 1d£mna, a variation of closing phrases like tÕn d5 skÒtoj Ôsse k£luye or tÕ d, 1f2lketo me8linon 4gcoj, the description of the great duel is powerfully concluded. The counter attack of the Greeks can now begin. Its hero seems originally to have been Locrian Ajax, certainly in his specialised nimbleness a rather unheroic hero. Immediately after Hector’s withdrawal, he comes to the fore (442ff.) and the conclusion of this section of the fight praises him, admittedly quite summarily, as the best of the pursuers (520ff.). The extremely fantastic things which stand between veil the importance of Telamonian Ajax’s victory over Hector, which, of course, was bound to give the Trojans the signal to flee, rather than Peneleus’ victory over Ilioneus. The latter, with an immense array of horror, motivates, for the second time, both what had already been factually motivated, i.e. the flight of the Trojans, inevitable after Hector’s defeat.10 So the traces of an adventurous style presuppose an older narrative, in which Hector’s elimination by Telamonian Ajax formed the turning point, and the aristeia of Locrian Ajax as the born pursuer formed the natural continuation. When we look around further in X for that appropriateness and precision which in the Iliad is not at all a matter of course (as the last fights of this book especially show), then our gaze falls on the great duel itself. The description of the place where Hector’s spear hits Ajax (404f.) has a place of honour in the literature of Homeric weapons – so thoroughly are we informed about the point where the shield-belt and sword-belt crossed. Ajax’s stone throw is localised just as unambiguously and characterised as a masterly performance.11 This attention to details which, elsewhere, are treated quite arbitrarily, can hardly be separated from the suggestions which Poseidon (still, or again, in the person of Thoas?) makes for the organisation of the Greek resistance (371ff., before the duel of Hector with Ajax): the best weapons are supposed to be given to the best men. Poseidon here shows the same military judgement as Thoas himself who, in O 294ff., gives the advice that the majority of the warriors should withdraw to the line of the ships, while the best try to absorb Hector’s attack.12 The [38] god’s instruction is carried out under the supervision (cf. Leaf ad loc.) of the wounded princes Diomedes, Odysseus and Agamemnon: 1sql> m5n 1sqlÕj 4dune, c2reia d5 ce8roni dÒskon.13 That these heroes do not consider themselves too good to make themselves useful in this way is again a piece of real, and completely unelevated, life. Poseidon’s intervention transfers us unexpectedly into a completely different world. The fantastic image of verses 384-401 has rightly been emphasised: the ocean begins to move and breaks

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II. Truth to Life against ships and huts14 and its divine ruler brandishes a sword which spreads terror and resembles lightning. With this, he conjures up the memory of the magic of E and the world in which the fates of Alcathous and Patroclus are settled. Now, there is hardly anything in the Iliad which looks more appended, more artificially implanted, than the role which Poseidon plays from the beginning of N until the beginning of O. This mere impression prevents us from integrating the realistic and the fantastic sphere; it rather speaks for a double layering of our narrative (just as at the end of that book, one cannot get by without an analytical working hypothesis). If Poseidon in 363-77 does not adopt the persona but rather the wisdom of Thoas, he now expands beyond this and the human surroundings. Through this, he introduces a magic aura into a world in which things originally seem to have been much simpler.15 4 [39] The end of N is spatially far removed from the great duel of X, yet in terms of material, it is connected with it much more directly than the last passages dealt with. There, Hector sounds out the Greek phalanx in terms of its steadfastness and finally finds in Ajax an unshakeable opponent. An exchange of speeches between the heroes announces an armed encounter in the customary manner, but, as we already emphasised, this occurs only much later, and in a roundabout way. But Hector’s equipment is already described here with the same care which must strike us during the duel itself. Again, we are given details which, particularly because of their rarity, are extremely welcome to a researcher of weapons (N 803ff.): prÒsqen d, 4cen ¢sp8da pantÒs, 18shn "ino√sin pukinˇn, pollÕj d, 1pelˇlato calkÒj, 805 ¢mf< d2 o; krot£foisi faein] se8eto pˇlhx. p£nthi d, ¢mf< f£laggaj 1peir©to propod8zwn, e∏ pèj o; e∏xeian Øpasp8dia probib£nti. ‘This gradual advancing and approaching … splendidly illustrates the way in which one carefully carries the Mycenean shield in front of oneself and on towards the danger.’ Thus Robert (p. 5 according to Reichel), and he compares with this the advance of Deiphobus N 148: koàfa pos< probib>j ka< Øpasp8dia propod8zwn, whose protective weapon is also called pantÒs, 18sh (157, 160).16 In view of the rarity of this kind of vividness, we shall have to define as closely related the two Hector passages and the Deiphobus

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad passage too.17 But here we have finally reached the point at which all our lengthy discussions have been directed. For if we contemplate all the passages in which books N and X show the ‘true-to-life’ style which observes meticulously, is concerned about motivation, and is sober rather than effusive, then from all the individual fights, the following stand out: [40] The death of Asius and his charioteer N 384-401; Deiphobus’ appearance N 156-8, his attack on Idomeneus N 402-12, but above all his wounding and his retreat N 527-39;18 Helenus’ duel with Deipyrus, his attack on Menelaus, his wounding, retreat and nursing by Agenor N 576-600; Hector’s attack N 803-8 (cf. N 145-8), his duel with Ajax, his wounding, fainting and rescue X 402-39 (his awakening is to be included, O 240-3).19 This selection according to stylistic criteria brings together material which is separated by much material of a different nature. This obscures the idea which links together the pieces that have been emphasised: Priam’s sons are wounded one after the other, Hector, the most important, last and most seriously.20 How can one not recognise the parallel with L? Just as there Agamemnon, Diomedes and Odysseus withdrew one after the other, so that only Ajax was left to delay the disaster, so here only Paris remains in the field, who of course cannot prevent a Trojan flight. The drastic reversal which Poseidon brings about literally behind the back of Zeus, who has turned northwards, is the mirror image of the plan which precisely this same Zeus had set in motion and then (N 1) left to Hector to carry out. The realistic passages in N X presuppose L, and the mention of the three wounded Greek princes in X 379ff. makes the reversal of events particularly obvious, so apparently this has consciously been made to serve a symmetric composition, which was then thrown off balance by numerous poetic insertions. [41] What was common to this attack and counter-attack was the unobtrusiveness of the divine contribution. The Greeks in L and later the Priamids were wounded one after the other as if by chance. Since the champions of both sides particularly expose themselves to the danger, the poet did not need to engage the gods in each case to make the course of events comprehensible. Zeus and Poseidon may determine the general direction of the development, but they do not need to exert particular influence behind every deed of arms. As in tragedy the deity shows itself in the prologue but can remain invisible during the action, so also in L and in the relevant passages of N and X, events on earth unfold in such a way that, admittedly, we know about their

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II. Truth to Life divine originators, but we nevertheless perceive the events as quite essentially earthly and human, since each action explains itself automatically. The deity’s intervention in individual fights, which blurs the border between the human and superhuman sphere, remains reserved for those fights which are not essential to the outlined narrative scheme: Poseidon bewitches Alcathous’ eyes and feet, he protects Antilochus from the hail of Trojan missiles, in particular he renders ineffectual the spear of Asius’ son Adamas, whose life he begrudges (N 562f.); besides, he does not merely spur on the Greeks but, swinging an enormous sword, marches into battle with them like the bloodthirsty Ares, drunk with the slaughter. Of these episodes, the first and the last clearly belong to that fantastic style whose wide control over the narrative always ends when one of Priam’s sons is to be eliminated. Although the Priamid theme always left room for interludes like the disaster of Asius who, without heeding Polydamas’ advice and Hector’s example (M 66ff., 80ff.), dares to advance further than all the others,21 the climax which leads to Hector’s defeat has, first through the interruptions at N 413-505, 540-75, but above all through N 601-801, become almost unrecognisable. Not even the seduction of Zeus, which of course takes place on a different level, prevents us recognising the continuous progress of the development on the battlefield as much as the [42] episodes which serve the glory of the heroes Aeneas and Meriones, who are pushed into the foreground by all possible means. But not only was an older composition stretched to breaking point, but a new one was developed as well. The fantastic style vaults the realistic passages, which used to hang together. In the Alcathous scene, it rises up to daring heights which, in conjunction with the Peneleus peak, just about hold together the immensely enlarged mass of episodes.22 E.H. Meyer, p. 150, distinguished an older ‘great, heroic, manly, natural, vivid, strictly symmetric, moderate’ style from a younger ‘tender or also uncouth, bourgeois-idyllic, feminine-sentimental, fantastic, picturesque, looser and occasionally bombastic’ one. We can now gauge how much correct observation underlies this description of the ‘younger’ style, and soon we shall also recognise his ‘older’ style in the Iliad. But he credits the younger style with a diversity which abolishes the notion of style. This series of epithets falls into two groups, of which each first visualises a certain individual. The desire to polarise phenomena, to get by with a contrast, is understandable, but we shall have to progress to a trinity of styles which perhaps still represents a simplification, which is able to render services that are only provisional even though not contemptible. If it is correct that the fantastic style has absorbed parts of a realistically shaped context in

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad N and X; if furthermore it is correct that these parts, taken out and merged, still allow a narrative to be recognised which is meant as a mirror image of the elimination of the Greek champions in L, then we would be allowed to distribute our three styles into three periods of time. But in general, only two of these will be relevant to us, that of the including and included, the presupposing and presupposed verses. Additions to I and II A. Pseudo-Realism 1 [43] There are battle descriptions in the Iliad which restrict themselves to the decisive moments, and others which are more generous with details. The second group sometimes presents comparatively minor matters which bring events closely to our notice, and thus convince us of their naturalness. However, the impression of precision which is created through such details often does not stand up to examination: what at first sight seemed to heighten the vividness, at second becomes blurred, because there is no whole which emerges from the parts. In cases like this we have on occasions already spoken of pseudo-realism. Fantasy in the garb of precision is offered to us in the AntilochusThoon episode N 545ff.: ,Ant8locoj d5 QÒwna metastrefq2nta dokeÚsaj oÜtas, 1pa8xaj, ¢pÕ d5 fl2ba p©san 4kersen, } t, ¢n> nîta q2ousa diamper5j aÙc2n, ;k£nei. t]n ¢pÕ p©san 4kersen. Leaf ’s remark that such a vein ‘of course’ did not exist perhaps sounds a little condescending, but does more justice to the text than the claim that we are dealing here with the aorta. For Küchenmeister (p. 44), this one passage was in fact sufficient proof ‘that Homer knew exactly the course of the aorta’ and ‘that already Homer and the Homerids’ had ‘made sections of human carcasses’, and Körner in the Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift (69, 1922, 1484ff.) tried to give stronger reasons for this view. But ¢n> nîta q2ousa does really mean ‘running along on the back’ and not, as Körner thinks, ‘on the back wall of the thoracic cavity’.23 If the aorta, located in front of the human spine and revealed only if one cuts open the abdomen, is identified with a vein

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II. Truth to Life ‘along the spine’, then one will be able to find pretty well anything everywhere. [44] However, the resumption of the main clause shows how much importance is attached to this peculiar detail by the poet. The passage X 465f., which was already discussed above, points very similarly to the wound: tÒn ", 4balen kefalÁj te ka< aÙc2noj 1n suneocmîi24 ne8aton ¢str£galon, ¢pÕ d, ¥mfw k2rse t2nonte. The usage of ¢poke8rein25 which is peculiar only to these, shows that the last two passages belong together. The passage in X is followed, as we saw, by the highly fantastic verses 467/8. So it marks the point where sophisticated pseudo-precision turns into daring yarn spinning. The impression of anatomical knowledge is also given P 313ff. where Meges hits Amphiclus, prumnÕn sk2loj, 4nqa p£cistoj muën ¢nqrèpou p2letai, per< d, 4gceoj a9cmÁi neàra diesc8sqh. However, the 4nqa sentence does not stand up to the objection already made by the ancient commentators, that such a stab wound is relatively harmless; and besides, one wonders how Meges can hit the gluteal muscle, the muscle which must obviously be meant, from the front. But the next sentence is more significant, because again it leads beyond the observable into what can only be imagined. The splitting of the sinews appears wholly made up. We shall spurn the solution that twists diasc8zein into a mere diakÒptein, diat2mnein. The family of these paradoxes is too common in the Iliad for us to be able to eradicate or ignore them. 2 The passage U 463-83 is a treasure trove. It is surrounded by Achilles’ deeds, which are told so concisely and matter-of-factly that they look like themes rather than variations. We have already mentioned that the victory over Rhigmus and his charioteer (484ff.) can give an idea of the original form of that episode, whose brilliant modification N 384ff. in the Iliad was then varied further several times, and with the greatest sophistication. The combination of a shot in the leg and a blow with the sword 456ff., when compared with a passage like D 521ff. – comparable in terms of content but giving the impression of

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad having been put together and derived – has the advantage of solid simplicity as well, and the double success 460ff., achieved with spear and sword, contains in a nutshell what unfolds broadly and luxuriously e.g. in the series of double victories L 143ff. [45] which is supposed to put Agamemnon on an equal footing with the greatest heroes. So our difficulty begins at 463. Tros, son of Alastor (both names are all too transparent, but the same is true of Demuchus 457, Laogonos and Dardanus 460), who asks Achilles for pardon but is then so cruelly mistaken in him, is only a shadow of Lycaon, whose rare and moving fate is described to us in such detail in F.26 The priority of the Lycaon episode reveals itself in the manner of the killing: there the kneeling man is, appropriately, hit in the neck, as we know from vase paintings (117: tÚye kat> klh√da par, aÙc2na, p©n d2 o; e∏sw dà x8foj ¥mfhkej), whereas Tros, while he is still clasping Achilles’ knees, is hit in the liver, which astonishingly slips out and, dripping with blood,27 floods the folds of the chiton – the latter a variation of the simple, and at the same time exceedingly graphic, statement F 118: [ d, ¥ra prhn]j 1p< ga8hi ke√to taqe8j, 1k d, aƒma m2lan "2e, deàe d5 ga√an. The next wounding is unusual but not outrageous (Achilles from the side stabs Mulius in one ear, the point of the spear emerging at the other). On the other hand the following seems familiar to us: [ d, ,Agˇnoroj u;Õn -Eceklon m2sshn k>k kefal]n x8fei |lase kwpˇenti, p©n d, Øpeqerm£nqh x8foj a∑mati, tÕn d5 kat, Ôsse 4llabe porfÚreoj q£natoj ka< mo√ra krataiˇ. For we have read the phrase (plˇxaj x8fei aÙc2na kwpˇenti etc.) in a fantastic interlude in the Patrocleia (as P 332ff.). In both places, the main interest is the heating up of the sword, which again draws the event out from the immediately perceptible into what is in the mind. For it is not said, for instance, that the sword, when it was pulled out, was steaming with hot blood, but the imagination, as in Virgil (Aen. 9, 701), slips with the weapon into the body of the man who has been struck; cf. U 399 (1gk2faloj d5 4ndon ¤paj pep£lakto) and E 75 (yucrÕn 3le calkÕn Ñdoàsi). But all this is outdone by the killing of Deucalion (478ff.), which again combines spear-throw with sword-blow. But whereas in other places the doomed man is hit in the leg, and thus [46] prevented from fleeing, here the spear hits him in the elbow joint ‘where the tendons hold together’ (the upper arm and the forearm); so he could still at least make an attempt to get to safety, but, with certain death staring him in the face, he simply stands still. Here, in an extremely abbre-

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II. Truth to Life viated way (as perhaps already in E 579), but still just recognisably, that motif of consternation and inability to move appears, which meant so much in N (the charioteer and Alcathous episode) and in P (the Thestor episode). – Achilles, a skilful executioner, cleanly cuts off the defenceless man’s head (as Diomedes does Dolon’s), so that the spinal cord splashes out of the cervical vertebrae: muelÕj aâte sfondul8wn 4kpalto. Here, ‘however, we see Homer make an anatomical mistake’, Küchenmeister remarks on this, op. cit. p. 50, and, so as not to have to disavow Homer, reckons with an addition by later writers. But then, of course, anatomical correctness cannot be expected in the Iliad. Rather, we have to admit that one can rely on the precise details of information in such passages only when they concern the self-evident, for instance the fact that the upper arm and forearm are connected to each other by tendons; but in areas where only real medical experience can give testimony, they offer plausibility by chance at best, but, for the most part, largely fantasy. R 295 is cast in the same mould: plÁx, aÙtosced8hn kun2hj di> calkoparˇiou, |rike d, ;ppod£seia kÒruj per< dourÕj ¢kwkÁi, plhge√s, 4gcei te meg£lwi ka< ceir< pace8hi, 1gk2faloj d5 par, aÙlÕn ¢n2dramen 1x çteilÁj a;matÒeij.28 Not very satisfyingly for us, but, no less than three times in our Iliad, the closely related warrior-slaying U 396ff. is used (cf. L 96ff. and M 183ff.): ,Antˇnoroj u;Õn nÚxe kat> krÒtafon, kun2hj di> calkoparˇiou. oÙd, ¥ra calke8h kÒruj 4sceqen, ¢ll> di, aÙtÁj a9cm] ;em2nh "Áx, Ñst2on, 1gk2faloj d5 4ndon ¤paj pep£lakto. One should take particular note of 4ndon: the soiling or shaking29 of the brain ‘inside’ can no longer be observed from outside [47] but, like the death-rattle of Mydon who is stuck in the sand, can only be supposed, while the smashing of a skull in the helmet (M 384f. and others) is still subject to perception from the outside. A style which acknowledges this borderline is consequently more restrained, cf. D 459: tÒn ", 4bale prîtoj kÒruqoj f£lon ;ppodase8hj, 1n d5 metèpwi pÁxe, p2rhse d, ¥r, Ñst2on e∏sw a9cm] calke8h: tÕn d5 skÒtoj Ôsse k£luyen.

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad The cutting of the head from the trunk, and the splashing of the spinal cord from the spine, form a peak in between, as we find quite frequently in the battle descriptions. So the mowing off of Hypsenor’s arm (E 81f.), and of Archelochus’ and Ilioneus’ heads (X 465ff. and 496ff.), are highlights, which have been put in deliberately and prepared after long and careful planning. When with U 484-9 once more – immediately before the magnificent final image of the book – a simpler type is used, the description, after its flight of fancy, seems to land on the level of the Achilleid substratum. The ensuing warriorkillings, which certainly do not lack emotiveness, do without miraculous horrors. The death of Lycaon shows us what is possible, in terms of expression, within the framework of the normal, average business of war: in terms of power of image and human content, this episode looks for its equal among the battle scenes of the Iliad. Here the highest standard is reached, without things being particularly ‘stormy and poetical’. 3 The thematic character of the short Rhigmus episode can be clearly explained by one single word. In U 486 it is said: tÕn b£le m2sson ¥konti, p£gh d, 1n nhdÚi calkÒj. [48] We encounter this usage of m2soj, as plausible as it is, in only a few places. Generally gast2ra m2sshn, m2sshn k>k kefalˇn, and that sort of thing, is said. In view of the relation between the content of the Rhigmus charioteer scene and the Asius charioteer scene, one can hardly regard it as a coincidence that the latter says (N 397): dour< m2son perÒnhse tucèn (and then, without tucèn, H 145)30 … m2shi d, 1n gast2ri pÁxe.31 We also feel the influence of U 486 in its own vicinity. We read in U 413: tÕn b£le m2sson ¥konti and we must first understand this as a shot roughly into the navel area, even if we do not remember the few parallels. But instead of p£gh d, 1n nhdÚi calkÒj, or something like this, these words are followed by: pod£rkhj d√oj ,Acille)j nîta para8ssontoj. This surprises us, because a human being has a natural middle only at the front, not at the back; so for the wounding of people in flight, this is naturally never mentioned, but rather we find êmwn messhgÚj, and similar phrases. Anyone to whom this seems too pedantic should read on: Óqi zwstÁroj ÑcÁej crÚseioi sÚnecon ka< diplÒoj |nteto qèrhx. We know this detail very well: Athena steers Pandarus’ arrow precisely to this point, because that is where Menelaus is least at risk (D 132f.). But Menelaus is wounded from the front, Polydorus

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II. Truth to Life in U in the back, and it is impossible to see how nevertheless the same part of both men’s armour can be hit.32 Archaeology struggles in vain with this contradiction,33 but the person who sees through the complexity and pseudo-realism of this passage in U will not demand information about Homeric armour from such details; he is also rid of the question with what force the spear had to tilt downwards so that it could emerge near the navel after it had penetrated roughly between the shoulders (with nîta one has to think of the upper body first).34 [49] It is, of course, transparent why the spear does not come out in the chest. For ill-fated Polydorus is also supposed to have his entrails fall out, as do Diores D 525f., Tros U 470 and Asteropaius F 180f. (who are hit from the front). The particular ambition of this passage is betrayed by the fact that this horrible effect is achieved not, as with the latter two, through a blow with the sword, but, as with the former, through a stab with the spear and, on top of everything else, from behind. That the dying man also tries to hang on to his entrails is even repeated, and thus particularly emphasised: 418 prot< oƒ d, 4lab, 4ntera cers< liasqe8j. *Ektwr d, æj 1nÒhse kas8gnhton PolÚdwron 4ntera cers dexiÒn, = d5 diaprÕ ¢ntikr) kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on |luq, ¢kwkˇ. gn)x d, 4rip, o9mèxaj, q£natoj d2 min ¢mfek£luye. The last line is particularly effective, for it is clear that the man who has been hit falls onto his knees in the direction of the spear throw; the loud groaning too – which the Iliad mentions here for the first time [54] during the fights – corresponds to the horribleness of the injury. What comes earlier is less convincing. Admittedly, we do not want to prevent Meriones from doing what is more difficult instead of what is easier and usual, and hurl his spear while running rather than standing still. But Óte d] kat2marpte dièkwn does not go at all well with beblˇkei. For this cannot mean, as Düntzer wants, ‘when he was standing in front of him in throwing range’. It describes the complete act of catching up, and this gives the opportunity for a stab or a blow, not a throw. The expression is used once more in the Iliad, and in fact with considerably more impact, when Glaucus, who was running away, executes a sudden turn to shoot his pursuer Bathycles (P 597ff.): tÕn m5n ¥ra Glaàkoj stÁqoj m2son oÜtase dour8, strefqer (mon dour8 etc. Might this be a coincidence that at that very same place we also find the rare and difficult ¥crij which does not make our verse 522 exactly clearer (cf. Leaf ad loc.)? Anyhow, one cannot fail to notice that, in spite of plentiful individual detail, our episode does not deliver proper clarity. After blÁto par> sfurÕn … knˇmhn dexit2rhn, which taken by itself would remain completely in the style of the corresponding details before the interlude, the addition 521f.: ¢mfot2rw d5 t2nonte ka< Ñst2a l©aj ¢naid]j ¥crij ¢phlo8hsen tries to make us feel the destruction caused even more strongly, but we have to accept a zeugma which blurs rather than clarifies (the verb itself seems to me to refer to the bones, its preposition more to the sinews).

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad Then one will remember that in the Iliad the ‘two sinews’ are mentioned several times, quite plausibly K 456 where with a single blow of the sword Diomedes cuts off Dolon’s head, cleanly cutting through the neck sinews; but on the other hand, just as problematically as in our passage, at E 307 where again a stone throw tears both sinews of Aeneas’ hip joint; and also at X 466 where Ajax with his spear (strangely enough) penetrates both the spine and the two neck sinews – the fantastic style appears to have a predilection for details of that kind. But even if one accepts this here, will one have to ask immediately afterwards how a stab with the spear can tear open the abdominal cavity so far that all the entrails fall out? This is distinctly better described in the parallel passage F 180 where Achilles achieves the same effect with a sword blow. Although this does not exhaust the difficulties of the Diores episode,10 we are still allowed to make the diagnosis: pseudo-realism. Diores is avenged on Peirous by Thoas. So both warrior-slayings are connected to each other into a special group in a way we already understand. [72] The repetition of a double attacking action underlines their unity and when, at the end, our attention is once again directed towards the corpses of the Greek and the Thracian which are lying next to each other,11 that is something else to set off the unity of the composition. But if we therefore expect that things will happen similarly in its second part to the first, we are completely mistaken. For here the horror is restricted to the inevitable and the mode of performance is concise and clear: Thoas hurls the spear, hits Peirous in the chest, pursues, pulls out the spear and finishes off his opponent with a sword blow to the abdomen. This would be derivable from the group of five, but the final sentence: 1k d’ a∏nuto qumÒn corresponds to the simple làse de gu√a of the Trojan victory 469 rather than the more elevated expression of the Greeks’ victories there; moreover, up till now the location of the blow has changed, but here the first repetition appears: st2rnon Øp5r mazo√o means roughly the same as par> mazÕn dexiÒn. The sober admission 532: teÚcea d’ oÙk ¢p2duse12 makes us sit up and take notice, but even more so the ethnographic interest of 533: Qrˇikej ¢krÒkomoi, dÒlic’ 4gcea cersr ÑistÕj ¢ntikr) kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on 1xep2rhsen. 0zÒmenoj d5 kat, aâqi f8lwn 1n cers klh√da kat, aÙc2na, p©n d2 o; e∏sw dà x8foj ¥mfhkej. [ d, ¥ra prhn]j 1p< ga8hi ke√to taqe8j, 1k d, aƒma m2lan "2e, deàe d5 ga√an. The hardening of Achilles’ soul shows itself at its most terrible here, because he is dealing with a young, harmless opponent who is not dangerous. But it is not for that reason alone that the poet has roused our sympathy for this son of Priam and his turbulent fate; we are also unmistakably shown here that developed interest in internal Trojan family matters which brought people like Simoeisius, Scamandrius and Imbrius so close to us. It testifies to a certain shift of the original emphasis towards the Trojan side. The result is that the advanced nature of the episode, which is still wonderfully natural [101] but already reaching the boundaries of the artificial, cannot surprise us. The movement with which Lycaon bows to the inevitable is touching: letting go of the spear and sitting back from his crouching position,27 he stretches out his arms and so opens himself to the death

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Appendices blow. Then he lies stretched out on his face, and his blood runs from the wound in his throat and moistens the earth. The last line is a pause [as in music], through which Achilles is not prepared to wait, since he proposes to maltreat the body. But if he drags it to the river in order to throw it to the fish which are supposed to ‘lick the blood off the wound’ and to tuck into ‘Lycaon’s white fat’, he undoes l. 119. The purpose is clear. The connection with the river has to be re-established. As the location for the Lycaon episode it is unimportant, but it is all the more important for the events which now follow. So since we face a transition after 119, we must be prepared to meet atrocities; for we have not forgotten our experiences with linking passages which establish relationships. To understand Achilles’ threats as merely an expression of a soul devastated by grief would mean isolating it unjustifiably (for that sort of thing is not restricted to Achilles, and is only too common in the Iliad); to understand it as the expression of a naïve cruelty which is offensive only to ‘modern prissiness’ would mean to generalise it unjustifiably (for such scenes are not a matter of course in the Iliad and do not appear in any old place). Whether, following on from the ethos of the truly unsqueamish killing of Lycaon, one perceives the self-indulgent description of what is repulsive as a fall or not, a stylistic change would not be displeasing, even if the break were less prominent. This killing has been included into the context of Achilles’ impending fight with the river and it is only natural that, like quite a few included pieces, it testifies to a different spirit from that of its new surroundings. It is understandable that a verse such as 119, which is so important and has been created for such an important passage, should be used again in the Iliad, but the manner in which this happens in N 654f. jeopardises, as we have seen, not only the context of the narrative but also that of the sentence. Although it is possible that the word 0zÒmenoj, which is so little in accordance with the wounding, was also taken by N 653 from F, one can still not regard the Lycaon scene as the sole model for the Harpalion scene. The proximity of the companions is just as essential for the Harpalion scene as the forlornness of the son of Priam, who is at the mercy of Achilles, is for the Lycaon scene. However, as far as the catastrophes of Diores and Thoon are concerned (which in terms of motif are closely connected with the Harpalion scene) the words may be almost the same but the stretching out of hands means something different from what it means in F. In one instance the hands are also being raised up, in the other they are also being let drop. Both are of such strong and noble illustrative [102] and expressive content, that one is allowed to ask whether that passage which stands behind its representatives (which are all open

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad to question) was not a part of that poetry which, in the Lycaon episode, still speaks directly to us. We are taught by a comparison with the fantastic deed of Peneleus P 339ff. how solid the Lycaon episode is, for all its exceptional character, up until l. 119 (though the Peneleus episode, incidentally, is shaped with virtuosity as far as rhythm is concerned): [ d, Øp, oÜatoj aÙc2na qe√ne Phn2lewj, p©n d, e∏sw 4du x8foj, 4sceqe d, o!on d2rma, parh2rqh d5 k£rh, Øp2lunto d5 gu√a.28 It is far less plausible that the whole blade ‘sinks’ into the victim’s body29 after a blow from the sword than after a stab. This belongs to iugulatio, as we know it from vase pictures. The epithet ¥mfhkej has been meaningfully inserted in F and not just for decoration; for a single blow it would be pointless, because one single blade would be enough for that. But for a stab, the mention of the double-blade draws our eyes to the sword in such a way that we see it disappear in the wound right up to the hilt. Thus we follow the bloody event as if from close at hand and feel reminded of the passages we dealt under that heading in Chapter II. But the realism of the killing of Lycaon is of particular importance because the event described is significant not only for the defeated man but also for the victor, and indeed more than a new proof of his irresistibility. So (as with Menelaus’ throw of Paris’ helmet) one could again think that the higher purpose had specifically created its means of expression through its precision. It is tempting to imagine the birth of realism like this, but the ennoblement of an artistic device which is already in existence is an idea which is at least as gratifying as that construction which we cannot yet implement. III. Sarpedon 1 [103] The character and role of the prince of the Lycians have occupied Homeric philology strongly30 but nobody seems to be worried by the fact that, after a different injury, Sarpedon dies the same death as Asius. If we were dealing here with an average hero or with average verses, naturally the repetition might leave us cold; but since we are dealing with very special heroes and verses which are just as special, the repetition is also something special, particularly since this unique re-use of the verses concerned is all that happened. In order not to go too far afield, we begin at P 428f., the concise but extremely vivid simile of the vultures which screeching loudly attack

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Appendices each other on a rocky cliff. The battle actions themselves (split off from the simile through a conversation between Zeus and Hera) seem to have been doubled, as Sarpedon’s double spear throw lets us assume; one must reckon with an originally very simple sequence (cf. Robert op. cit. p. 400). Sarpedon’s deadly injury is dismissed with the one single verse 481. When we consider how richly such events are depicted at the climaxes of E, N and X, we are amazed at the poet’s thrift. One cannot explain this economy by arguing that the main effects have been saved up for Cebriones’ and Patroclus’ catastrophes; after all Sarpedon is more important than Thestor and Erylaus (411f.), in dealing with whom there was no restriction at all in extravagance.31 Sarpedon now falls like a tree – the same variety of tree simile was used in the fall of Asius in N 389ff., and just like the latter, Sarpedon wrestles with death (N 392f. = P 485f.): [104] ìj [ prÒsq, ∑ppwn ka< d8frou ke√to tanusqe8j, bebrucèj, kÒnioj dedragm2noj a;mato2sshj. The comparison does not exhaust itself in the wording of the passage, but extends also to the relation of the utterance to its respective context: here, as there, its harsh realism stands in contrast to the neighbouring phantasmata. Can one derive one of the two passages from the other? First of all, the Patrocleia may boast one advantage here: the ensuing simile (487) of the bull which perishes under the lion’s teeth with the word sten£cwn unmistakably picks up bebrucèj again (cf. Wilamowitz 138) and by calling the bull a∏qwna meg£qumon recalls once more the former splendour of the dead man, who is now so ignominiously lying in the dust. But on the other hand N also has its advantages: it carefully reveals the information that the dying man is lying in front of his horses and turns the episode with Asius’ charioteer, which in the Patrocleia precedes the Thestor episode, into the immediate result of Asius’ fall; the catastrophe is thereby completed and rightly and properly sealed. So it is impossible to regard the death of Sarpedon, as it is described in our Iliad, as the model for Asius’ death and to assume that during the transfer from one man to the other it was supplemented by the charioteer episode. On the other hand, the reverse could be momentarily conceivable, that Asius’ death was transferred to Sarpedon and that in doing this the charioteer episode was left out, or transferred to Thestor. It is not only the loss of motivation for Thestor’s consternation that speaks for this, but above all the fact (stated a very long time ago) that the tale of Sarpedon’s death collapses at l.

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad 491. Sarpedon has suddenly regained the ability to give instructions to Glaucus; only then does he definitively die, as Wilamowitz noticed, really for the second time.32 Diores, too, in a certain sense died twice in D 524, in a similar break of context no less than of style. But even if P too shows inalienable special material here (at least the bull simile), we again have to [105] postulate a common archetype which lives on in the merits of both versions. But since we cannot blend Asius and Sarpedon into one single person, the question arises for which of the two the passages N 389-393 = P 482-486 were actually coined. Here we do not have the option of ‘as well … as’, but only ‘either … or’ and ‘neither … nor’. The answer is made easier for us because while Asius and Sarpedon appear as doubles here, they do not do so at all in the remainder of the Iliad. Asius has been introduced in such a way that there lies a certain (poetic) justice in his wretched end. Whereas the description as nˇpioj applies to Patroclus only at the moment of his error (P 686), it does say something about Asius’ nature (M 113). For in a break during the fight, which would give him time to think, he disregards Polydamas’ salutary advice which all the Trojans and allies follow (M 60ff.), and scorns abandoning his chariot in front of the Greek fortifications – the result is that he will brought to the ground prÒsq, ∑ppwn ka< d8frou. As he has to admit to himself (M 165f.), he overestimates his own strength and underestimates the courage of the Greeks, but improperly33 shifts all the blame onto Zeus. His arrogance is the same as that of Othryoneus who is self-important and promises too much and who looks like Asius’ shadow in any case. From the start we have a foreboding of the steep fall awaiting the one just as much as the other.34 On the other hand any reader of M knows that before his death, Sarpedon is described as a hero who through his good attitude and sense of responsibility (M 310ff. justify us in speaking even of a ‘social’ sense of responsibility) elevates himself far above the impetuous barbarity of Asius. The way Sarpedon dies in P is not the death he deserves: he does not die his death here, but on the other hand Asius in N does.35 Unity of character and fate may be problematic in the Iliad [106]; but here, where we are facing an alternative, the ‘better’ is the enemy of what is in no way particularly ‘good’, and Sarpedon as an appropriate subject for this kind of death steps into the shadow of Asius. Not necessarily his name, but Asius’ nature should be assumed to have been in the archetype. Now, since we assume that there was an influence of such an archetype, we should straight away also ask about the origin of a magnificent passage which has been perceived to be an alien element in its context, P 775f.:

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Appendices [ d, 1n strof£liggi kon8hj ke√to m2gaj megalwst8, lelasm2noj ;pposun£wn. As one has to agree with Wilamowitz, these verses are too solemn and important for Hector’s charioteer Cebriones. Wilamowitz was wary of referring them to Achilles, with good reason, for lelasm2noj ;pposun£wn with podèkhj, in spite of his chariot and his immortal horses, lacks any precision. If, as has been concluded from w 40, this really was said about Achilles (in the Achilleid), it still has not therefore been necessarily coined for him. I am not concerned with the name Asius, but this ‘yesterday still on proud horses, today shot through the chest’ was invented for a man of his type, cf. M 113ff.: nˇpioj, oÙd, ¥r, 4melle kak>j ØpÕ kÁraj ¢lÚxaj ∑ppoisin ka< Ôcesfin ¢gallÒmenoj par> nhîn .y ¢ponostˇsein prot< -Ilion ºnemÒessan. 2 If we have to reckon with the possibility that Sarpedon’s death is derived poetry, the hope of peeling away a firm core out of all the things which in the Patrocleia are connected with his person fades away. Indeed, Sarpedon’s catastrophe and the fight for his corpse belong to the most complex passages of the Iliad. Bethe (I 317) calls his removal from the field ‘blown up through small individual fights without a context’; during the encounter of Aeneas and Meriones – which does not have a result – ‘it is as if it had been forgotten that the fight is over Sarpedon’s corpse’ (Von der Mühll, p. 249); the conversation between Zeus and Hera has not only been driven into the context like a wedge, but the removal which is being prepared for here appears to transfigure a nobler death of a warrior than that which Sarpedon suffers in our Iliad. So would the fact that he dies at all therefore be an innovation by that person who included him in the Patrocleia? This is improbable for this reason alone, that it is here presupposed precisely by passages which stand out very sharply against the ‘sentimental’ style of the Patrocleia with its ‘semi-darkness’ and its [107] ‘light effects’ (H.E. Meyer, op. cit., p. 81): so 638ff.: oÙd, .n 4ti fr£dmwn per ¢n]r SarphdÒna d√on 4gnw, 1pe< bel2essi ka< a∑mati ka< kon8hisin 1k kefalÁj e∏luto diamper5j 1j pÒdaj ¥krouj. This unforgettable image which Wilamowitz, however, did not regard

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad worthy of his old Patrocleia is followed by the very unsolemn, but also very vivid, comparison between the warriors crowding round the corpse and the flies which swarm around the milk pail. If the poem had moved in well worn tracks since Sarpedon’s fall, it now unexpectedly comes to important passages. Incidentally, the verses which have been quoted above give the impression that the poet sees Sarpedon naked in front of him, as if his weapons had already been captured by the Greeks. Since their capture does not happen until twenty verses later, the description of the corpse runs ahead of events, no less than the likewise exceedingly impressive passage 659ff. lags behind them: 4nq, oÙd, ∏fqimoi LÚkioi m2non, ¢ll> fÒbhqen p£ntej, 1pe< basilÁa ∏don dedaigm2non36 Ãtor ke8menon 1n nekÚwn ¢gÚrei. The consternation which Sarpedon’s death causes among his people corresponds to the dismay which overcomes the Paeones when their leader falls, except that there, as is to be expected, cause and effect follow each other immediately (P 290). As often in the Iliad, the original Sarpedon tale has been expanded over a large distance and nothing guarantees us that its remains appear in the old order throughout. But that such remainders are indeed present here is assured not only by the fact that 659ff. are not appropriate to the situation now, but also by the peculiar hint at ‘gathered’ corpses. The harsh clarity of the few words recalls ke√to m2gaj megalwst8, probably even more strongly D 536f.: ìj tè g, 1n kon8hisi par, ¢llˇloisi tet£sqhn, Ãtoi [ m5n Qrhikîn, [ d, ,Epeiîn calkocitènwn =gemÒnej.37 From such Sarpedon passages, it is only one step to the description in M 397ff. which, rhythmically, is brilliantly coined, in its unadorned monumentality worthy of a Thucydides: [108] Sarphdën d, ¥r, 4palxin 0lën cersr Ûperqe te√coj 1gumnèqh, pol2essi d5 qÁke k2leuqon.39 We shall recall not least the merciless but powerful realism of the two lines which describe Sarpedon’s death throes. But since they are used by Asius, the question can no longer be rejected as to how Sarpedon’s death might have been described. Now, if it were assumed that an answer could still be given, the further question would immediately

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Appendices arise, as to what could have led the Iliad poet to make Sarpedon suffer Asius’ death instead of his own. The answer to this is: because he had already described Sarpedon’s original death in E. There Sarpedon had received a serious wound which is later completely forgotten, although nothing was said about how it was healed (for instance, by a god). But it was not invented to have no consequences at all. That this consequence was once death is still disclosed by our text in several passages, probably most clearly through the resolute, but not exactly wise, turn with which it avoids it in E 671ff.: mermˇrixe d, 4peita kat> fr2na ka< kat> qumÒn, À prot2rw DiÕj u;Õn 1rigdoÚpoio dièkoi, À Ó ge tîn pleÒnwn Luk8wn ¢pÕ qumÕn 3loito. oÙd ¥r, ,OdussÁi megalˇtori mÒrsimon Ãen ∏fqimon DiÕj u;Õn ¢pokt£men Ñx2i calkîi, tî "a kat> plhq)n Luk8wn tr£pe qumÕn ,Aqˇnh. Sarpedon’s plea to Hector (684ff.) sounds like a last request, like the words of a dying man: Priam8dh, m] dˇ me 3lwr Danao√sin 1£shij ke√sqai, ¢ll, 1p£munon. 4peit£ me ka< l8poi a9ën [109] 1n pÒlei Ømet2rhi, 1pe< oÙk ¥r, 4mellon 4gwge nostˇsaj o!kÒnde f8lhn 1j patr8da ga√an eÙfran2ein ¥locÒn te f8lhn ka< nˇpion u;Òn. When things do not look all that bad for the wounded man, v. 686f. above all, expresses whining despondency; but, on the assumption that Sarpedon’s death is imminent, this turns into the noble melancholy of a real farewell. And, always on this premise, is not the wonderful homecoming of the dead hero most beautifully prepared here? Whatever views one may have on this, this plea is still a doublet of the plea to Glaucus in the Patrocleia, only that there, we were unable to see how Sarpedon might still be capable at all of uttering it. The plea to Glaucus does not presuppose the death which precedes it, the Asius-style death of Sarpedon, but a wounding as we read it in E. Sarpedon’s plea to Hector implies that the warrior who has become unfit for battle is still lying in the forefront of the battle line. But in v. 664 his countrymen had carried him out of the tumult; so are we to understand 1x2feron belatedly as a conative imperfect? For this one could point to Aphrodite’s attempted rescue at v. 318; yet it would remain awkward that 1x2feron returns immediately in 669, but this time does not describe an attempted, but a genuine, rescue. One does

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad not like to reduce the clear parallelism of these passages to a mere echo. So there is something wrong with the removal of the wounded Sarpedon. But the very origin of the duel which causes the wound also has its problems. ‘The poet takes into consideration as little as he does with Tlepolemus the fact that we are in a passage where the Achaeans are retreating’ remarks Ameis-Hentze’s appendix (II 2, p. 73, cf. Von der Mühll, p. 101); we add that Sarpedon’s encounter with Patroclus does not correspond to the situation described immediately before that, either. Here, as there, the duel has not been developed from the context, but was inserted into it and was already there before the context.40 3 [110] The concisely related duel between Sarpedon and Tlepolemus (E 655) is a unique phenomenon insofar as both heroes hurl their spears simultaneously. This will have happened in reality from time to time, and one probably has to perceive it as stylisation that the Iliad insists on battle actions happening one after the other, of which each one can then be followed with undivided attention. The emphasis on simultaneity would be particularly significant if the heroes killed each other mutually; but the Iliad poet does not (or no longer) let things go as far as this. Sarpedon’s throw is a masterly performance in any case, for he hits his opponent precisely in the middle of the narrowest, and at the same time the most endangered, part of his body, the neck.41 More words are expended on Sarpedon’s wounding, but clarity is not thereby achieved. He is hit in the left thigh, a9cm] d5 di2ssuto maimèwsa, so the spear penetrates fully, like the spear with which in O 542 Menelaus pierces his opponent’s back and chest: a9cm] d5 st2rnoio di2ssuto maimèwsa. Consequently Ñst2wi 1gcrimfqe√sa would have to mean ‘closely past the bone’, although when taken by itself it does not contain the notion ‘past’ but receives that meaning from di2ssuto.42 Apparently what is meant is that the wound was not as serious as it could have been – pat]r d, 4ti loigÕn ¥munen. As Leaf also notes, the poet is thinking of the Patrocleia here, for which Sarpedon is going to be saved up. ‘A small realistic feature livens up the tale of how the wounded Sarpedon was carried off. The spear has lodged in his hip’ (in his thigh rather) ‘and drags along over the ground’ (H. Jordan, p. 38). We immediately recall N 597: tÕ d, 1f2lketo me8linon 4gcoj. But the small realistic features go further. In the crush, Sarpedon’s companions do not get round to pulling the spear out of his body again, Ôfr, 1piba8h: if this were to happen, the result would be that he would appear again. If this possibility is reckoned with, it is paradoxical or at least

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Appendices not particularly heroic that, after he has been laid down under Zeus’ oak tree43 and freed of the spear,44 [111] Sarpedon faints. Now, there is a completely different explanation for Hector’s fainting in X. Again, Hector’s rescue by his companions is not only more vivid but also incomparably more expressive than the rescue of Sarpedon, the account of which is interrupted as well. Since the motif of the spear which is being dragged along N 597 appears in connection with one of Hector’s brothers and, as we have seen, is stylistically closely related to his wounding by Ajax, it rather suggested itself to the creator of the wounding and fainting of Sarpedon that he should combine the two rescues in N and X into a new one. To the difficulties of content are added semantic ones of the most disagreeable kind. Originally tÕn d5 l8pe yucˇ (696) is an expression for dying. E. Bickel (Hom. Seelenglaube, p. 52ff.) and J. Böhme (Die Seele und das Ich, p. 99ff.) laboured long and hard with this passage. However, as many another which we have discussed, it does not tolerate a more precise interpretation. Such a carefree use of language as zwgre√n ‘to revive’ (698) makes it doubtful from the outset whether one can learn something about Homeric ideas of the soul from the fact that here, when fainting starts, the word yucˇ is used, but when it ends we have the word qumÒj. We can hardly separate Sarpedon’s eventual death from his fainting P 504f.: 1k croÕj 3lke dÒru, prot< d5 fr2nej aÙtîi 3ponto. to√o d, ¤ma yucˇn te ka< 4gceoj 1x2rus, a9cmˇn. We are dealing with the same enigmatic mode of expression (and the same author?).45 Much, and perhaps even most, of what we read about Sarpedon in E and P belongs without doubt to the last, inclusive layer of the Iliad. But equally without doubt this magma contains quite a few older elements, which are structured like the important Sarpedon passages in M rather than their immediate surroundings. Even if mainly stylistic grounds have led us to this conviction, the analysis of the plot must also point in that direction. We heard just now that Odysseus E 671ff. considers whether he should attack the wounded Sarpedon or his compatriots, and that Athena makes him choose the latter, so that the Lycian prince will stay alive for a little longer. One should compare with this how at P 647ff. Zeus considers whether Hector should kill Patroclus in the battle for Sarpedon’s body, but then decides to let Patroclus live for a little longer and perform further heroic feats: poll> m£l, ¢mf< fÒnwi PatrÒklou mermhr8zwn, À |dh ka< ke√non 1n< kraterÁi Øsm8nhi

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad aÙtoà 1p, ¢ntiq2wi SarphdÒni fa8dimoj *Ektwr calkîi dhièshi ¢pÒ t, êmwn teÚce, 3lhtai, À 4ti ka< pleÒnessin Ñf2lleien pÒnon a9pÚn. [112] In the one case as in the other, the poet shows us the path which he could have taken if he did not have his eye on ‘long-term goals’. Might the shorter path really have been constructed only to serve, for a moment, as a foil for the longer way? Might this not rather be an old and much-used path, to which the Iliad poet points by the very fact that he is departing from it? Both passages fit together like the two halves of a tally: the Iliad itself presupposes a different death of Sarpedon from the one it itself narrates,46 and it presupposes a death of Patroclus during the battle for Sarpedon’s corpse. This alone yields three layers: firstly, the narrative of our Iliad which has been expanded and is rich in problems; secondly, another version which takes place at a time before Troy, into which Sarpedon’s removal [by Death and Sleep] probably fitted more meaningfully than into our Iliad; and thirdly, that old poem about Sarpedon from which ultimately stems the duel with Tlepolemus, which belongs to the Lycian, and, if need be, also to the Rhodian coast.47 In M Hector and Sarpedon have a dispute as to who should have the glory of storming the wall; this rivalry remains unreconciled, and certainly this lack of connection of the two heroes would not have been in the original. But it would already be claiming too much if one said that it was the work of the Iliad poet; one should assume that he took it over, at least as long as he is not convicted through stylistic evidence, as he is in E and P. As we have been able to observe frequently, compared with these two books M is for the most part thematically coherent, but this does not mean that it was necessarily a unified whole.48 We have not really complicated the facts of the matter unnecessarily, but have only graded them as far as absolutely necessary for our purposes. Since only parts of the Sarpedon problems have been picked out, it is definitely possible that our three layer hypothesis is still too simple. At any rate, it allows us to ask a little more precisely than before, e.g. whether Glaucus (whom we have deliberately left out of the discussion) was, as it were, brought along to Troy from his Lycian homeland by Sarpedon, or whether both found each other only there and whether, if this should be the case, the connection is at least as old as Sarpedon’s participation in the fight for Ilium or originated only together with our Iliad. Here Sarpedon certainly belongs to the ‘young’ heroes. But this observation does not say much about him yet. Apart from the older heroes, there are still younger heroes next to him, and Tlepolemus need not be the only one of the same age.

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Appendices IV. N: X: P [113] Each of these three books, even if one just contemplates its battle descriptions, shows several stylistic aspects. But one of these is in such strong evidence everywhere that one gets the impression that there is a close affinity between the three books. This impression intensifies when one compares M and O which are neighbouring but, when one looks at the whole, definitely different. The fantasy of Peisandrus’ end in N repeats itself, for the most part even verbatim, at the death of Cebriones in P. The nightmare atmosphere which is generated in the Alcathous episode, by means which are as unusual as they are effective, casts its spell over us at Patroclus’ catastrophe too; the scorn which Idomeneus directs at Cassandra’s dead suitor in N speaks the same wrathful and brutal language as Patroclus’ words at the death of Cebriones; the agony of Asius in N is not only described in the same verses as that of Sarpedon in P, but also its genuine realism stands out, equally curiously in both cases, from the pseudorealism of the context. Since we have seen that one cannot regard the Patrocleia simply as the mother-city of this mode of representation, which would have sent out its colonies into N and into other areas of the Iliad, one will have to state first of all that here, as there, composition was continued in the same spirit. But the bringing together of Idomeneus and Peneleus in P shows that, during this process, the left hand definitely knew what the right hand was doing: in their feats, the phantasmata of N and X are heightened to that twin peak, whose unmistakable architectonic significance manifests itself in the immediate co-operation of the two heroes in another twin peak into which the achievements of a particular circle of heroes integrate themselves. Thus here a connection has been created across O between N X on the one hand and P one the other, a connection which is not just vaguely perceptible out of our feeling for style but one which is attested as unmistakably as possible. If one wants to get an idea of the composition of P or of its battle scenes, it is advisable to distinguish an ‘original’ Patrocleia from a ‘non-original’ one. We find passages here which do not concern the hero directly, but could just as well be narrated in a different context, and which therefore do not belong [uniquely] to his [114] fate but, for whatever reasons, have been interwoven with it. The original Patrocleia extends, to begin with, roughly to 305. Patroclus has flung himself on to the Trojans (275), hurled his spear into their midst and killed Pyraichmes; the Paeonians, whose leader he was, have taken to their heels in fright, the Trojans have been swept away, the fire on the ship has been extinguished: although the Trojans nevertheless still do not consider the battle as by any means lost, the Greeks can

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad still breathe a sigh of relief. What follows, very soon diverts our attention away from Patroclus and to several heroes with whom we have already frequently dealt – Menelaus, Antilochus, Idomeneus, Peneleus, Locrian Ajax and Meges. Thus, apart from Telamonian Ajax and Teucer, whose main task it is to put up resistance to Hector himself, fundamentally we find here assembled the Greek cast of N X. By also carrying out the first of the nine killings, Patroclus mediates between the original and the non-original Patrocleia. For the group itself he must, in accordance with the requirements of the Iliad, be a newcomer. For a long time verses 303-51 have been felt to be an unpleasant interruption of the context. Bethe (p. 316) talks about insignificant warrior-slayings, Von der Mühll (p. 245f.) is not the first who wants to have 352 following straight after 302. This exclusion is supposed to benefit the steady progress of the action, and we must admit that it really does exclude, rather than just cut out. For 306-51 are not just held together by their stock of characters, but also stand out clearly as a stylistic complex against their context; for those heroes, who played such a great part within the sphere of the adventurous style, here move in the same hothouse atmosphere which characteristically mixes the fantastic and the unclear.49 In the ensuing passage the general flight of the Trojans is described magnificently, but there is no end to the difficulties as far as detail is concerned.50 Thus the sentence 367f.: *Ektora d, ∑ppoi . . . 4kferon s)n teÚcesin makes an assumption which has not been mentioned so far,51 the use of a mere ¢2llh (374) [115] for ‘cloud of dust’ seems have been derived from a passage such as Y 366, and the word ¢nakumbali£zein (379) for ‘overturning, capsizing’, as Leaf notes, can hardly be separated from the ominous kÚmbacoj ‘headlong’ (E 586). These peculiarities remain even if one approves of the deletion of 370f. and 380-3 (the purpose of the deletion is to remove the reference to the ditch and Patroclus’ premature pursuit of Hector). So the gold of an older Patrocleia cannot after all be smelted from verses 364-93. Besides, on a stylistic level, the passage in the shape handed down to us does not seem to go badly with the preceding episode 306-51 and it seems to go even better with the further Patrocleia (from 394 onwards): the easy jump across the ditch by the immortal horses (380f.) constitutes the right contrast to the unholy confusion of the Trojan vehicles, meaningfully concludes the description of the flight and pursuit, and prepares the further miracles of the Patrocleia.52 As much as one may object to 364-93 in detail, it belongs to the most grandiose battle descriptions of the Iliad not only because of the famous flood simile 384ff. but as a whole. The way the Trojans scatter, fall from the chariots in front of the wheels, the way the vehicles

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Appendices overturn and the horses pant, all that is so breathtaking that one understands the desire to regard this whirlwind as an eruption of elemental genius and assign it to the original conception of the Patrocleia. But the episodic character of these events must raise doubts about this; for the poet treats Patroclus’ journey in pursuit as a digression from which he has to call him back again into the vicinity of the ships (394). These doubts are increased through the derived details; and what presumably is decisive is the consideration that it is of course not actually Patroclus who unleashes this storm, just as it is not actually Agamemnon either who in L plunges the Trojans into the most unholy flight. Only the son of Peleus wreaks havoc in such a way: he is the model behind the two heroes. Through the fact that the poet gave Patroclus Achilles’ weapons and so compensated for the disparity between the two, the poet has acknowledged that Patroclus, for all his bravery, is after all not the man to produce effects of that kind. This strategy, which in my opinion is immensely clever, made it possible for the poet once again to go to extremes and here, too, to work with devices which befitted nobody so much as Achilles. In a shorter Iliad, such devices had to remain reserved for him; whereas our extended Iliad offers room for several orgies of this kind. [116] However, the setback which Hector’s enterprise suffers is perfectly motivated on a pragmatic level. The sudden appearance of fresh enemy reserves is indeed apt to cause horror and flight. In v. 283, consequently, as Leaf has emphasised, panic seems to be directly imminent. But after it had been said 303ff. that the Trojans did not turn to flight at all but retreated whilst fighting; after from 306 until 351 a series of Greek individual successes had been related, which still did not presuppose a flight by the Trojans but only brought it about (356f.); after, finally, Hector had been presented to us (358ff.) with an unshakeable determination to protect his people; the proper time for the outbreak of panic had been missed. As was noted a long time ago, it consequently gives the impression, at least as far as Hector is concerned, of being groundless by now, or at least in need of having its explanation renewed (which was given a long time ago). As long as the intervention by the Myrmidons immediately caused the change in fortunes (so that for instance 364 followed 283), the exchange of arms was not absolutely necessary; but if it merely prepared the main success, which was achieved only through the co-operation of several heroes, Patroclus could only be convincing as a protagonist if he surpassed himself by far. The weapons of his great friend provide him with these new opportunities; they alone produce the right proportions between the event as the Iliad describes it now and its originator.53 Once again we remember X. If in the Patrocleia the ‘original’

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad motivation of the great change, the counter-attack by the Myrmidons, is suspended until other heroes like Idomeneus and Peneleus have also had an opportunity to contribute their share, it repeats the excesses of X. When Hector, heavily struck by Ajax, was carried out of the battle, a Trojan retreat and Greek advance seemed the inevitable consequence. This, however, did not happen until other Greek feats of arms had been accomplished as well, and only when Peneleus had triumphantly lifted up that head with the lance still stuck in it was it all up with the Trojans’ steadfastness. The same kind of horrors, the same heroes, the same technique of motivating what has [117] actually been motivated already – this can only have been the same poet who here, as there, expanded and reshaped the older poem. The immense momentum with which the Myrmidons rush into battle (257-83) repeats itself 364-93: an introductory, general description corresponds to a concluding one,54 both framing the individual fights. A further, interior frame is formed through the relation of 284-305 (the Trojans suffer severe losses but still put up a resistance) to 358ff. (the Trojans no longer put up a resistance but Hector covers their retreat). The warrior-slayings of 306-51 constitute the centre of the rosette.55 It is doubtful to what extent artistic intentions have been realised in this symmetry. A possible inclusion of favourite heroes (306ff.) automatically had to create a correspondence between what preceded and what ensued. Nevertheless, it remains to be noted that the distinction of stylistic areas led us here, as well, to the joints of the composition, which fortunately did not have to be ascertained especially by us but had been observed a long time ago. The fact that 283 (p£pthnen d5 3kastoj, Óphi fÚgoi a9p)n Ôleqron) rushes on ahead of development; the fact that the intervention of Patroclus and his Myrmidons does not have its full effect at first, but first requires supplementing through the achievements of several other heroes; the fact that Hector, who was only just protecting his companions, suddenly deserts them and thinks only of his own safety: all these are old impulses from which we did not start out, but by which we found our distinctions confirmed. The former gain in significance through the latter: someone who thinks nothing further of the fact that the poet drops and picks up again the threads of his narrative as he pleases, will presumably have to be a little surprised about the stylistic change that goes with it. The remainder of our book constitutes an unambiguous example of planned symmetry. For if we look at the first and last feat of Patroclus to be related in full, we realise immediately: they are meant and made to be cornerstones. We shall begin with the most obvious. After Patroclus has killed Pronous, Thestor and Euryalus (399-414) he kills a further number of men whose names are simply strung together,

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Appendices nine altogether (in L 301ff. Hector kills nine as well). Immediately after this, Sarpedon appears (419): his fate occupies us up to 683. But when it has only just been fulfilled, Patroclus once again kills nine men, and the [118] poet expressly draws our attention to the fact that, with that, we have entered the finale of the Patrocleia (692f.): 4nqa t8na prîton, t8n, Ûstaton 1xen£rixaj, PatrÒkleij, Óte dˇ se qeo< q£natÒnde k£lessan; Then Cebriones’ death is related, which has Patroclus’ death as its consequence. But to conclude his career, Patroclus first kills another three times nine men whose names the poet does not mention. None of the other heroes reaches such fantastically high figures in such a short time. We therefore prepare for Patroclus’ final deeds to be fantastic in other respects as well. But this is typically the case only with those which are directly connected with the ninefold victories, i.e. with the killing of Thestor and Euryalus on the one hand, and Cebriones on the other. Sarpedon’s wounding, which stands between, in spite of its importance, appears moderate in comparison. The recurrence of the number nine merely underlines a relation which cannot be mistaken in other passages either. The fact that here, as there, a charioteer is pushed out, is in itself no more striking than that Meriones kills two sons of two participants in the war one after the other (N 560ff. and 643ff.). But the fates of Cebriones and Thestor become particularly comparable through this, and the poet invites us to make that comparison. For on one occasion, Patroclus pulls his victim, whom he has stabbed into his jaw-bone, Øp5r ¥ntugoj, i.e. out of the ‘driving seat’, as a fisherman does the fish out of its element.56 The simile which depicts in detail Cebriones’ plunging from his chariot stems from the same sphere. The simple [ d, ¥r, ¢rneutÁri 1oikëj k£ppese, which was created for the fall of Sarpedon’s companion from the bastion (M 385),57 is set out in more detail by Patroclus himself, when he calls after the dying man that such an oyster diver could feed many mouths. It is characteristic of the epic level of this ‘obituary notice’ that Patroclus, as we already observed with Nestor, works with Homeric turns of phrase.58 The grotesquely cruel end of Cebriones definitively transports us into the world of the miraculous: a god has to intervene to put an end to the raging of the superman. [119] Between 351 and 394 (apart from the similes 352ff. and 384ff.) the passage 358-63 occupies a special place. The fact that it does not show any fantastic traits could be a coincidence, since it is so short. However, it has not only been coined unmistakably but also shows us for a moment the old rivals Ajax and Hector, of all people.

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Wounding and Death in the Iliad Whereas a link with what preceded has been produced,59 there is a gaping hole between 363 and 364: Hector, who was just now being celebrated as the protector of his men, in 367 is suddenly ahead of all others in flight.60 This gives us sufficient reason to conclude that we are dealing with a pure piece of older, included poetry here: A∏aj d, [ m2gaj a95n 1f, *Ektori calkokorustÁi ∑et, ¢kont8ssai, [ d5 9dre8hi pol2moio ¢sp8di taure8hi kekalumm2noj eÙr2aj êmouj sk2ptet, Ñistîn te "o√zon ka< doàpon ¢kÒntwn. Ã m5n d] g8gnwske m£chj 0teralk2a n8khn, ¢ll> ka< ïj ¢n2mimne, s£w d, 1r8hraj 0ta8rouj. The noble, moderate monumentality of these verses seems to belong to Hector and Ajax in the same way as excess does to Achilles (but not to him alone). But the question about the specific stylistic sphere by which the individual heroes or groups of heroes are surrounded leads beyond the area to which we wanted to restrict ourselves here.61

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Notes Introduction 1. For the time being we can forget Wolf ’s distinguishing of different styles. But it should be noted that his judgement about the later books of the Iliad is reasonably compatible with E. Howald’s words (Der Dichter der Ilias, Erlenbach-Zürich 1949, p. 92) on the death of Patroclus: ‘It is that style saturated with sentiment which we have observed in the whole of the last third of the Iliad’ (cf. ibid., pp. 19ff.). 2. Unfortunately, this outstanding authority contented himself with a ‘sed haec indicasse sat est’ [‘It is enough to have mentioned this’] and a reference to the different treatment of verse in N and Y (which would still be worth following up even now). 3. ‘They deceive us with their uniform appearance …. For in general all the books have the same sound, the same quality of thought, language and metre.’ Wolf himself had the second in universum printed in italics but, in doing so, could not prevent occasional misuse of his well considered words. 4. ‘Ruhnken indeed offered the best verdict on the matter when he said that it could be felt by experts, but its nature was impossible to explain to the inexpert.’ 5. For instance L. Erhardt (Die Entstehung d. hom. Gedichte, Leipzig 1894), p. 303: ‘Nevertheless, this description too is nothing less than a unified whole’, with Howald, loc. cit., p. 66 (the Patrocleia) ‘is a self-contained whole, not disparaged by any disruption, a completely unified whole’; further E. Bethe (Homer I, Leipzig 1914), p. 318: ‘The death of Patroclus as our Iliad renders it is foolish and inartistic at the same time – one cannot judge any differently. Here the demon of nationalism has really bitten off all the Muses and Graces’, with W.F. Otto (Die Götter Griechenlands, 3rd ed., Frankfurt 1947), p. 196 and P. von der Mühll (Krit. Hypomnema zur Ilias, Basle 1952), p. 251, who in the same episode see a sublime example of ancient Greek religiousness – and yet von der Mühll does not feel more devoted to any Homeric scholar than to Bethe. The examples are already sufficient to make us wonder with B. Marzullo (Il problemo Omerico, Florence 1952), p. 477 how in this case one might escape the satisfied laughter of the unitarians. 6. On the other hand Wolf ’s expression ‘poetical’ is not quite as unambiguous as Volkmann, loc. cit., takes it. For, as the opposite of ‘natural’ illustrates, Wolf probably was considering the cost in terms of poetic devices as well. 7. Hom. I 295: ‘If there are stylistic differences in the Iliad then there exists one between O 240ff. and … X 153-353. Here everything is fresh and

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Notes to pages 3-4 original, there the usual and the use of pre-formed material.’ All susceptibility to the freshness of the Olympian intermezzo granted, we are still allowed to ask about the originality of a poem which unambiguously quotes its model, i.e. Heracles epic. In this case independent and dependent poetry certainly cannot be set against each other here, and relative originality can be measured only in comparison with relative unoriginality. But part of this means dealing with sections which have a little more in common with each other. 8. Marzullo’s spirited protest against this (op. cit., p. 477) recalls Volkmann’s deep sigh mentioned above. 9. So the subject is a different one for us than for W. Arend (Die typischen Szenen bei Homer, Berlin 1933); but Arend already (p. VII) asked for an investigation of the Homeric battle scenes to complement his own. 10. Strangely enough, we shall rarely have the opportunity to quote the thesis by Hedwig Jordan (Der Erzählungsstil in den Kampfszenen der Ilias, Warmbrunn 1904) which was commendable for its time, and has since been quoted many times. The author does not order her material by unifying issues in terms of content or form, but discusses the relevant books one after the other so that only a few lines are allotted to the first duel between Ajax and Hector on p. 50f. and to Othryoneus and Alcathous on p. 86, whereas we shall have to devote considerable effort to dealing with these episodes. 11. Besides, she does not agree (p. 102) with Hedwig Jordan about what is appropriate ‘in a turbulent battle description’ and what is not. 12. ‘When one reads the Iliad, one feels at each moment that Homer had fought in battle.’ I owe this quotation to Frz. Albracht (Kampf und Kampfschilderung bei H., Progr. Schulporta 1886) I, p. 4. Sainte Beuve refers to a letter by P.L. Courier to Villoison of 8 March 1805: ‘Homère fit la guerre, gardez-vous en douter …. Il fut aide-de-camp, je crois, d’Agamemnon, ou bien son secrétaire’ [‘Homer fought in battle, never doubt it …. He was, I believe, Agamemnon’s aide-de-camp or else his secretary’]. 13. It is impossible to recognise Homer’s ‘loving care’ (Albracht II, p. 2) everywhere. But Albracht was right to point out that Virgil generally keeps far greater distance from ‘bloody business’, and thus to guarantee at least a relative kind of realism in Homer. 14. In Virgils epische Technik (1st ed. 1902) he compared the creative imitations by the Aeneid of its Homeric models, e. g. the funeral games for Anchises and for Patroclus; in Ovids elegische Erzählung (1919) he compared how the same poet shaped the same material but in the different artistic contexts of epic and elegy. 15. Elard Hugo Meyer (Homer u. d. Ilias, Berlin 1887), p. 200f.: ‘Instead of a gallery of great paintings (as in A) we have before us a series of photographs taken in a moment (in D) … It is fully justifiable for this style to stand next to the other, like the genre picture next to the fresco painting …, like the short lapping of the waves of an inland sea next to the long rollers of the high seas.’ Meyer’s reconstruction of the original Iliad (which amounts to a new poem) does not need further discussion today, but in his assessments of individual passages of the Iliad, he independently follows up Wolf ’s hint (which referred to the ‘stormy’ and the ‘calm’ style), and with the distinction between ‘heroic’ and ‘sentimental’ pathos (p. 79ff.) he attempts, following in

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Notes to pages 5-9 Schiller’s footsteps, to do justice to phenomena to which M. Riemschneider and E. Howald have only recently returned. 16. I have probably declared a fair number of things impossible which are only just about possible and vice versa. If the poet ventured as far forward as this boundary, he did not always have to cross it in order to be regarded as bold. I. Phantasmata 1. For the completion cf. now P. Chantraine’s Grammaire Homérique I (Paris 1948), p. 120. 2. It will be legitimate to translate ¢le8j like this although this does not quite work in F 571 and C 308. 3. Here, against the rule, it is not stated where the spear hits. Perhaps in 394 dour< tucˇsaj or tucˇsaj on its own has replaced this detail. 4. But the relationship between Antilochus and Patroclus shows itself anyway as a development from Antilochus to Patroclus, according to H. Pestalozzi’s hypothesis (Die Achilleis als Quelle der Ilias, Zürich 1945) which was taken up by W. Schadewaldt, E. Howald and others. Bethe (I, p. 286) and Von der Mühll (216) admittedly suspect that in N Antilochus replaces another companion of Idomeneus (for instance Meriones). But this is only one of several possible ways of explaining the connection between these two heroes, which is indeed striking. Antilochus could just as well be the ‘rudiment’ of the original connection. Since the charioteer does not defend himself, the situation does not even demand two Greek heroes here, but rather seems to be calculated to produce a double success, like the one first achieved by Diomedes (E 9ff.), then by Aeneas (E 541ff.), Hector (E 608ff.) and Agamemnon in L in a veritable series. But in that case our original section would already be a variation, and the original theme, which it could have varied through the introduction of complete bewilderment, would have looked, for instance, like U 486. The sections in P and E would then already be second degree variations. 5. 0staÒta is as concise as it is unclear. In v. 571 it had been said: A9ne8aj d, oÙ me√ne. If this were to refer to that, one could interpret 0staÒta in the sense that Pylaimenes, in contrast to Ajax, stands still and waits for the enemies’ attack. But since in 575 a longer sequence ended and a new section began in 576, the contrast does not come out as clearly as for instance in B 170, where Athena meets Odysseus ‘standing’, whereas all the others have started moving in panic. So the word could refer to something else, perhaps to Pylaimenes not moving from his spot because he cannot move in horror. Then the consternation motif would at least be there as a vague echo. In order to exhaust all the possibilities, we shall finally envisage an original 0staot, e9n ∑ppoisi ka< ¤rmasi kollhto√si or something similar (cf. D 366, L 198) which, for instance, was superseded together with a reference to the immediate effect of the wounding and only left the participle behind. It characterises the style of such sections that one can and must raise considerations of this kind, which are tiresome for the reader. To want to push

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Notes to pages 10-13 through one single possibility would mean to underestimate the ambiguity or haziness of the accounts. 6. Aptly M. Riemschneider, op. cit., p. 104: ‘Not even the most diabolical coincidence would result in all this.’ On the other hand Körner (Die ärztlichen Kenntnisse in Ilias und Odyssee, München 1929), p. 40 thinks that he recognises here a description of the rare cataleptic rigor mortis, ‘the first and over two millennia the only case of this kind in literature’. On p. 41 he declares it as ‘inconceivable that the poet would have made Mydon stiffen at the moment of death without knowledge of cataleptic rigor mortis, but’, Körner continues, ‘the description of this isolated case is the work of his imagination and incomplete, in that the permanent position of the stiff corpse on the back of its head and on its shoulders would not have been possible in the deep sand if the corpse had not been propped up by leaning against the chariot. Admittedly, there is nothing about this in the text, but the headlong fall … makes the propping up so self-evident that the poet did not need to mention it.’ As much as you can understand Körner’s pleasure at uncovering a medical rarity, his attempt to verify a plausible set of facts here plunges him into the greatest difficulties. For one single, and incidentally by no means ‘self-evident’, additional assumption is not sufficient; there are still quite a few elements left here which cannot be rationalised. So we are more consistent if we look not for some rational explanation in physico-physiological terms, but rather for a daring game with the imagination. 7. It is probably going too far to call it ‘strangely humorous’, following Wiessner (Bauformen der Ilias, Leipzig 1940), p. 30, and his reference to Cervantes is bold. 8. Once again (as for P 406ff. and 742f.) we have to go back to M (160f.): kÒruqej d, ¢mf, aâon ¢äteun ballom2nwn mul£kessi ka< ¢sp8dej ÑmfalÒessai. The dry, hoarse grate of the metal seems to me to be characteristic of stones thudding onto something rather than spears piercing it, and also characteristic of a mass rather than an individual fight. But the change of circumstances changes the scream as well: the armour, as it were, instead of its wearer, screams out loudly as if with pain, and is thus strangely brought to life. Perhaps one may compare the bringing to life of the reins in P 404. 9. According to W 343 and other passages q2lxaj Ôsse faein£ refers to a weakening or dazzling of vision rather than a spellbound staring at the danger. 10. The fact that we are allowed to choose between a grave stele and a tree has a slightly more chilling effect on me than the choice, so often offered by similes, between different animals or different plants (several trees had only just been mentioned in N 389). The individual grave stele is not only a rare subject of comparison but is also more ominous, and in the context more expressive than the tree. 11. So does the path lead from A to CD via B? This would be possible, but with the proximity of A and C it is not probable right from the outset, and the reference to the useless armour, the express observation that Alcathous (just as Asius’ charioteer) was incapable of fleeing, argues against it. The assumption of a dependence (of C on B or vice versa) cannot be founded on the

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Notes to pages 13-16 common spear motif, for it is not exactly rare in the Iliad and can have been prompted by third passages here as well as there. So C should be assumed to be just as ‘A-immediate’ as B. 12. Instead of 4bale, oÜtase (oâta), nÚxe, ¢kÒntise it occurs in the Iliad only one more time, borrowed from our section. It is Antilochus’ father, of all people, who uses it in one of his tales (H 145): Lycurgus stabs Areithous to death, but even if it happens insidiously, ‘needling through’ is not the right expression for this. We must not forget that Nestor had already read his Homer (as, according to Wilamowitz, Seneca’s Medea had read the Euripidean one) and therefore for instance can say about himself (L 747): aÙt>r 1gën 1pÒrousa kelainÁi la8lapi !soj. 13. The Italian doctor M. Tobino precisely described such an occurrence (in which a metal knitting needle stands in for the arrow) in his novel Die Frauen von Magliano (Hamburg 1953), p. 22f. Körner thinks that, instead of an arrow, Homer is talking about a spear, since of course he is talking about the gigantic heroes of prehistoric times, and in doing so overlooks the fact that the weapons naturally grow with the bodies, and that a giant’s heart relates to a giant’s spear, as the human heart relates to the human spear. 14. If m£l, ÑxÚ, as Ameis-Hentze want, were to be taken predicatively with kradainÒmenon and meant ‘with the whole sharpness’, then we would have an interesting figurative use of ÑxÚ. But we should probably rather note an interesting verbal metathesis, and connect m£la with kradainÒmenon, ÑxÚ (attributively) with 4gcoj. 15. Leaf describes verses N 442ff. as a piece of exaggeration that looks more like the work of an interpolator than of a genuine poet. As understandable as such a judgement may be, the verses which Leaf wants to delete still cannot stylistically be separated from the preceding section; besides, their affinity with X is so important that only someone who created more methodically than an interpolator usually does can be their author. For a methodically creative interpolator would not be an interpolator any more but a reviser; but for us there is no genuine epic poet who would not at the same time have been a reviser. 16. People have wanted to conclude from this section that qèrhx here did not mean the breastplate but more generally the armour, which we could then understand to be any piece we wanted it to be, e.g. the shield. Leaf (in Appendix B of his first volume, p. 578) very correctly rejects this; yet the helplessness which the passage generates in its interpreters is once again characteristic of its style. 17. As with Nestor, one could also maintain of Idomeneus that he already knew his Homer by heart. 18. Deiphobus (N 413) is described in the same way as Polydamas (!) and Acamas (X 453 and 478): 4kpaglon 1peÚxato makrÕn ¢Úsaj. The Greeks’ reply is indicated by a mere gegwne√n or eÜcesqai in X, whereas Idomeneus’ answer is introduced in the same way as the Trojans’ rejoicing. Since in any case it is clear that you get as much as you give, the poet could also in the case of Idomeneus have reinforced his unmistakable partiality and, for instance, have written: ,Idomene)j d5 g2gwne ka< eÙcÒmenoj 4poj hÜda. 19. In N 460 we learn that Aeneas is filled with wrath against Priam.

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Notes to pages 17-19 Although initially this is supposed to explain his absence from battle, as the Othryoneus-Alcathous contrast shows, it is still not an invention of the moment. There is probably a dynastic tendency behind the fact that Aeneas is constantly dissociated from the Priamids who are responsible for the bloody war. 20. op. cit., p. 35: ‘For Homer made an error here and was faced with a severe contusion of the hip, which in its most conspicuous manifestations sometimes simulates a fracture’, and p. 36: ‘Homer was nothing more and nothing less than a mistaken ontological doctor.’ 21. The replacement of Apollo by Leto and Artemis can well be understood as a variation on Hector’s cure, whereas Apollo cannot be understood the other way round as the substitute of the goddesses. 22. It is known that this motif enjoyed an astonishing success in Stesichorus, Euripides, Virgil and others. Nevertheless, Leaf would like to ascribe E 459ff. ‘to some rhapsode’, cf. also Ameis-Hentze’s appendix, p. 70f.: ‘The transfer of Aeneas to Pergamus and his cure there through Leto and Artemis … contains so much that displeases that, with Düntzer and Bischoff, we are inclined to reject the whole section concerning Apollo, 432-60 and 512-18.’ 23. M. Riemschneider’s explanation (loc. cit. p. 103): ‘Pandarus must have kept his head very low’ does not suffice here. Küchenmeister concludes quite logically from his premise (p. 52): ‘Here anyhow Homer made an error in the description.’ Ameis-Hentze (Appendix, p. 94) take quite an easy way out in referring to the steering of the missile by Athene and furthermore to the B-scholium: = ’Aqhn© me8zwn oâsa ka< Øyhlot2ra ¥nwqen katenecqÁnai 1po8hse tÕ dÒru: this idea would indeed not be any less grotesque than the path of the missile is anyway. Besides, ∏qunen implies that the goddess steers the spear to a specific place (cf. D 132 and P 632), not that she bends its tip through Pandarus’ head in addition. Actually a mere tucèn (tucˇsaj) would suffice for Diomedes and the throw of his spear, whereas in D and R the divine 9qÚnein is completely indispensable for the context. Just as the poet took the opportunity to involve Poseidon, the leading deity of N in the Alcathous episode, so here Athena, who is so important in E, is enlisted once again. 24. Perhaps we should write 1x2luqe(n), see Von der Mühll, loc. cit. 25. I am allowed to generalise here because Körner (loc. cit., p. 88) already concluded from the extravagance of the injuries that E had a special position and a special origin. In fact such things are not found in all the fighting books, even though E is by no means the only book in which they occur. 26. If this correspondence means that the poet of X took this section from D as his model (the reverse relationship is out of the question), it probably also means that he found it as a still clearly independent composition (the expansion of which we want to discuss later). 27. With kÒmisen d, … ,Arc2locoj (the spear), the almost casual expression of Polydamas (456) is taken up again. Whether this is meant to be a punchline remains uncertain. 28. Once again there seems to me to be a connection in the contrast with D, especially since a Greek is immediately wounded while dragging off the

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Notes to pages 21-26 corpse, as is narrated in D 467ff. of the Trojan Elephenor, admittedly much more vividly. 29. The blow with the fist with which Polydeuces shatters Amycus’ jaw in Theocritus has similar consequences (126): pukno< d, ¢r£bhsan ÑdÒntej. 30. In between, the poet inserted a deed of Meriones, which is shaped completely differently – either because Meriones seemed inseparable from Idomeneus but was not supposed to overshadow him here, or to give the reader a breathing space. We know the verses from Book 5 where they belong to nobody else but Idomeneus (E 46/7 = P 343/4): nÚx, ∑ppwn 1pibhsÒmenon kat> dexiÕn (mon. |ripe d, 1x Ñc2wn, stugerÕj d, ¥ra min skÒtoj eƒlen. But 1pibhsÒmenon fits so badly into the context of the passage in P (for here the Trojans do not flee at all as they do in E) that people have wanted to write ¢pobhsÒmenon (cf. Ameis-Hentze in the critical appendix ad loc.) but this fails because of 342: kice dexiÒn. aÙtar ÑistÕj ¢ntikr) kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on 1xep2rhsen, furthermore R 49 = C 327: ¢ntikr) d, ¡palo√o di, aÙc2noj |luq, ¢kwkˇ. E combines these types with each other: the results are a slight pleonasm and a more noticeable separation of the article from its antecedent (¢kwkˇ). Whether the effects would not be better caused by the thinner arrow rather than by the thicker spear should be left open. But in antiquity people perceived E 67 as extreme in any case, cf. Schol. A on this: b8a d5 dhloàtai tÁj plhgÁj: Ñst2oij g>r sk2petai = kÚstij, § parÁlqe tÕ dÒru. 47. Cf. above, note 40. 48. The phrase Ôreoj korufÁisi is similarly hackneyed on occasions: lion cubs are not reared on mountain summits (E 554) nor do lions fight with each other there (P 757) or with boars (P 824). So in such places the expression does not mean any more than simple oÜresi in the ‘mountains’. 49. But with this neither the problem nor the geneaology of the simile are adequately described. The convulsions of a man who has been speared could remind one only very approximately of a trussed bull which struggles against being dragged away. The abduction of captives which plays such a small role in the Iliad but from time to time emerges as the result of an event occurring in the poem’s past was more appropriate for such an image, as the Lycaon episode shows (F 36: Ãge labën 1k patrÕj oÙk 1q2lonta). To be taken with these are the verses L 105f.: -Idhj 1n knhmo√si d8dh mÒscoisi lugo√si, / poima8nont, 1p, Ôessi labèn which are to be derived from the latter’s original form because they show where the mention of the mountain range in the bull simile can have come from. I am aware that it is regarded as antiquated to demand a solid tertium comparationis. However, at least it might be admitted that the majority of the Homeric similes stands up to an examination of this kind whereas a minority does not: this difference is precisely what matters here. 50. Horace, who treats Meriones’ name as one of the most famous, is able to show with what success. 51. People have unanimously described I 80ff. as a preparation for K. If in

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Notes to pages 44-50 spite of Schadewaldt (p. 143 note) this proves its worth, it shows particularly clearly in which stratum of the poem Meriones’ career takes place. 52. Since Adamas is the son of Asius, his shooting constitutes a side show to the main feat of Idomeneus. On the other hand, this father-son relationship points forward to Pylaimenes and Harpalion, strengthening still further the ring composition which cannot be overlooked anyway. 53. Another fact which goes with this is that the episode P 603-32 can be taken out smoothly and without leaving a gap. 54. In addition to these there is E 214ff. where Pandarus swears that if he does not burn his bow, he will have his head cut off. 55. The bias which lies in the emphasis on the enemy’s sumptuousness can be studied most conveniently by means of Roman battle reports. Thus Livy, in contrast to his model (Quadrigarius), has his Gaul, who is supposed to be overcome by the simple Manlius, appear in a colourful garment and golden arms (7, 9, 7). In the Naevius parody of Plautus’ Amphitruo, the enemy are called (218) nimis pulchris armis praediti, and also the opponent of the Miles Gloriosus has golden weapons ascribed to him (16). Even Grillparzer has his King Ottokar, who is doomed, say: ‘Make the armour full of gold and purple’, and then has him walk up to Rudolf of Habsburg, who is clothed in simple leather, in gleaming armour and richly embroidered mantle. 56. R 49 is also superbly calculated: ¢ntikr) d, ¡palo√o di, aÙc2noj |luq, ¢kwkˇ (of Euphorbus) This is as expressive as the passage in S and stronger than N 202 which uses the same words as S but devalues them somewhat. Of course this may originally have looked different. For it can hardly be said to be the original if it contains a passage in which Hector, who has the head which has been cut off thrown in front of his feet, does not redouble his efforts but remains invisible for a long time. One can imagine this for instance after R 576ff. (esp. after 591f.) where Hector in his wrath at the death of a close friend puts the Greeks to flight. 57. Cf. on this Schadewaldt p. 49. See above, note 26. 58. Von der Mühll, p. 72 commendably reminds us that Aristotle (in Porphyrius 60, 2ff. Schr.) already perceived in these verses the sole justification of all the impending disaster. 59. Of course 1p, ’Ifid£manti must mean that Coon’s corpse lies on top of that of his brother. Nevertheless, the expression, as its grammatical harshness also betrays, has been shaped after passages like D 470 æj tÕn m5n l8pe qumÒj, 1p, aÙtîi d, 4rgon 1tÚcqh ¢rgal2on, R 400 to√on Ze)j 1p< PatrÒklwi … 1t£nusse … pÒnon (cf. also P 649, R 236 and others). The content of this 1p8 is imaginary in this passage, for we are no longer dealing here with Iphidamas’ corpse; but if the preposition was supposed to remind us that only recently we were dealing with the corpse’s retrieval, the construction would be all the harsher and more derived. 60. It is obvious that the Agastrophus episode 338ff. here was split in favour of the Hector-Diomedes encounter which had been due since E (cf. there 590ff.). Von der Mühll, 196, 30 against Schadewaldt, 64, 2 now claims that L 443ff. is the model of E 652ff. admittedly without argument. But one only needs to understand clearly what importance and emphasis 1nq£de E 652

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Notes to pages 50-59 has to show for itself when compared with L 443 to say that Schadewaldt is right and to reject the idea that everything which has something to do with Sarpedon really belongs to the very youngest stratum of the Iliad. See also below, p. 88ff. 61. Nevertheless Von der Mühll (p. 193) regards the verses 211ff. here in L as more original than elsewhere (E 494ff., Z 103ff.). III. Strict Style 1. I ask readers to complement the following, intentionally one-sided paraphrase with the analysis by W. Marg, Antike 18 (1942), p. 168ff. 2. We have already mentioned that this pattern of five returns in N and X. 3. Whether it points back to the tower simile 462 which is only depicted in outline seems doubtful to me in spite of Von der Mühll, p. 88. 4. The last three verses recur as O 549ff. but there Melanippus is not made Priam’s son in law and consequently na√e d5 p>r Pri£mwi etc. hangs in the air. It is not only because the simile is missing there that we prefer to begin from N 170ff. 5. Here, too, I request readers to accept the one-sidedness of the paraphrase and to consult H. Fränkel’s well-known study of Homeric similes, esp. pp. 36 and 65. 6. See also below, note 19. 7. Perhaps the relative brevity of the description of the fate of the ash-tree in N is accounted for by this reference back to D. However, it could also be that the image received its first mention in this passage. 8. The antithesis 193: [ d5 c£ssat, Ñp8ssw nekrîn ¢mfot2rwn, to)j 1xe8russan ,Acaio8 would be a legitimate end of the passage which could only at most be underlined with an addition such as: -Imbrion ,Amf8macon te, lÚonto d5 teÚce, ¢p, êmwn. I have reproduced this verse from P 316ff.: cèrhsan d, ØpÒ te prÒmacoi ka< fa8dimoj *Ektwr. ’Arge√oi d5 m2ga ∏acon, 1rÚsanto d5 nekroÚj, FÒrkun q, +IppÒqoon te, lÚonto d5 teÚce, ¢p, êmwn. Now when in P Apollo intervenes and brings the Trojans to a standstill (343: o; d, 1lel8cqhsan ka< 1nant8oi 4stan ,Acaiîn), this sequence of events seems quite familiar to us, in fact from D 505ff. Now we do not need to go into the relationship of the last two passages to each other, but we can learn from them that in N after to)j d, 1xe8russan ,Acaio8 we do not find the only possible continuation. For here one may expect, if not exactly an intervention by Apollo, then still some counter-measures by Hector. For just as unexpectedly as he appears in D, he is banished to inactivity in N. So if stylistic reasons were to argue that here, as there, the original context was interrupted, we would be able not only to supplement those reasons with the usual analytical explanations but also to take from our Iliad models according to which we would be allowed to sketch the former continuations. 9. One can also understand the atrocities which Achilles performs as a reflection of his soul which has been made savage by his thirst for revenge only as long as one isolates them. If they once had this meaning with and for

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Notes to pages 60-65 Achilles, it has now evaporated with the spreading of the type, see above p. [60f.]. 10. On the anticipatory qumÕn ¢popne8wn and the stretching out of the arms to look for help cf. the section about the death of Lycaon, p. 85. 11. Cf. Marg, loc. cit., p. 170. 12. It may be regarded as a sign of soberness to pay attention to such things which are not important for the course of the battle, but are graphic. The impression is different where the inability to capture the weapons is significant, and indicates the difficulties of the victor concerned. So already in E 621 Ajax is no longer able to pull the weapons from his opponent’s shoulders, 1pe8geto g>r bel2essi. Teucer’s victory N 182 does not enable him to do this either. But if our Thoas episode, as I think, belongs together with his deeds in O, we must presuppose utmost difficulty here too. Therefore we must agree that the failure to capture the weapons has the same meaning which it has in the Ajax and Teucer passage. But with this it would lose its peripheral character, its mention would no longer be comparatively dry and we would have one stylistic element less here (which we can fortunately do without). 13. Thus Von der Mühll, p. 89, after others (Düntzer, Knight, Bethe). 14. In 531 the localisation of the wound with gast2ra tÚye m2shn seems to correspond to a stab with a spear rather than a blow with a sword. On the use of m2soj see above p. 37ff. 15. So, in order to expect Diomedes, we do not need to remember the epipolesis which can be understood as a later index to the battles of D and E which includes the whole great Diomedeia. 16. The brothers are introduced to us as the sons of a priest of Hephaestus. The interest in Trojan matters is apparently the same as in the statements about Simoeisius and Imbrius. The god saves one of the brothers, so he appears at the beginning and at the end of the episode but without appearing as a person. The rescue is narrated completely differently from that of Aeneas by Aphrodite or by Apollo, so it foreshadows the later Diomedeia at most thematically but not at all poetically. 17. Now Trîej d5 meg£qumoi, 1pe< ∏don uƒe D£rhtoj tÕn m5n ¢leuÒmenon, tÕn d5 kt£menon par, Ôcesfi, p©sin Ñr8nqh qumÒj (29) is separated from 37: Trîaj d’ 4klinan Danao8. As a consequence of the change of subject the connecting piece cannot be taken out smoothly (cf. Von der Mühll, p. 91). What the passage may have looked like originally is shown in P 278ff.: Trîej d’ æj e∏donto … p©sin Ñr8nqh qumÒj, 1k8nhqen d5 f£laggej (cf. also S 222ff.). 18. The phrase 1n dÒru pÁxe allows both. It is known that the turning of a chariot does not happen so fast that Agamemnon would not have had time to come closer, gain a foothold and hurl his spear. With such considerations we merely want to demonstrate that the description can be completely accounted for. 19. The fact that Menelaus’ victim is called Scamandrius and that of Ajax Simoeisius means quite something under these circumstances. But the con-

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Notes to pages 66-73 nection which has been created poetically between these two Trojans and further between them and the sons of Hephaestus as well as Imbrius and Lycaon seems more important. All those mentioned become immensely vivid through the poet’s statements and this distinguishes them from the victims of heroes such as Meriones, Meges, Eurypylus. It is true that the details about these three Trojans follow the news about Scamandrius (what in the first group of three was the concluding exception has become the rule in the second), but they concern the parents of the warriors more than the latter themselves. In particular 59ff. are of a new type: they bring into play an important piece of the history before the war and at the same time as this (the) so-called poetic justice: as the sons of Antimachus L 122ff. have to pay for their father being a follower of Paris, so Phereclus here pays for his father Harmonides making possible the fateful voyage of abduction for Paris by building the ships for him. The dissimilarity and the interlocking of the two groups of three also shows itself in the treatment of the news about the vanquished Trojans. 20. A classic example of this is Wilamowitz’s displeasure about the fact that scholars had wanted to conclude from the word prîtoj L 119 that Agamemnon’s aristeia had originally not begun any earlier than here. Wilamowitz’s comment that Agamemnon had not been attacked before is not only incorrect but also a typical unitarian argument which Wilamowitz, if it had been inconvenient for him, would probably have described as an excuse (see Ilias u. Hom. p. 188; still important, Leaf ad loc.). 21. Antike 14 (1936) = Opusc. II 752; against this Marzullo, op. cit., p. 47 n. 11. 22. The alternative of strata analysis and element analysis which E. Bickel (Homer, die Lösung d. Homer. Frage, Bonn 1949, p. 67) takes over from H. Poeschel probably goes back above all to Wilamowitz’s Ilias u. Hom. (W. in his preface compared his method with an excavation). Whereas the concept of stratification implies the detachability of whole large layers and thus in my opinion separates too strongly, the concept of a dough mixes everything individual until it is indissoluble. The church comparison which has been used for a long time, e.g. by H.E. Meyer, op. cit., p. 150 keeps to a plausible middle. 23. Quoted not from a professional classical philologist, let alone a professional critic of Homer, but E. Staiger (Grundbegriffe der Poetik, 2nd ed., Zurich 1951, p. 119). Appendices 1. The swift Locrian Ajax represents a further Greek contrast to the heavy Telamonian. That both complement each other like hoplite and horseman, that the job of the one is to break resistance and the other to pursue the enemy, and that therefore both together form a tactical unit, is presupposed in Book X of the Iliad, but now somewhat obscured by the phantasmata discussed just now. 2. ‘Two individual duels flank them’ (Books G-H), ‘obviously composed as counterparts’ (Bethe I 215). Jachmann (Symbola Colonensia, Cologne 1949,

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Notes to pages 73-75 pp. 52 and 54) denounces the expression ‘flank’ as a ‘dissembling’, ‘highsounding, in reality a hollow artificial word’ which ‘feigned significant profundity’ etc. Jachmann denies (passim) that the author of our Iliad whom he hated so much could have pursued any ‘long-term goals’ but he avoids a discussion of Schadewaldt’s Ilias-Studien and refers only to the latter’s more popularising writings. 3. The interpretation of Books G-H as a unit stems from the school of F.A. Wolf, in fact from Wilh. Müller. After Bethe J.H. Mette (Der Schuß des Pandarus, Halle 1951, p. 14) has now renewed his (Müller’s) thesis and modified it so that it can definitely be reconciled with the interpretation suggested above. 4. If the speeches were not, together with their exposition (from around 795 onwards), split off by the seduction of Zeus from the duel of X which does not now contain any speeches. Their clearly modest quality (compared with the exposition, the duel and above all the noble pair of speeches in O) speaks against this and so one rather thinks of an addition composed ad hoc. Von der Mühll comes to the same conclusion when on p. 218 he restricts Wilamowitz’ (p. 229f.) allocation to the Hector section to verses 795-(c.)808. 5. A consequence of this is that Hector, only just warned by Apollo, immediately forgets the warning and, before we have even thought about it, is back on the scene. This might once have been meant in such a way that in his noble wrath he spurned the advice of the god and thus caused his own destruction. Admittedly, bitterness in the Iliad often leads to someone challenging a stronger man and with that his certain death (thus the Antenorid Coon attempts to avenge his brother on Agamemnon, L 248ff.), but in the Polydorus episode one will be allowed to perceive the model of the death of Priam, as Virgil tells it in his Iliupersis. 6. Even the most illustrious example of this failure to reach a conclusion shows consideration not only of an Iliad but, like the duel, of an extensive Iliad. Only in such a work did Achilles stay in the background for so long that a remedy seemed necessary. His short appearance in L is not sufficient as a starting-point; on the other hand the embassy to Achilles constitutes a pillar, visible over a long distance, which is able to mediate between A and P, towards both sides, over thousands of lines. 7. The whole paraphernalia were dealt with by Ed. Schwartz’s pupil W. Deecke in his thesis De Hectoris et Aiacis certamine singulari (Göttingen 1906) which owes much to Robert’s Ilias-Studien and in my opinion has been judged too harshly by Wilamowitz. 8. Double spear throw of Sarpedon in the extremely problematic passage P 466ff. 9. L 264f.: aÙt>r [ tîn ¥llwn 1pepwle√to st8caj ¢ndrîn 4gcei t, ¥or8 te meg£lois8 te cermad8oisin is remarkable not only because of the hostile, i.e. metaphorical meaning of the verb and the metrically adjusted ¥or (we have only just recently met 240 ¥or, cf. Chantraine I, p. 99) but also because the stone throw in Agamemnon’s preceding aristeia did not play any part at all. Either 265 again has summarising force or it presupposes that Agamemnon finds himself in the same situation as Ajax at the end of X. 10. This is also true of the ‘unmotivated’ stone throw E 302ff. Here the

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Notes to pages 75-80 combination of older passages has resulted in a clear contradiction: cerm£dion describes a relatively small field stone suitable for throwing (cf. L 265, X 410), not a m2ga 4rgon which nowadays could not be managed by two men (M 449). The passage in E which has already occupied us shows in this respect too that it is derived. 11. That coping with a boundary stone actually demanded divine strength could have had a say in it; but one must not forget that at the end of M Hector, with his strength increased by Zeus, achieves hardly less impressive tasks. 12. It does not trouble us here that a passage which is generally regarded as young, like the battle of the gods, would still have to be old enough to serve as a model for passages which are younger still. The state of our Iliad cannot be explained by just two layers. 13. Nor does one lift a spear when one throws it, but when one thrusts it, possibly 1p£lmenoj, i.e. exploiting the body’s momentum. In N 204 Locrian Ajax throws a head which has been cut off sfairhdÒn. The following 0lix£menoj di, om8lou according to M 367 does not refer to the spinning of the skull which has been grabbed by the hair but means rather that the swift Locrian, like Hector, winds his way through the crowd and throws from there. 14. The parallel R 530 which is quoted offers oÙt£zonto only as a weakly attested variant of [rmhq£thn. 15. Therefore we do not necessarily need to imagine a round shield in front of us, but it is suggested. 16. Thus Lorimer, p. 185, although p. 183 the seven layeredness of the shield is accurately judged as fantastic. 17. Perhaps Machaon is called 9sÒqeoj fèj formulaically, i.e. thoughtlessly. But since he appears as a saviour here, it will rather be assumed that the poet quite consciously used such a high register. 18. The use of kuklès(e) for kÚklwi does not provide an analytical argument (Von der Mühll, p. 83) simply because it can be emended only too easily and in fact in various ways (Aristarchus read kÚkloj). Cf. now Chantraine I 246. 19. This contradicts 151 where the Ôgkoi are apparently visible outside the armour (4ktoj), unless one wants to assume a kind of zeugma which would let Menelaus see the shaft of the arrow outside (the armour) and feel the barbs outside (the body). On the difficulty cf. the essay by D. Mülder, NJahrb. 7 (19040, p. 635ff. which is perhaps overly sharp but very well worth reading. 20. More or less tortuous attempts at explanation in the appendix of Ameis-Hentze, p. 36f. On the fundamental issue, again Mülder, op. cit., p. 638ff. 21. Although Pandarus’ shot no longer belongs to our theme, it should still be recalled that it has been described as the model of a genre-like style (cf. above, p. 104, note 15), which breaks down the large surge of events into small waves. If this characterisation is correct, then it does not go badly with the Machaon scene. Of course we find neither in it nor in the related passages of N and X that suspense which is brilliantly generated by digression and delaying details, and which distinguishes the most fateful shot of a human marksman above all the other shots of Paris, Teucer and Meriones. 22. We shall leave aside the armour verse 358 for the time being.

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Notes to pages 80-90 23. See W. Deecke, p. 41ff. 24. Cf. S 488 where the heavenly she-bear dokeÚei the hunter Orion, as well as the ancient variant of C 93: æj d5 dr£kwn … Ñr2steroj ¥ndra dokeÚhi (for m2nhisi). 25. Accordingly it is said Q 340 of the hound which ‘takes on’ a boar or a lion: 0lissÒmenon dokeÚei. 26. Cf. P 286ff. where Patroclus overcomes Pyraichmes: tÕn b£le dexiÕn (mon. [ d, Ûptioj 1n kon8hisi k£ppesen o9mèxaj, 3taroi d2 min ¢mf< fÒbhqen Pa8onej. 27. If it is meant that by kneeling he is sitting on his lower legs, it can be most easily explained why he then ends up lying on his face (prhnˇj). 28. One should observe the relation of verse and syntax. The five short main clauses follow each other breathtakingly, the double enjambement lends the performance suspense, the word x8foj, which consists of two short syllables, before the bucolic diaeresis lends it flashing rapidity. The last device is often used with striking effect: just compare from A 127 ¢ll> s) m5n nàn tˇnde qeîi prÒej (!), 194 3lketo d, 1k koleo√o m2ga x8foj 220 .y d, 1j kouleÕn (se m2ga x8foj 282 ’Atre8dh, s) d5 paàe teÕn m2noj, aÙt>r 4gwge 283 l8ssom, ’AcillÁi meq2men cÒlon, 382 Âke d, 1p, ’Arge8oisi kakÕn b2loj, 387 ’Atre8wna d, 4peita cÒloj l£ben (!). Of slighter significance for delivery are e.g. 138, 185. – See above, p. 114 note 38. 29. If it is a coincidence that Peneleus’ opponent is called Lycon (of all names), this would be a rather strange coincidence. The similarity of the names is evidence rather of the use of F by P. A common archetype does not need to be introduced this time. 30. See especially E. Howald, Mus. Helv. 8 (1951), p. 111ff. Against older disparagement of the relevant passages, see Wilamowitz, p. 135; against Wilamowitz, again Von der Mühll, p. 247 (with bibliographical details), cf. also p. 208. 31. Von der Mühll writes, p. 248: ‘Horrific end of Sarpedon at Patroclus’ hands.’ But as far as the wounding itself and its description are concerned, within the context of the Iliad things are not particularly horrific but rather ordinary. The description of the place of the wound: 4nq, ¥ra te fr2nej 4rcatai ¢mf, ¡dinÕn kÁr recalls the 4nqa clauses N 546f., 568f., X 465f. anyhow but the anatomical detail is more sound, even if in the manner which we have got to know it leads beyond the sphere of what is externally visible. 32. Wilamowitz has his old Patrocleia end provisionally with men2aine (491) and with this creates the opportunity to interpret the word which is incomprehensible here as the remnant of a sentence which has been broken off. A genuinely realistic kind of representation does not emerge again until much later, for 502ff. is a beautiful example of pseudo-realism: ìj ¥ra min e9pÒnta t2loj qan£toio k£luyen Ñfqalmo)j "√n£j q,. [ d5 l>x 1n stˇqesi ba8nwn

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Notes to pages 90-92 1k croÕj 3lke dÒru, prot< d5 fr2nej aÙtîi 3ponto, to√o d, ¤ma yucˇn te ka< 4gceoj 1x2rus, a9cmˇn. The difficulties which J. Böhme (Seele und Ich, p. 4f.) judiciously deals with are characteristic of the adventurous style; we know now, that from the start one could not hope to gain any clarity at all here. 33. This seems to be said expressly with the word ¢lastˇsaj which occurs only here and has been interpreted in different ways. But it also lies in the fact that Asius dares to curse Zeus as filoyeudˇj. If Menelaus expresses himself similarly (G 365), it must be taken into consideration that even in triumphal speeches, the same latitude is not given to barbarians as to Greeks: what is regarded as legitimate wrath with one group is perceived as hybris with the other. 34. Although grown up sons (Adamas and Phainops) are attributed to Asius, it is difficult to imagine him any other way than youthful. Since both sons die in battle, but strangely enough neither as his father’s avenger, we have the choice whether the attribution originated as a kind of doubling with our N and R or whether the closeness in death of Mezentius and Lausus was preshaped here, and was only obscured in our Iliad. In the latter case one would have to imagine that neither Asius or Mezentius is young at all. On the other hand Othryoneus, who is courting, is definitely young, and it may have been intentionally set up in such a way that he is humiliated by the greying Idomeneus. 35. Conversely, Wilamowitz regards the Sarpedon passage in P as old, that in E and M as young. As we shall see, this is untenable, but in my opinion it is better than attributing all the Sarpedon passages to one single layer of the Iliad, in fact the last one. 36. On this variation, Wilamowitz, p. 139. It will become obvious from the following why I do not agree with his deletion of the next two verses. 37. The famous passages L 162, 241f., 393ff. are partly more severe, partly more expressive, but always less concerned with vividness. One could rather adduce L 100 here where Agamemnon leaves the men he has killed lying stˇqesi pamfa8nontaj, 1pe< per8duse citînaj (see Wilamowitz, p. 185, 2). 38. This word which here probably just means ‘completely’ is, however, used more succinctly in other places. In P 640, the passage quoted just now, ‘through and through’ is only just contained in ‘completely’. The origin of the development is still evident in passages like E 112: the word first belongs to a piercing missile or another sharp object. In the E passage it is already doubtful whether Sthenelos pulls out Pandarus’ arrow through Diomedes’ shoulder (which would correspond most precisely to the meaning of the word, but is difficult to believe) or whether he does not rather pull the arrow backwards (which likewise must have been very difficult, since according to 99f. the arrow protruded on the opposite side of the shoulder). Now, anyone who imagined the extraction here the way it is normally done with spears and arrows in the Iliad could understand diamper2j only as meaning ‘completely’. One may therefore regard this passage, or a passage like this, as (Leumann’s) central point at which the meaning of the word took a new turn. 39. Although the Sarpedon scenes of the Patrocleia contain much mediocre material, nevertheless the passages quoted above alone warn against collec-

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Notes to pages 94-98 tive condemnation. Any general eulogy or criticism simplifies a set of facts which unfortunately cannot be simplified. 40. That the Lycian and the Rhodian measure their strengths against each other makes historical sense, as was noticed a long time ago (cf. Von der Mühll, p. 100, with older bibliography; differently Howald, Mus. Helv. 8 [1951], p. 114), and no less that the Lycian defends the country against intruders and, as is in accordance with the fact that he is an immediate son of Zeus, proves himself superior to the grandson of Zeus. The genealogy of Tlepolemus is a historic factor, and does not have to rely on divine descent from the fantastic Memnon. He who had the Rhodian-Lycian opposition carried out before the Trojan war had to explain why Sarpedon’s embalmed corpse was able to be kept in Lycia. The aition is given with the removal of the dead man by Sleep and Death. If one gets clear in one’s mind the problem which had been set here, the question whether it was solved with the help of the Memnon myth turns into a cura posterior. In the discussion about priority, one will not be allowed to disregard the fact that a tomb (of Sarpedon), situated in the immediate field of vision of the Greeks, gives a fixed destination for his removal, whereas Memnon disappears into vague distances. On the whole question cf. F. Focke, La Nouvelle Clio no. 9/10 (1951), esp. p. 341. 41. I do not see any reason for understanding m2ssoj as the middle between head and trunk, as is, however, necessary in the catachrestic passages K 455 and X 497. 42. The paraphrase 1mpage√sa is ill considered. 43. This translation of fhgÒj after Wilamowitz, p. 186, 2. 44. If one takes (se literally, the spear would carry through the thigh and out. But if the image was still observable in qÚraze, çqe√n could additionally appear without any idea of a spear-thrust. For one does not pull an intruder, but pushes him, out of the door. 45. See note 32 above. 46. Since Patroclus cannot yet appear in E it should be regarded as possible that he is represented by Odysseus here. 47. We cannot tell whether the verses which sing about him still carry with them some elements from that epoch; only, for me, in spite of Von der Mühll, p. 196 n. 30, it is certain that E 652ff. are older than L 443ff. 48. In this work M and O have not been dealt with in detail, but in another context they are to be dealt with according to their importance. 49. It is less strange that the commentaries desert us than that Wilamowitz (p. 128ff.) claimed precisely these excesses for his original Patrocleia. Admittedly, Amphiclus does attack Meges but is apparently hit in the buttocks by the latter. As has been mentioned already, Meriones’ feat 342ff. has been modelled on the feat of Idomeneus E 43ff. without consideration of the changed situation. 50. Cf. Leaf on 364. – Von der Mühll, p. 246, emphasises that v. 374: p£saj plÁsan [doÚj, 1pe< .r tm£gen goes back to 352ff.: (4rifoi,) a∑ t, 1n Ôressi poim2noj ¢frad8hisi di2tmagen. One could also say that the simile anticipates the situation of 374. Both seem to belong together, but to have been torn apart and transposed.

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Notes to pages 98-102 51. Leaf explains hesitantly: ‘in spite of the weight of his armour’, but then the poet would not have expressed himself very meaningfully. It seems rather that Hector has just captured some weapons which were worth mentioning again, and is taking them away. So the passage seems to have been created for a context as we read it in R 130ff. There Hector jumps on to the chariot – but he does not drive away but gives his spoils to the Trojans: again a break, but this time at the other end. What we expect in R 130 is to be read prematurely at P 368, so this latter passage depends on the premise of that other one. Recourse to a model which has been used twice is once again unavoidable in explaining the facts. 52. One individual deletion of 381 would not change anything here. 53. It may be left open here whether Patroclus’ blindness is supposed to lie in the fact that he presumes to take Achilles’ weapons and role. It is hardly essential for understanding the book to make this assumption, and it is not expressed anywhere. For how much less does 685f. m2g, ¢£sqh nˇpioj (which reprehends the fatal rashness of one moment) say about Patroclus than for instance nˇpioj M 113 does about Asius who is flaunting his horses and chariot! But on the other hand, a time which imprinted m] m£teue Ze)j gen2sqai on more and more new turns of phrase could hardly help judging Patroclus’ triumphant euphoria as presumptuousness which had to provoke divine counter-measures. So if this idea of hybris or retaliation is still just as alien to the Iliad here as the thought of Achilles’ responsibility for his friend’s death is far from its mind, then it is, on the other hand, still only little younger than the Iliad. 54. It is strange that the first one contains 27 verses, the second at least 27 (381 is weakly attested and 387/8 are usually removed as Hesiodic reminiscences). A rough balance seems at least to have been intended, if not a precise one. 55. Stylistically, Patroclus’ first feats are closer to the Hector scenes rather than these warrior-slayings. As noted already, 302-5 constitute a transitional piece which cannot be taken out and which is supposed to connect 306-51 with what preceded it. 56. In 407 ;erÕj 9cqÚj sounds solemn, Hölderlinian, but only until one has read about ;erÕj d8froj at R 464 and learnt to reckon with the word becoming rather hackneyed. 57. The attempt to derive the version of M, which is more appropriate to the situation and simpler, from P merely originates from the prejudice that everything which is connected with Sarpedon must belong to the last layer of the Iliad and be younger than the Patrocleia. 58. Asius also Homerises in this way when at M 167ff. he compares the Greeks in detail with wasps or bees which have been attacked. This Homerising in particular makes it doubtful whether there lies a Øp2rbion eÙcet£asqai in Patroclus’ words: for Homer himself occasionally speaks the same cruel language, only just P 409, further N 571ff. and 564f. 59. In v. 358 A∏aj d, [ m2gaj was said for the purpose of distinction from A∏aj ,Oili£dhj who was active in 330. 60. S. Leaf ad loc. and Von der Mühll, p. 246. Again it is strange that

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Notes to page 102 Wilamowitz, to whom a convincing context mattered, simply let his old Patrocleia roll over this obstacle. 61. Through the kindness of the author I have just received the Frankfurt thesis of 1964 Die kleinen Kämpfer der Ilias by G. Strasburger. Unfortunately this time I can only point out this work whose formulation of her question complements mine in the direction indicated.

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Index References in this index are to the page numbers of this book, not to Friedrich’s original page numbers. Words ¢2llh 98f. ¢nakumbali£zein 98 ¢poke8rein 35 aâon (¥use) 106 n.8 ¥crij 59 diamper2j 123 n.38 diasc8zein 35 dokeÚein 84 0£fqh 27f. 1p8 116 n.59 0staÒta 105 n.5 º8cqhsan (=n8a) 9f., 106 n.8 katam£rptein 42 kom8zein 108 n.27, 111 n.20 kÚmbacoj 11, 98 li£zesqai 40 m2ssoj 20, 38ff., 76, 124 n.41 oÙt£zein 76 pep£lakto 112 n.29 per8 114 n.40 perÒnhse 13 suneocmÒj 35 Heroes Achilles 47f., 99, 117 n.9 Aeneas 15, 16f., 44f. Agamemnon 46ff., 63f. Ajax the Locrian 30, 46, 111 n.20, 119 n.1 Ajax the Telamonian 18, 48, 71ff., 101f. Alcathous 11 Antilochus 105 n.4

Asius and his charioteer 7, 32, 88ff., 112 n.21 Cebriones 21f., 101 Deiphobus 15f., 23, 31 Diomedes 25, 62 Diores 59f., 82ff. Euphorbus 45 Eurypylus 25f., 63f. Glaucus 96 Harpalion 82f. Hector 27ff., 32, 48, 71ff., 101f. Helenus 24, 26, 32 Idomeneus 7, 15, 20, 32, 63, 97 Imbrius 56 Lycaon 86ff. Machaon 78f. Meges 63 Menelaus 78ff. Meriones, 28, 39f., 41ff., 63f., 109 nn.30, 31, 3 Mydon 9ff. Odysseus 23, 124 n.46 Othryoneus 15f. Pandarus 17f., 20 Paris 80f. Patroclus 97ff. Peisandrus 21f. Peneleus 14, 19, 97 Pylaimenes 85f. Sarpedon 88ff. Simoeisius 54f. Teucer 24 Thestor 7, 117f. Thoas 60, 110 n.12

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Index Passages of the Iliad Book G 297-301: 49 355ff.: 81f. 377f.: 26 453f.: 81 Book D 210ff.: 78 457ff.: 53ff. 517ff.: 59ff. 523f.: 83ff., 90 535f.: 60, 92 Book E 29-36: 62 38-83: 62ff. 65ff.: 42, 76 290ff.: 17f. 302ff.: 41, 120 n.10 307: 60 576-89: 9ff. 655ff.: 94ff. 671ff.: 93 684ff.: 93, 95 Book Z 42f.: 11 Book H 244ff.: 74ff., 81f. Book Q 81f.: 41 332ff.: 24 Book L 95ff.: 17f., 46 101ff.: 112 n.26 119: 119 n.20 145ff.: 46f. 218f.: 49 252ff.: 24 261: 50 396ff.: 25, 78 456ff.: 78 482f.: 23 583f.: 25 811ff.: 25 Book M 183ff.: 37f. 385: 11 Book N 156ff.: 15

169-94: 56ff. 170ff.: 15 202ff.: 46, 111 n.20, 121 n.13 363ff.: 15 381ff.: 16 385-401: 7 397: 38 434-44: 12ff. 527ff.: 26 533-9: 23 545ff.: 19, 34, 84f. 564: 109 n.3 566-575: 41, 43f. 576ff.: 26, 79 594ff.: 24, 26, 78f. 614ff.: 21, 49 648-55: 83ff., 87 803ff.: 31 Book X 371ff.: 30 384-401: 30 402ff.: 30, 77 433-9: 27ff. 440ff.: 18f., 30, 100 465ff.: 17f., 35, 60 493ff.: 20ff. 498ff.: 14 Book O 240f.: 29 294: 110 n.12 484-514: 72 549ff.: 117 n.4 Book P 302-51: 98 313ff.: 35, 41 332ff.: 36 339ff.: 20, 88, 114 n.38 358-63: 101f. 364-93: 98f. 401ff.: 7f. 481: 89 482ff.: 89 491: 90 502ff.: 95, 122 n.32 597f.: 42 638ff.: 91f. 647ff.: 95f. 659ff.: 92

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Index 692ff.: 101 740ff.: 21 742: 106 n.8 775f.: 90f. Book R 39f.: 45 126: 45 295ff.: 37 523ff.: 14f. Book S 175ff.: 45 Book U 396ff.: 37f. 413ff.: 38f.

419ff.: 73f. 463-83: 35ff. 484ff.: 35, 105 n.4 Book F 64ff.: 86 114ff.: 86ff. 117: 36 180: 60 403ff.: 74f. Book C 291f.: 28 Book Y 874-81: 39f., 114 n.40

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Appendix K.B. Saunders Introduction Friedrich wrote in 1956 and based his solutions to the medical problems posed by wounds and death in Homer largely on the work of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century experts such as Küchenmeister (1855) and Körner (1929).1 Körner refers to medical literature of the second half of the nineteenth century and to Baumann (1923)2 who records battlefield events from the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Friedrich does not use French scholars of Homeric medicine, such as Malgaigne (1842) and Daremberg (1865), nor Thompson (1952)3 who had provided some new medical ideas but wrote in an English medical journal and has been remarkably unquoted since. Medicine has moved on since many of these accounts were written. Although the topical anatomy of the human body was well described by the late nineteenth century, in terms of structures which could be dissected and seen with the naked eye, the way they worked was largely unknown. The way nerves transmit electrical signals, and the biochemistry and mechanics of muscle fibre contraction, for example, were not elucidated until the second half of the twentieth century. When the fine structure of organs was examined under a microscope, cellular structures were in turn observed and described, but what it was that the cells did was another matter. In this context Grmek (1989) gives a good account of Homeric medicine and the wounds from the point of view of a medical historian, but does not approach the textual difficulties.4 In this Appendix I give a full response to all of Friedrich’s findings which involve wounds, writing as a late twentieth-century physician and physiologist. Some of what I say is based on my existing papers on wounds in Iliad 13-16 (= Saunders A) and the death of the charioteer Mydon in Iliad 5 (= Saunders B).5 I have usually summarised or extracted from those accounts. The problems in Homer’s protracted description of the fight between Hector and Ajax in Iliad

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders 14 and 15 are particularly complicated, and the account in Saunders A is therefore transmitted in full. My general position is that, while I do not expect every wound described by Homer to have a realistic explanation – why should they, when all wound healing in Homer is miraculous? – the poet is to believed unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. I have paid particular attention to the commentaries of W. Leaf, M.M. Willcock, G.S. Kirk, R. Janko and M.W. Edwards (referred to hereafter simply by name). Translations are from E.V. Rieu (revised by Peter Jones), and I refer sometimes to M. Hammond’s version.6 Before going on to the details of fights and wounds, some general points need to be made. Sudden death. Commentators have always worried that warriors in the Iliad seem to die rapidly of wounds that should not cause sudden death. A good example would be the death of Amphiclus at 16.313-16, where Meges hits him in the thigh with a spear thrust. We shall return to the wound later, but the point here is that the scholiasts, quoted by Leaf, remark that this would hardly cause sudden death. Leaf says that ‘if the femoral artery were severed however the victim would soon die’, and Janko follows this line of thought. Although this seems reasonable, it is unlikely. Bleeding from big arteries within limbs does not usually cause sudden death because of local protective mechanisms involving constriction of muscle within the arterial wall, and because the bleeding is often into a confined space. The local mechanisms are paradoxically more effective if the artery is completely severed, as opposed to torn. Sudden death is a rare event. Cardiac wounds that terminate the heartbeat cause sudden death, as may other events which bring about abnormal and ineffective heart rhythms. Wounds to the head (unless catastrophic), chest (unless involving the heart), belly, or limbs do not. Very few wounds in the Iliad would cause sudden death, yet most Homeric fighters seem to die that way or very rapidly. It is simply a convention, and not only an ancient one. Before modern cinematic realism made death unpleasantly bloody, cowboys would drop dead tidily with an Apache arrow impacted in the shoulder-blade. It is a matching convention that only top heroes (Patroclus, Sarpedon and Hector) are permitted to survive a fatal wound long enough to make a dying speech. Fatal and non-fatal wounds. Some wounds are obviously fatal – decapitation is the prime example. Others are almost certainly fatal, such as transfixion of the cranium with a spear.7 Homer may use words or phrases which definitely mean killing or death.8 These are

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders not only direct words like kte8nw but phrases which indicate the departure of the qumÒj: qumÕn a;r2w / ¢fair2w / 1xair2w / ¢phÚra / 1xa8numai. Other phrases are less definite, goÚnata lÚw and pel£zw cqon8, for example, which may imply killing, but literally only indicate that the victim has fallen to the ground. There are often contextual pointers, which indicate death – the victim’s body being stripped, or protected from spoliation by comrades. Finally, while a warrior who has been killed should not again appear in the narrative,9 the fact that a wounded combatant does not reappear cannot be taken as evidence of death. Many combatants leave the scene intact, but do not reappear. When all such factors are taken into account, we are left with episodes where the outcome is not determined. At 16.307 prîtoj d5 Menoit8ou ¥lkimoj u;Õj aÙt8k, ¥ra strefq2ntoj ,Arhi::lÚkou b£le mhrÕn 4gcei:: ÑxuÒenti, diaprÕ d5 calkÕn 4lasse: "Áxen d’ Ñst2on 4gcoj, [ d5 prhn]j 1p< ga8hi k£ppes,: ¢t>r Men2laoj ¢rˇïoj oâta QÒanta st2rnon gumnwq2nta par, ¢sp8da, làse d5 gu√a. Brave Patroclus was first to throw his sharp spear at Areilycus and hit him in the thigh just as he had turned. The bronze point drove through and broke the bone; the man fell headlong to the ground. Meanwhile warlike Menelaus struck Thoas in his chest, which he had left exposed above his shield, and brought him down. Neither of these wounds is definitively fatal. Areilycus and Thoas are undoubtedly down – but are they permanently out? We cannot tell. There is a similar problem with catalogue killings. At 11.489 A∏aj d5 Trèessin 1p£lmenoj eƒle DÒruklon Priam8dhn, nÒqon u;Òn, 4peita d5 P£ndokon oâta, oâta d5 LÚsandron ka< PÚrason ºd5 Pul£rthn. Ajax then flung himself on the Trojans and killed Doryclus, a bastard son of Priam’s; next he stabbed Pandocus and Lysander and Pyrasus and Pylartes. The last four are undoubtedly wounded, but are they dead? We do not know. It is in this context that we should assess Frölich’s attempt at a precise mortality rate for Homeric wounds.10 It cannot be done, unless arbitrary assumptions are made, e.g. ‘All those struck by the spear of

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders Ajax must have died.’ Some useful generalisations from Frölich are: there are about 150 described wounds in the Iliad; most of them are fatal; sword wounds are always fatal. Wound healing. All wound healing in the Iliad is miraculous from a modern viewpoint. This is inevitable. Homer has chosen to pace his narrative of fighting episodes over a few days. It would be unrealistic, unfair, unheroic, and crippling to the plot if none of his main heroes were ever wounded. But he must get them back into the action – they cannot spend the rest of the epic on the bench. So their wounds must be trivial, or forgotten in later text (twice with Diomedes), or, most usefully, healed by divine intervention. Thus Hector’s disabling chest wound delivered by Ajax at 14.409-20 is miraculously healed by Apollo at 15.262. As Janko says at 15.240-1, recovery would normally take weeks. Even more outrageous is Aeneas’ terrible wound at 5.303-10. His pelvis is broken by a rock thrown by Diomedes, and the fracture involves the socket (acetabulum) of the hip joint. From this injury there would probably have been no complete recovery ever, but it is healed by Leto and Artemis at 5.447. The third example is of Glaucus, who is healed by Apollo at 16.528. These cures are unrealistic to the modern reader, but might not have been to an ancient audience. The practical, as opposed to divine, treatment of wounds in the Iliad has two aspects, the removal of impacted missiles, and the superficial application of f£rmaka. The topic has recently been considered in detail by C.F. Salazar.11 Technically, missiles without barbs, such as throwing spears, could be removed by simple extraction, but the position and nature of a (possibly) barbed arrowhead had to be determined by probing, a skilled procedure. The operator would then proceed to pull out the arrow (1xolkˇ), cut it out (1ktomˇ), or push it on through (diwsmÒj). There is no account of preliminary probing in the Iliad, and there has been considerable debate in individual episodes as to which of the three possible techniques was employed. Salazar concludes that these accounts, while they seem detailed and convincing at first sight, may better be described by Friedrich’s term, pseudorealism. We do not know what the f£rmaka might have been. Weapons. It is not the purpose here to consider the realism of Homeric fighting in general, but one cannot write technically about wounds without some consideration of the weapons that caused them, and the nature of duels in the Iliad.12 The five chief weapons are: bow and arrow, sword, thrown rock, throwing spear and thrusting spear. The bow in Homer is probably a composite bow. The arrows are

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders targeted, that is aimed at specific warriors, not shot en masse as at Agincourt. In the Iliad there is no chance of dodging an arrow since the target is never aware of the incoming arrow until it strikes. The sword in Homer produces slashing wounds, never piercing. It is not then like the early Mycenaean rapiers found in the Shaftgraves, but fits well with the Naue Type II bronze slashing swords which appeared round the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age.13 I suspect that it is significant that sword wounds are invariably fatal in the Iliad, and this may be relevant to Drews’ conclusion that the reason for the catastrophe in the Near East at the end of the Bronze Age, the collapse of the Mycenaean and Hittite powers, the fall of the citadels of the Levant, and the demise of the chariot armies, was related to the introduction of this very weapon.14 The thrown rock. Some of these episodes cannot be realistic. To obtain sufficient momentum to do damage (see below under throwing spear) the stone would need to be encompassed by a single hand, and thrown at high velocity. The manoeuvre can regularly be seen on television in anti-authoritarian demonstrations the world over. A fast moving rock in a crucial place can certainly be fatal (as Goliath discovered), but wounds which shatter the hip joint, as with Aeneas (above) are probably impractical. The throwing and thrusting spears. These are radically different weapons, as a simple examination of the relevant mechanics will show. With the thrusting spear, the wound is created by direct transmission of force through the spear shaft to the victim. The only mandatory design feature is that the shaft must be rigid. The shape and weight of the spear head is pretty much optional, and the length and weight of the weapon can be suited to the size and strength of the wielder.15 Thus ancient heroes with superhuman strength may reasonably have outsize thrusting spears, e.g. the great ash spear of Pelion. Throwing such a weapon is another matter. To take a simple practical line which may give the reader a feel for the problem, the nearest modern equivalent of the thrusting spear is the pitch-fork. Mine is just under six feet in length and weighs 4.5 lb (2 kg), most of the weight being in the metal fork. The diameter of the rigid wooden shaft is an inch and a half. Replacement of the fork by a metal spear head of the same weight, and lengthening the shaft by a foot would make a serviceable weapon, similar in length to those on the Warrior Vase.16 One could throw it the length of a cricket pitch (say 20 yards), but not very fast. But Achilles throws the great ash spear of Pelion at 20.273-83. In contrast, the throwing spear penetrates because of its momentum. It has a shaft for two reasons, the first aerodynamic, to ensure that the missile arrives with the sharp end at the front, the second

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders simply to give the warrior a handle to throw it by. The rigidity of the shaft is not of primary importance. Momentum is mass (weight) times velocity. There has to be a trade-off between a too heavy throwing spear, which cannot be thrown fast, and a too light throwing spear, which can be thrown fast but will bounce off on arrival. Light missiles need a high velocity source – the arrow, a bow; the bullet, a gun. But an effective throwing spear will not be an effective thrusting spear, and vice versa. It is thought that because of the long oral transmission which precedes Homer’s construction of the Iliad we see an amalgam of several centuries of fighting techniques. An earlier warrior would be protected by a large body shield, need no body armour, and wield a heavy thrusting spear. Later the combatants were more mobile, protected only by a smaller round shield and therefore requiring body armour, and armed with one or two light throwing spears, with a sword for close range work. There is some suggestion that the large spear (4gcoj) is associated with the s£koj shield and the lighter spear (dÒru) with the smaller round ¢sp8j,17 but Homer does not reliably make this distinction. Certainly one can almost always tell whether the fighter is throwing or thrusting, either because he uses one of several words for ‘throw’, usually ∑hmi or one of its compounds, or because Homer distinguishes between hits made by missiles, when he uses b£llw to mean strike, and hits made by hand, when he uses one of about a dozen words, most frequently oÙt£w, nÚssw or tÚptw. Aristarchus first noted this distinction.18 In practice, however, on the one hand the same weapon may be described as both 4gcoj and dÒru successively in the same fight, and on the other the same weapon is used for both throwing and thrusting. This happens most curiously in the climax to the epic, when Hector and Achilles both discharge throwing spears without success, but Athena returns Achilles’ spear to him. It is clearly the same spear, as 22.276-7 shows. And suddenly it is a thrusting spear, outranging and therefore too powerful for Hector’s sword.19 Perhaps we should better take it as another example of an exception to Aristarchus’ rule. Duelling with spears. This is in itself problematic. For example, how far apart are the combatants? Again a simple modern parallel may be helpful. Both tennis players and cricketers face missiles travelling at 80-90 mph. Tennis players never get hit, and cricketers only because they have intentions other than ball avoidance. Moreover, the relevant missiles may swerve and then change direction on the bounce, which spears do not, at least not when I throw them. To be sure, Homeric fighters are encumbered by their weapons and armour, which may somewhat impede their ability to dodge.20 Even so the

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders distance of a cricket pitch or tennis court is too long-range. The incoming weapon would be routinely, as opposed to occasionally in the Iliad, dodged. I suspect that 30 feet or less would be the range at which such combat occurred, if it ever did. Even then, the throw would need high velocity. A big thrusting spear would be useless. Ideal perhaps would be the short javelin or dart, 3 feet or less in length, undoubtedly used in the late Bronze Age21 but nowhere described by Homer. Finally, we may note the apparent absence of short stabbing spears in the Iliad. Such a spear is used one-handed, as opposed to the big thrusting spear needing both hands. When Shaka was creating the Zulu impi that so terrorised Southern Africa in the nineteenth century ‘he regarded the light throwing assegai as a ridiculous toy, and fretted at its flimsiness. He soon devised a new assegai, with a heavy broad blade and a stout shortened haft. He hefted it underhand, making of it a thrusting weapon similar to the short sword of the Romans ….’22 There is one particular wound, which, I shall later suggest, needs such a weapon. Credible wounds with inappropriate weapons. We know now, as Friedrich did not, that oral poets compose with blocks of words, formulae, as well as with individual words, on a smaller scale, and topics, on a larger. Occasionally the juxtaposition of formulae, or the demands of metre within a formulaic construction, gives an inappropriate effect. The ‘stout hand’ of Aphrodite is the usual citation in this context. Similarly, it seems to me, Homer sometimes matches a realistic wound with the wrong weapon. We shall see several examples of this. I have called it ‘wound-weapon mismatch’. With these preliminaries, we can go on to consider the wounds in Friedrich’s company. We look particularly at two of his stylistic categories: ‘Phantasmata’, which applies to events which he finds unrealistic or physically impossible; and ‘Pseudorealism’ referring to accounts which appear realistic at first sight, but prove problematic on close examination. Phantasmata (1) Thestor. 16.403-10 (p. 7: Saunders B, p. 28, n. 7). Patroclus kills Thestor the charioteer. He spears him through the jaw, and drags him from the chariot like a fisherman landing a fish. [ d, 4gcei:: nÚxe parast>j 405 gnaqmÕn dexiterÒn, di> d, aÙtoà pe√ren ÑdÒntwn, 3lke d5 dourÕj 0lën Øp5r ¥ntugoj …23

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders Patroclus came up beside him and stabbed him on the right side of the jaw, driving the spear between his teeth. Then, using the spear as a lever, he hoisted him over the chariot-rail. Friedrich finds this ‘extreme and barely credible’. There are two possible spear paths. The spear might enter at the right side of the jaw, just beneath and medial to the lower jaw-bone, and go upwards and backwards, between the teeth, that is through both lower and upper dental arches. If it goes relatively vertically in relation to the skull, it will go through the hard palate into the nose and paranasal sinuses. If it goes more backwards it will go through the soft palate, then the posterior nasopharynx, and end in the base of the skull. The fact that he is crouching (¢le8j) means that his head is forward and the spear path is practical. If he were standing perfectly upright, for the same trajectory, the spear shaft would collide with the thorax. But with this path, the mouth would be skewered shut, and Thestor is kechnÒta, gaping, at 409. More likely, then, that the spear goes in more obliquely around the angle of the mouth between the teeth at the side, upwards, backwards and across, ending probably in the paranasal sinuses on the other side. The mouth is now levered open. In either case, Thestor is now spiked and helpless. Patroclus uses the spear like a pitchfork, and simply levers him out of the chariot. Very little force is required since Thestor in agony must follow the spear. It is, contra Friedrich, one of the most brutal and realistic killings in Homer. If anything, it is the simile which is inappropriate. One could have wished that Patroclus was spear-fishing, a pastime well illustrated in Bronze Age Egypt, but Homer specifies the line and the hook in 408. Kirk,24 considering the death of Mydon (see below), finds it all ‘a pure flight of fancy, like Patroclus dangling his victim from the end of his spear’, but this is because he follows the simile and not the action. (2) Mydon. 5.580-9 (p. 9: Saunders B). Antilochus kills Mydon, the chariot driver. He first hits him on the elbow with a rock. Mydon drops the reins. Antilochus then hits him on the head with a sword. Mydon, apparently, falls head-first from the chariot and sticks head-down in soft sand until the horses kick him over. 585 aÙt>r Ó g, ¢sqma8nwn eÙerg2oj 4kpese d8frou kÚmbacoj 1n kon8hisin 1p< brecmÒn te ka< êmouj. dhq> m£l, 0stˇkei – tÚce g£r ", ¢m£qoio baqe8hj – Ôfr, ∑ppw plˇxante cama< b£lon 1n kon8hisi.

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders With a gasp, he fell headlong from the well-made chariot up to his head and shoulders in the dust. For a while he stuck there, since it happened to be deep at that point. Then his horses kicked him down and laid him flat on the ground. For Friedrich there were two main problems. The first concerns the supposed difficulty of a man on foot hitting a charioteer on the head with a sword, as opposed to a spear, as with Patroclus above. There are no surviving Mycenaean chariots, but late Bronze Age chariots in Egypt surviving or realistically depicted25 show that the feet of the occupant would be at about the level of the axle or just above it, 18-24 inches from the ground. The temple of a 6-foot charioteer would be not more than 8 feet from the ground. A 6-foot man standing on the ground and raising his arm vertically has his hand about 7 feet from the ground. Late Bronze Age Naue Type II slashing swords are about 2 foot 6 inches long.26 The charioteer, pace Kirk,27 does not have to be crouching to be hit, though he is in the similar episode at 16.403 (above). Nor is it necessary that he gives a better target by bending down to pick up the reins, as Kurz28 suggested, and in any case Homer would likely have described such an action, as he did at 17.620-1. In short, there is no problem. The second, however, concerns the events which follow Mydon’s fall from the chariot, and this has occupied commentators since commentaries began. If the passage means that Mydon stuck, rigid, in the sand, head down and legs in the air, it is undoubtedly a phantasma. This is the way Eustathius took it, and so did nineteenth-century critics (Paley, Pierron) and early translators (Chapman, Pope, Cowper). Temporary medical support was given by Körner29 who thought it was due to ‘cataleptic rigor mortis’, a rare phenomenon of sudden rigidity of the whole body occurring at the moment of death, but this is now technically indefensible. Moreover, soft sand will not support a vertical object buried to a small proportion of its length, and Friedrich adds, reasonably, that it is difficult to groan (¢sqma8nw) if the head is buried in sand. Leaf found this passage absurd, and proposed that Mydon fell out of the back of the chariot, where his legs remained while his head and shoulders were on the ground; or over the side of the chariot, with knees hooked over the ¥ntux. But then how could the horses kick him? Van Leeuwen30 (ad loc.) suggested that he fell over the front of the chariot. Inter currum et equos suos pronus delapsus in densum pulverem incidit Mydon et sic eius corpus exanime aliquantisper constitit fronte currus atque equorum clunibus fultum (‘His body stood for a while supported by the front of the chariot and the backsides of the horses’). He was following the scholiast, who noted dhq> m£l, e;stˇkei: oÙk ¢p8qanon toàto: ºn2cqh g>r metax) tîn

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders ∑ppwn ka< toà ¤rmatoj, ka< Ãn = m5n kefal] buqisqe√sa … ‘This is not incredible: he was held up between the horses and the chariot, with his head hanging down’ or perhaps ‘buried’ (Erbse31 ad loc.) Thus one way of converting the phantasma to realism is to regard Mydon as propped up in some way by the horses and chariot. I have suggested a third possibility (Saunders B pp. 29-32, summarised here). This relies on an analysis of Homer’s use of ∑sthmi, which leads to the conclusion that 0stˇkei in 587 does not necessarily mean ‘stood upright’ let alone ‘stood upright head-down’.32 Then he may be lying or semi-recumbent, stuck in the soft sand. Indeed this is how Hammond translates it. If so, the action of the horses in line 588 is unnecessary, since he is already 1n kon8hisin and cannot be further demoted. But line 588 is potentially redundant: it can be excised without harming the syntax. If this is done, the phantasma goes with it. This third solution is perhaps textually too aggressive for modern tastes. Some may prefer the theory that Mydon is temporarily propped up by his equipment, in which case van Leeuwen, following the scholiast, has the best suggestion (above), though one not mentioned in recent commentaries. Others may wish to continue to think of it as a phantasma. (3) Alcathous. 13.428-44 (p. 12: Saunders A, pp. 348-9). Idomeneus stabs Alcathous with a spear. He falls and 442

dÒru d, 1n krad8hi 1pepˇgei, } "£ o; ¢spa8rousa ka< oÙr8acon pel2mizen 4gceoj: 4nqa d, 4peit, ¢f8ei m2noj Ôbrimoj -Arhj.

The spear was fixed in his heart and its dying palpitations shook the spear to the very butt till at last the imperious War-god Ares stilled its force. The older physicians took this quite seriously as indicating ‘a possible or at least not completely impossible occurrence’, as Friedrich says. Recent commentators take a different view. ‘An imaginative variation of the more realistic description of the spear still quivering after it has struck into the ground’ (Willcock). ‘A piece of exaggeration which looks more like the work of an interpolator than of a genuine epic poet (Leaf). ‘Surely Alcathous’ terrifying paralysis …. has its equal and opposite reaction, obeying some supernatural law of physics, in the spear’s bizarre motion’ (my italics: Janko). On this occasion, the older physicians were correct. Leaving theory aside, the possibility is proven by a case report which shows a knife wound with the blade

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders lying alongside the heart. The surgeon who removed it observed and recorded that the knife moved with the heartbeat. I made some calculations for a rather small (5 foot) spear which suggest that a small movement at the tip (less than a quarter of an inch) would produce an obvious movement at the butt (about an inch). The length of the knife blade in the case report is about 9 inches, judging by the photographs.33 So there is no doubt that the heart can shake a small spear. But Homer specifies a thrusting spear. Indeed the reasonable argument among the older physicians was about the maximum size of a weapon that could be vibrated. Küchenmeister calculated that the work output of the heartbeat was enough to raise a weight of 10 (German) pounds one quarter of an inch, or a weight of 5 pounds half an inch.34 Körner on the other hand thought that nothing larger than an arrow would vibrate. They were working on speculation, without benefit of observation (the case report) or a modern knowledge of cardiac function. There is now no doubt that the heart could move an arrow, a throwing spear, or a short thrusting spear. The wound itself is not a phantasma, but if Homer intends a heavy long thrusting spear, the weapon is probably inappropriate. Friedrich then briefly considers spears which quiver after they have stuck in the ground, at 16.612-3 and 17.528-9. To do this, the shaft must be flexible, and for a throwing spear it may have been, and the tip may be embedded in something hard, so that there is a fixed point that the shaft can vibrate from.35 If the earth is soft, the vibration will be damped out. Javelins used in athletics in the 1940s had bamboo shafts, and my memory is that they could vibrate for a second or so on impact. Fenik’s supposition that the spear quivering in Alcathous’ chest is ‘clearly a perverse variation of 16.612-13 and 17.528 where the spear quivers when it has stuck in the ground’ seems misplaced.36 The two mechanisms involved are both quite possible and quite different. (4) Aretus. 17.516-24 (p. 14). Automedon hits Aretus with a spear thrust to the lower belly (line 519), and 523 ìj ¥r, Ó ge proqorën p2sen Ûptioj: 1n d2 o; 4gcoj nhdu8oisi m£l, Ñx) kradainÒmenon lÚe gu√a. so Aretus sprang forward and then fell on his back. The sharp spear quivered in his guts and drew the life from him. This is much more difficult. This spear cannot vibrate mechanically like one impacted in the ground, since the belly is soft. If this episode

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders is realistic, something must be moving the spear, and the only source of power is the aorta, the biggest of the arteries, which is in the centre of the abdomen at the back. Being an artery, it is pulsatile, since it expands transitorily as each separate output of the heart (stroke volume) is rammed down it. The aorta is about an inch across. The reader may get some guess at the magnitude of its pulsation by feeling the radial pulse at the wrist, and asking what sort of pulsation a vessel an inch across might produce. I suppose it might move an adjacent spear tip by a millimetre, and possibly that degree of movement at the tip might produce a visible quivering at the butt. But I have no case report. (5) Pandarus. 5.290-3 (p. 17). Diomedes, on the ground, hits Pandarus, in a chariot, with a spearcast on the face. 290

b2loj d, ∏qunen ’Aqˇnh "√na par, ÑfqalmÒn, leuko)j d, 1p2rhsen ÑdÒntaj. toà d, ¢pÕ m5n glîssan prumn]n t£me calkÕj ¢teirˇj, a9cm] d, 1xelÚqh par> ne8aton ¢nqereîna.

His spear, guided by Athena, came down on top of Pandarus’ nose by the eye and passed between his white teeth. His tongue was cut off at the root by the relentless bronze, and the point came out under his chin. The path of the missile seems too vertical for a spear-shot from a man on foot to a man on a chariot. Friedrich finds the description ‘completely irrational’ and quotes Von der Mühll, Riemschneider, Küchenmeister and Ameis-Hentze. There are two ancient approaches to explanation, first that Pandarus was stooping forwards, second that Athena put some last-second spin on the missile. Both go back to the b scholiast. Modern commentators get us no further, but Kirk, who finds neither explanation ‘very persuasive’, remarks that ‘the minute description depends more on the singer’s desire to create an effect than on any special keenness of observation’ and with this position I have considerable sympathy (see Conclusions). I doubt if any of the commentators have looked at the lateral and antero-posterior views of the skull (or for that matter, in a mirror) with this wound in mind. The spear goes in at the side of the nose, across, downwards and backwards, between the teeth and through the tongue, to emerge behind the angle of the jaw on the other side of the neck. If the skull is erect, the angle of trajectory is about 45o in both lateral and antero-posterior planes – not an impossible striking

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders angle for an incoming throwing spear, but if it causes anxiety let us by all means have Pandarus’ neck, or lumbar spine, or hips, or any combination of these, flexed by 20º.37 In short, I don’t see much of a problem. The fact that Pandarus’ tongue is severed seems ironic. He was a chatterbox (5.218). (6) Archelochus. 14.459-66 (p. 19: Saunders A, pp. 357-8). Ajax throws a spear at Polydamas, who avoids it, but it hits Archelochus. 465 tÒn ", 4balen kefalÁj te ka< aÙc2noj 1n suneocmîi, ne8aton ¢str£galon, ¢pÕ d, ¥mfw k2rse t2nonte: toà d5 pol) prÒteron kefal] stÒma te "√n2j te oÜdeï plÁnt, | per knÁmai ka< goàna pesÒntoj. It hit him where the head meets the neck on the topmost segment of the spine. It severed both tendons and, as he fell, his forehead, mouth and nose hit the ground well before his legs and knees. As Friedrich says, commentators provide several possibilities. The most important are first that the head is completely severed from the body and hits the ground before the rest of the corpse, and second that the wound causes the head to drop forward with a similar but less spectacular result. A third suggestion, that the victim executes a sort of diving header, seems unnecessary. Friedrich leaves the matter ‘open’. Leaf does not decide between the first two possibilities. Janko prefers the first because of parallel phrasing to the description of the decapitation of Dolon, but notes its implausibility. One thing only is certain: the head cannot be severed by a spear-cast. The idea that a piercing weapon not more than three inches wide could sever in one stroke a structure made of bone, cartilage, gristle and flesh which is about six inches in diameter is impossible and indeed ludicrous. If this is what Homer intended, it is both a phantasma and the most striking example of wound-weapon mismatch. Homer’s anatomical description is unhelpful here, since suneocmîi is hapax and the t2nonte are unidentifiable. I have given some anatomical arguments that (in summary) the spear severed the spine at the joint between the first and second (atlas and axis) or second and third cervical vertebrae. The head would then indeed drop forward, in accordance with the second hypothesis above. This is my preferred solution, a variant of the motif of neck wound followed by drooping head (and kèdeia appears quite shortly at 499). In summary, this

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders episode is either a phantasma or describes the unusual result of a posterior neck wound. (7) Ilioneus. 14.487-505 (p. 19: Saunders A, pp. 358-9 and Fig. 7). Peneleus hits Ilioneus with a spear-thrust in the eye. The eyeball is extruded and the spear goes on and out through the back of the head. tÕn tÒq, Øp, ÑfrÚoj oâta kat, Ñfqalmo√o q2meqla, 1k d, (se glˇnhn: dÒru d, Ñfqalmo√o diaprÕ 495 ka< di> 9n8on Ãlqen, Peneleus struck him under the eyebrow in the socket of the eye. The spear dislodged his eyeball, pierced the eye-socket and came out at the back of his head. There is nothing unrealistic about this, but there can be some debate about the spear-path. Leaf, Willcock and Janko all take 9n8on to mean ∏j, that is some tendon at the back of the neck. Leaf refers to ‘the great tendon at the back of the neck which holds the head upright’, but there isn’t one. I have argued that 9n8on meant then, as it means now in modern anatomy, a point at the back of the skull, or occiput. (It can be felt as a bump the size of a sixpence in the middle of the back of the head right at the top of the neck.) Both Aristotle and Eustathius took it this way. But see (23) Pedaius below. (8) Lycon. 16.339-41 (p. 20). Peneleus hits Lycon in the neck below the ear, and almost severs it. [ d, Øp, oÜatoj aÙc2na qe√ne 340 Phnel2wj, p©n d, e∏sw 4du x8foj, 4sceqe d, o!on d2rma, parh2rqh d5 k£rh, Øp2lunto d5 gu√a. But Peneleus slashed Lycon in the neck behind the ear and his sword blade sliced right through. Nothing held but a piece of skin, and from that Lycon’s head dangled down as he sank to the ground. Here Friedrich finds both gruesomeness and incredibility in the head hanging down held only by the skin. It is difficult to see why. If one accepts that the neck can be severed by a single sword blow, clearly it can be almost severed, which is what is described here. (9) Erymas. 16.345-50 (p. 20: Saunders A, pp. 361-2 and Fig. 9). Idomeneus stabs Erymas in the mouth. The spear knocks out teeth and goes through bone.

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders 346 tÕ d, ¢ntikr) dÒru c£lkeon 1xep2rhse n2rqen Øp, 1gkef£loio, k2asse d, ¥r, Ñst2a leuk£: 1k d5 t8nacqen ÑdÒntej, 1n2plhsqen d2 o; ¥mfw a∑matoj Ñfqalmo8. The metal point of the spear penetrated under his brain and smashed the white jaw-bones. His teeth were knocked out; both his eyes filled with blood; Friedrich objects first because the bones are described as white, like the bleached bones of a long-dead man – but the surface of living bone can be white, too. Second, he reasonably objects to the possibility that all the teeth are knocked out – but Homer does not say this. The serious problem in this passage is that both eyes (eyeballs, not eye sockets) fill up with blood, as ludicrous a possibility as that they might both fall out on to the ground. I have noted that a variety of anterior facial wounds can cause haemorrhage under the conjunctiva (the ‘skin’ of the eyeball), which is obvious to the onlooker and bloody, but this is a feeble explanation as it is not instantaneous. In short this is a phantasma, but not for the reasons which Friedrich gives. (10) Peisandrus. 13.605-19 (p. 21: Saunders A, pp. 351-2 and Fig. 4). Menelaus strikes Peisandrus on the forehead with his sword. The eyeballs drop out of the skull onto the ground: |toi [ m5n kÒruqoj f£lon |lasen ;ppodase8hj 615 ¥kron ØpÕ lÒfon aÙtÒn, [ d5 prosiÒnta m2twpon "inÕj Ûper pum£thj: l£ke d, Ñst2a, të d2 o; Ôsse p>r pos nîta q2ousa diamper5j aÙc2n, ;k£nei: t]n ¢pÕ p©san 4kersen. Antilochus, seizing a moment when Thoon’s back was turned, leapt in and stabbed him. He sheered off the whole vein that runs up the back to the neck. Homer here gives an impression of precision, by repeating ¢pÕ p©san 4kersen, although unusually he does not specify the assault weapon, presumably a spear. But there is no such vein, nor, since this is the first occurrence of the word fl2y, is there any guarantee that Homer meant by it what we now classify as a vein, that is a relatively thin-walled conduit in which blood returns to the heart.38 Körner,39 following the scholiasts, and Aristotle and Küchenmeister,40 tried to make this vessel into the aorta, the main artery which runs up from the heart towards the neck, then loops down in front of the spine to about the level of the navel, where it divides: or into the vena cava, the largest vein which accompanies the aorta for the later part of its course. No recent commentator has agreed, for, as Willcock says, these vessels are a long way from the surface and protected from a stab in the back by the spinal column. (Thoon is metastrefqe8j.) Thompson, following Heyne,41 favours the only large vein in the neck, that is the internal jugular which runs rather superficially and

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders anteriorly, emerging from behind the medial end of the collar bone and proceeding in a line towards the lobe of the ear. A stab wound through it would cause serious but not torrential bleeding – not a spectacular result. Janko speculates that the spinal cord might be the intended structure, which indeed runs within and all the way up the spine, and could be completely severed by a stab wound. But in all later Greek fl2y refers to a hollow conduit of some sort.42 There is no solution. This description is not realistic. But remarkably few listeners or readers will know that. (13) Amphiclus. 16.313-16 (p. 35: Saunders A, pp. 359-61 and Fig. 8). Meges hits Amphiclus with a spear-thrust ‘at the top of his leg where a man’s muscle is thickest’. Fule•dhj d, -Amfiklon 1formhq2nta dokeÚsaj 4fqh Ñrex£menoj prumnÕn sk2loj, 4nqa p£cistoj 315 muën ¢nqrèpou p2letai: per< d, 4gceoj a9cmÁi neàra diesc8sqh. Meges kept his eye on him and got in first with a spear-thrust on the top of the leg where a man’s muscle is very thick. The spear-point tore through the tendons. Friedrich classifies this together with (12) Thoon above as examples of anatomical pseudorealism. It is true that tendons in Homer are never identifiable, except at 22.396 where Achilles passes straps behind the two ankle tendons of Hector’s dead body in order to drag it behind his chariot.43 He has two further objections. First, he feels that the ‘thickest muscle’ must be gluteus maximus, as do Leaf, Janko and Fenik.44 But how can Amphiclus be hit in the back of the thigh or the buttock when he is 1formhq2nta? Muscles are irregularly shaped structures. Where would one measure thickness? How? It is foolish to think that Homer could separate what we now call gluteus maximus from all the overlapping thick muscles of the thigh. I suggest that, on the contrary, p£cistoj / muèn simply refers to a region of the thigh where the muscle bulk is prominent. The front of the thigh is perfectly appropriate, but the gluteus maximus is mainly in the buttock. It is possible that the buttock might be the prumnÕn sk2loj, but why invoke a more complicated explanation? The second objection (from the scholiasts) is that such a stab wound is relatively harmless. But a stab wound in the thigh just below the groin medial to the femur and passing posteriorly and laterally could

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders sever the femoral artery and vein, the profunda femoris blood vessels, the femoral nerve, the sciatic nerve, pierce three thick muscles (adductores: longus, brevis and magnus) and finally emerge through the gluteus maximus. (Saunders A, Fig. 8. For that matter it could start in the buttock and follow the reverse course). This is a long way from harmless, since it severs all major vascular and neural connections to the leg. It would not cause sudden death, but this, as we have seen, is Homeric convention. (14) Tros. 20.463-72 (p. 35). Achilles hits Tros in the belly with his sword: the liver slips out. [ d5 fasg£nwi oâta kaq, Âpar: 470 1k d2 o; Âpar Ôlisqen, ¢t>r m2lan aƒma kat, aÙtoà kÒlpon 1n2plhsen: Achilles struck him in the liver with his sword. The liver slithered out and drenched his lap with dark blood. Of course the liver cannot slip out, as Leaf notes: it is attached to the diaphragm by three ligaments.45 It could, I suppose, appear in the wound, but it must be a slashing wound, rather than a stab, and this is entirely appropriate for the bronze slashing sword which Homer’s warriors use. Homer enjoys this sort of thing, I believe, however unpleasant it may seem to some modern readers. His use of the special word 1xolisq£nw is disgracefully onomatopoeic. The only other time he uses it is when the lesser Ajax slips in cow dung during the foot race in the funeral games. (15) Deucalion. 20.478-83 (p. 36). Achilles decapitates Deucalion with a sword. 481

[ d5 fasg£nwi aÙc2na qe8naj tÁl, aÙtÁi pˇlhki k£rh b£le: muelÕj aâte sfondul8wn 4kpalq, …

Achilles struck the man’s neck with his sword and sent head and helmet flying off together. The marrow spurted out of his vertebrae … 4kpalq, must mean some spasmodic or sudden event. After decapitation, red blood will spurt spectacularly from the arteries of the neck, and dark blood will flood out of the veins, but nothing will happen to

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders the muelÒj, whether it means the marrow of the vertebrae, which is a spongy substance under no pressure, or the substance of the spinal cord, or cerebrospinal fluid, which surrounds the cord at a pressure of a few centimeters of water. (16) Polydorus. 20.407-18 (p. 38). Achilles stabs Polydorus in the back with a spear, which passes right through the body and comes out by the navel. His guts come out through the exit wound. tÕn b£le m2sson ¥konti pod£rkhj d√oj ,Acille)j nîta para8ssontoj, Óqi zwstÁroj ÑcÁej 415 crÚseioi sÚnecon ka< diplÒoj |nteto qèrhx: ¢ntikr) d5 di2sce par, ÑmfalÕn 4gceoj a9cmˇ, gn)x d, 4rip, o9mèxaj, nef2lh d2 min ¢mfek£luye kuan2h, prot< oƒ d5 l£b, 4ntera cers< liasqe8j. As he sprinted past, swift-footed godlike Achilles threw his spear at the middle of his back where the golden buckles of his belt were fastened and his body-armour overlapped. The spear-point went right on through him and came out by his navel. He dropped to his knees with a scream, the dark cloud of death enveloped him and, as he sank, he clutched his guts to him with his hands. Alternatively in Hammond’s translation, the guts did not come out, but they would have done if Polydorus had not held them in. Friedrich notes several problems here. The first involves the general difficulty of visualising Homeric body armour, in particular the relation between qèrhx, zwstˇr and m8trh, which will not be pursued here.46 The second is that the description of the corselet and belt fastenings is repeated at 4.134-5, where Menelaus is wounded by Pandarus’ arrow. But Menelaus is wounded in the front, whereas here Achilles stabs Pandarus in the back. One of these must surely be inappropriate. Third, Friedrich pursues Homer’s use of m2soj / m2ssoj at considerable length, seeking some sort of anatomical precision, even where an arrow strikes a pigeon at 23.875, but it seems that overall Homer really uses this word in no very definite sense. This is not to say that the site of belly wounds is undefined. If a wound is m2shi d, 1n gast2ri it involves the qèrhx on five of six occurrences. If it is neia8rhi d, 1n gastr8, at the base of the belly, it involves the zwstˇr, on three of four occasions. If, twice, it is par, ÑmfalÒn, no armour is cited. Thus Homer sees the qèrhx as protecting the upper belly and the zwstˇr the lower belly below the navel. But we must also consider the guts spilling, or

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders potentially spilling, from the exit wound, and there are two other examples. (17) Diores. 4.517-26 (p. 39). Peirous stabs Diores in the belly with a spear. Ój ", 4bal2n per 525 Pe8rooj, oâta d5 dour< par, ÑmfalÒn: 1k d, ¥ra p©sai cÚnto cama< col£dej, tÕn d5 skÒtoj Ôsse k£luye. But Peirous, the man who had hit him, ran up and stabbed him by the navel with his spear. His guts gushed out on to the ground, and darkness engulfed his eyes. The same phrases occur when Achilles kills Asteropaius at 21.179-81, but Achilles uses a sword. Here is another example of Homeric onomatopoeia (and extraordinary alliteration with c) with a particularly unpleasant event. Guts can come out of the belly through an open slash which gapes open, most likely the small bowel, loops of which are mobile and anterior in the abdominal cavity. But they cannot come out through a puncture wound, and surely not through a puncture wound which is still plugged by the spear.47 Thus with (16) Polydorus and (17) Diores we have good examples of the weapon (spear) being inappropriate to the wound, whereas with Asteropaius, the wound is appropriately made by a slashing sword.48 Low realism By this Friedrich seems to mean episodes of wounding which some readers have found indecent or at least undignified. The examples he discusses are not unrealistic, and only two need detain us here. (18) Phereclus. 5.59-68 (p. 42: Saunders A, pp. 352-4 and Figs 5, 6). 65

tÕn m5n MhriÒnhj, Óte d] kat2marpte dièkwn, beblˇkei gloutÕn k£ta dexiÒn: = d5 diaprÕ ¢ntikr) kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on |luq, ¢kwkˇ. Meriones pursued him and, when he caught him, hit him in the right buttock. The spear-head passed clean through to the bladder under the pubic bone.

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders An identical wound is later inflicted, again by Meriones, but this time with an arrow. (19) Harpalion. 13.650-2 (p. 83). 650 MhriÒnhj d, ¢piÒntoj ∑ei calkˇre, Ñi::stÕn ka8 ", 4bale gloutÕn k£ta dexiÒn: aÙt>r ÑïstÕj ¢ntikr) kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on 1xep2rhsen. As he withdrew, Meriones shot him with a bronze-headed arrow and hit him in the right buttock. The arrow went clean through his bladder and came out under the pubic bone. Here I disagree with Hammond’s translation, since he unnecessarily inverts the order of kat> kÚstin Øp, Ñst2on, but agree with the Rieu/Jones version for (19) Harpalion. The missile passes through the greater sciatic notch in the pelvis (Saunders A, Fig. 5), transfixes the bladder and emerges under the bony pubic arch in the front. This, as Thompson49 showed, is anatomically perfectly practical. This description replaced the theory of Malgaigne (1842) translated by Grmek50 that it went ‘from back to front and from below to above, … through the gluteus maximus, the ischio-pubic foramen, the bladder and the pubic arch’, which is wrong for three reasons. The foramen and the arch described lie almost in the same plane, so an arrow cannot go through both. The base of the bladder lies just behind the symphysis pubis, just above the pubic arch, so any weapon travelling through the pubic arch will miss the bladder unless it is angled sharply downward, certainly not ‘from below to above’. Third, it would be somewhat difficult to shoot an arrow which hit the buttock and then angled upward, unless, I suppose, the recipient were standing on a hill.51 What is remarkable is the trajectory of the weapon. It is natural to think that the course from buttock through bladder and out at the front would be closer to horizontal than vertical, sloping downwards, appropriate for a targeted arrow or throwing spear. In fact when it is tested in an assembled skeleton it is much closer to vertical (about 25o off – Saunders A, Fig. 6).The sharply downward trajectory of this wound may be suggested by the three prepositions (kat£, kat£, ØpÒ) which govern buttock, bladder and bone respectively. In real war, massed archers fire arrows high in the air to descend almost vertically on a massed enemy, but we are not dealing with Agincourt here. Arrow shots in Homer are targeted and therefore have a trajectory nearer to horizontal, as observation of any modern archery contest will show. Teucer shoots from a kneeling position

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders suitable for a low trajectory. As for the possibility that the wound could be inflicted with a throwing spear, Meriones is at close quarters, and again the trajectory of the thrown spear should be nearly flat. In fact both wounds are appropriate for a right-handed downward stabbing blow on a fleeing enemy. If the victim’s trunk were tipped forward in flight, the weapon trajectory would be even closer to vertical. In both cases, therefore, the victim is in flight, the wounds are entirely realistic, but the weapon is different and in both cases (arrow and throwing spear) mismatched to the wound. What is needed is a short stabbing spear – an assegai, for example. Friedrich gets close to this with (18) Phereclus when he notes that kat2marpte dièkwn ‘does not go at all well with beblˇkei .… It describes the complete act of catching up, and this gives the opportunity for a stab or a blow, not a throw.’ Other problematic wounds (20) Hector. 14.409-20, 436-9; 15.10-11, 239-42 (pp. 27-9: Saunders A, pp. 354-7). Ajax hits Hector on the chest with a thrown rock. Hector collapses, is carried away by his friends and recovers. tÕn m5n 4peit, ¢piÒnta m2gaj Telamènioj A∏aj 410 cermad8wi, t£ "a poll> qo£wn 4cmata nhîn p>r pos< marnam2nwn 1kul8ndeto, tîn 6n ¢e8raj stÁqoj beblˇkei Øp5r ¥ntugoj ¢gcÒqi deirÁj … As he withdrew, great Ajax son of Telamon picked up one of the many boulders that had been used to support the ships and had rolled among the feet of the combatants, and with this hit Hector on the chest just below the neck over the rim of his shield … This celebrated scene, which is recounted as a series of four episodes in two books, has more problems than those already raised by commentators. Where is Hector hit? On the chest (stÁqoj), near the neck (¢gcÒqi deirÁj). Is this anterior? Presumably, since it goes Øp5r ¥ntugoj, above the rim of his shield. If so it must be below the level of the collarbone, which if involved would likely have been broken and rendered the ipsilateral arm useless. ‘Close by the neck’ is an odd way to describe this site. Or is it posterior? Hector is ¢p8wn when he is hit, and although this normally implies that the victim is backing away, it need not do so.52 Hector would prudently have slung his shield over

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders his back to protect it if he had turned away. Then he might have been hit over the upper edge of the shoulder-blade, which is still the chest in modern parlance. But of the thirteen other occurrences of stÁqoj in 13-16, eight indubitably mean the front of the chest, since they refer to wounds in an oncoming fighter, or occurring when the victim is Üptioj; or in one case the wound is located par> m£zon. In the other five the meaning is ambiguous in this respect but there is no suggestion that the back of the chest is involved. The clearest definition is at 8.325 Óqi klhn k8nhsin ¢fikom2noij.56 In 15.10, ¢rgal2wi ¥sqmati is highly appropriate, as deep or even normal breathing can be excruciatingly painful in someone with injury to the chest wall and underlying lung. In 15.241 «sqma ka< ;drèj is more difficult. People do sweat from activation of the sympathetic nervous system when they are frightened or as a response of the sympathetic system to low blood pressure (‘shock’, technically). Both mechanisms are possible here. But the commonest cause of panting and sweating is simple exercise (where sweating is an important temperature control mechanism), and I suspect that «sqma ka< ;drèj is formulaic, and only approximately appropriate here. (21) Pylaimenes. 5.576-9 (p. 9, note 5). He is 0staÒta as Menelaus gives him a fatal wound with a spear thrust around the collarbone. (It is not a phantasma, but considered in that section as a derivative parallel.) Friedrich raises a problem with 0staÒta ‘as concise as it is unclear’. In Homer the paradigm known as the perfect tense retains the stative aspect of Proto-Indo-

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders European; that is, it is neither perfective nor a tense. Nor does it mean ‘present state resulting from previous action or experience’.57 It simply describes a state of affairs. The first and second perfects of ∑sthmi are used especially to describe the position of inanimate objects (a cup, a tree stump, a ship, stakes in a trench), but also of animals and humans. The perfect participle 0stèj is used with one exception (spears in a hut) referring to animals and humans. It means ‘standing stock still’ or ‘as he stood’. An element of consternation is sometimes implied, but is not mandatory. (22) Aeneas. 5.303-10 (p. 17). 305 tîi b£len A9ne8ao kat, 9sc8on, 4nqa te mhrÕj 9sc8wi 1nstr2fetai, kotÚlhn d2 t2 min kal2ousi. ql£sse d2 o; kotÚlhn, prÕj d, ¥mfw "Áxe t2nonte: With this (rock) he hit Aeneas on the hip where the thigh turns in the hip joint – the cup-bone, as they call it. He crushed the cup-bone and broke both sinews too. This has been cited as an example of Homer’s anatomical expertise, but it requires very little. Anyone who has butchered or eaten beef or mutton, or has seen human bones, knows that there is a ball-andsocket joint at the top of the back leg. The diagnosis of a pelvic fracture could only have been made by stressing the pelvis and listening for crepitus, that is the sound of broken bone surfaces grating together, probably not a good idea. The dual tendons are, as usual, not identifiable. (23) Pedaius. 5.69-75 (p. 65). Meges hits Pedaius from behind with a spear-cast.

75

tÕn m5n Fule•dhj dour8klutoj 1ggÚqen 1lqën beblˇkei kefalÁj kat> 9n8on Ñx2i:: dour8: ¢ntikr) d’ ¢n, ÑdÒntaj ØpÕ glîssan t£me calkÒj: |ripe d, 1n kon8hi, yucrÕn d, 3le calkÕn Ñdoàsin. The great spearman Meges caught this man up and hit him with his sharp spear on the nape of the head. The point came through between his teeth and cut out the root of his tongue. He collapsed in the dust and bit the cold bronze with his teeth.

It is very clear that the blade must come out more or less horizontally in front between the upper and lower jaw, and that it goes through

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders the tongue on the way. I have argued above for (7) Ilioneus that the 9n8on is a point on the back of the head, rather than the back of the neck. A glance at the lateral view of the skull (e.g. Saunders A, Fig. 7) shows that a missile going through the tongue and out between the teeth will probably not go through the skull, i.e. pierce it at the 9n8on, but will rather slide just below it and proceed horizontally. Perhaps the ‘nape’ is the best translation. (24) Sarpedon. 5.692-5 (p. 95). Sarpedon has been wounded in the thigh by a spear-cast from Tlepolemos. o; m5n ¥r, ¢nt8qeon SarphdÒna d√oi 0ta√roi eƒsan Øp, a9giÒcoio DiÕj perikall2i:: fhgîi: 1k d, ¥ra o; mhroà dÒru me8linon (se qÚraze 695 ∏fqimoj Pel£gwn But godlike Sarpedon was removed by his men and laid under a lovely oak tree, sacred to Zeus who drives the storm-cloud. There his close companion, mighty Pelagon, extracted the ash spear from his thigh. The problem here is that Pelagon seems to be practising diwsmÒj, that is pushing the missile on and out through the thigh, an unlikely tactic with a spear. Salazar58 comments on Friedrich’s ‘elaborate argument (p. 95, n. 44) in order to explain away the action of “pushing” the spear, which is quite obviously implied in the text: the use of çqe√n, he argues, is triggered by the word qÚraze, in which the image of pushing the intruder out of the entrance is so strong that the poet could be using (se without actually intending it as the action implied by the verb.’ It is the same argument which I put forward as a partial explanation of eyeballs falling to the ground ((10) Peisandrus and (11) Cebriones). There I suggested that the influence of the verb p8ptw is so strong that locative phrases meaning ‘to the ground’ are attracted to it. (25) Adamas. 13.567-75 (p. 43). Adamas is hit by a spear-cast from Meriones in the lower belly: MhriÒnhj d, ¢piÒnta metaspÒmenoj b£le dour< a9do8wn te meshg) ka< Ñmfaloà, 4nqa m£lista g8gnet, -Arhj ¢legeinÕj Ñizuro√si broto√sin. 570 4nqa o; 4gcoj 4phxen: [ d5 spÒmenoj per< dour< |spair, æj Óte boàj, tÒn t, oÜresi boukÒloi ¥ndrej

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders 9ll£sin oÙk 1q2lonta b8hi dˇsantej ¥gousin: ìj [ tupe d5 doàra) … 1n ga8hi ∑stanto lilaiÒmena croÕj «sai. Significantly, Homer does not use the stative in this context. The spears have ‘gone and stood’ in the earth. They are personified by their ‘eagerness to taste flesh’, but also by the morphology of ∑sthmi (see (21) Pylaimenes and n. 57 below). 33. In the case report, there is a picture of the chest opened, with the knife passing down by the side of the heart, as well as the picture reproduced in Saunders A. 34. Küchenmeister (see n. 1 above, p. 40) used calculations made by German physiologists (unreferenced) to the effect that the mechanical work during a single heart beat at heart-rate 60 beats/min was 0.035 kilogrammetres. This is equivalent, as he said, to lifting about 3.5 ounces to a height of one foot. (The German Pfund, I assume, was then as now 0.5 kg, and the Unze one-sixteenth of that.) Then the heart could lift to the height of a quarter of an inch a spear weighing 48 x 3.5 = 168 ounces, or 10.5 German pounds, or 5.25 kg. Friedrich seems to have misunderstood him in that he seems to think that Küchenmeister specifies a spear of weight 15 lb (p. 14), and it is not clear where this number comes from. The concept is in any case oversimplified. To make relevant calculations, one would need to know how the heart’s force was applied to the spear – not a matter of simple lifting. 35. As an example of a missile which will vibrate on impact, take an arrow with a flexible shaft shot into a tree – as those who saw early Robin Hood films may recall. 36. B. Fenik, 1968: Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad, Hermes Einzelschriften 21, Wiesbaden, p. 133. 37. There are several ways of bending forward. 38. C.F. Salazar (see n. 11 above), pp. 114-15 notes that fl2y is later used to describe vessels carrying, variously, arterial or venous blood, pn2uma, milk or semen. 39. For Körner, see p. 34. 40. See Küchenmeister (n. 1 above), p. 44. 41. C.G. Heyne, 1834: Homeri Ilias, Oxford. 42. C.F. Salazar (see n. 38 above). 43. t2nonte also at 4.521, 5.307, 10.456, 17.290 and 22.396. t2nontej at 16.587 and 20.478. neàra only in this passage. 44. B. Fenik (see n. 36 above), p. 196. 45. They are called the coronary, and right and left triangular ligaments. 46. See H.L. Lorimer, 1950: Homer and the Monuments, Oxford, pp. 196-211, 245-50; and Leaf Appendix B. 47. Friedrich makes this point elsewhere (p. 60). 48. With (16) Tros a slashing sword has made an appropriate wound for the liver to slip out of – but it can’t. 49. A.R. Thompson (see n. 3 above). He thinks that Homer’s anatomical knowledge is such that he specifies the right buttock for Harpalion’s wound, since if it had gone from the left, the arrow would have damaged the rectum as well as the bladder. This is anatomically true, but I think it goes too far.

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders 50. J.F. Malgaigne (see n. 3 above). M.D. Grmek (see n. 4 above), p. 32. 51. When I wrote the original account in CQ, I used Grmek’s version (translated by the Muellners [see n. 4 above], p. 32) which quoted Malgaigne (see n. 3 above, p. 17) to say that the missile passed through the ‘ischio-pubic foramen’. A foramen is an opening or hole, and the only hole which involves the ischium and pubis is that now known as the obturator foramen. This makes the wound path completely impractical. I had not then been able to trace Malgaigne’s original account – there seems to be no copy in the UK – but when I did, I found that he said that the spear went through le grand trou sciatique. In contemporary French textbooks of Anatomy (J. Cloquet, 182131: Anatomie de l’homme, Paris; J-B.M. Bourgery, 1832-54: Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme comprenant la médicine operatoire, Paris; C.L. Bonamy, P. Broca and E. Beau, 1844-66: Atlas d’anatomie descriptive du corps humain, Paris), le grand trou sciatique is nowhere mentioned. We do find le trou sous-pubien, which is the obturator foramen, which is the meaning that Grmek or his translators took, and which makes no anatomical sense. We also find la grande échancrure sciatique, which is the greater sciatic notch, which Thompson pointed out as the true entry point of the weapon into the pelvis. I suspect that this is what Malgaigne intended, but I suppose we should not award him priority. 52. LSJ ¥peimi (2) occurs eight times in the Iliad, always as the present participle. Of six occurrences in combat, one definitely refers to departure with the back turned (13.650, where Harpalion is hit in the buttock by Meriones) and four definitely to backing away (13.516, 13.567, 14.409 and 14.461). 53. B. Fenik (see n. 36 above), p. 45. 54. I take ¢mpnÚnqh with Janko, rather than 1mpnÚnqh. In the Iliad, ¢napn2w is normally active in voice and means literally ‘take breath’ or more metaphorically ‘get respite from’, e.g pÒnoio or kakÒthtoj (10 of 11 occurrences). ¢mpnÚnqh is unique, and passive, and perhaps close to the middle ¥mpnuto, twice in the Odyssey, both times with ka< 1j fr2na qumÕj ¢g2rqh. The first of these refers to Odysseus’ recovery, when cast up on the beach, from the state of being ¥pneustoj ka< ¥naudoj, ‘without breath or speech’ but not unconscious. The second refers to the recovery of Laertes who is overcome by the revelation that the stranger is his son. Odysseus catches him as he collapses ¢poyÚconta (again unique), but before he loses consciousness. 55. On these four occasions, n)x 1k£luye definitely signifies temporary loss of consciousness. At 13.580, where Deipyrus is hit on the head and his helmet struck off, it probably means death. At 5.659, where Tlepolemus is hit by a spear which goes clean through his neck, it almost certainly means death. Once at 10.201 it is used more literally – ‘night covered the battlefield’. 56. Galen, In Hippocratis aphorismos commentarii vi, ed. Kühn. Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 17.2, Leipzig, 1821. 57. A.L. Sihler, 1995: A New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, pp. 445-8, 564-6. 58. C.F. Salazar (see n. 11 above), p. 143. 59. Lines 481 and 504 are the only two instances in the Iliad (out of 178) where fr2nej has an anatomical meaning, and it is therefore appropriate to

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Appendix by K.B. Saunders use the first to interpret the second. Since the diaphragm is a thin fibromuscular sheet separating the thoracic and abdominal cavities, a wound involving it must pierce it and therefore injure organs both above and below it. On the right, these are lung above and liver below. On the left they are lung or heart above, and stomach or spleen below. Crossing over the boundary between frˇn / fr2nej = mind, and fr2nej = some structure, probably the lung here, is the metaphorical wound at 19.125: tÕn d, ¥coj Ñx) kat> fr2na tÚye baqe√an, where ÑxÚ and tÚye come straight from the battlefield. 60. C.F. Salazar (see n. 11 above) noted this Ovidian parallel. 61. M.M. Innes, 1955: Ovid, Metamorphoses, Harmondsworth. Ovid cleverly gets in both the lung and the diaphragm, according to Innes’ translation. 62. Perhaps 504 and 505 are an amalgamation of two originally independent and alternative versions.

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