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Joining Battle in Homer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. B. Hainsworth
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Extract

More that thirty years ago W. Arend decisively showed that in Homer routine operations such as sacrificing and arming conform to a regular pattern. When a warrior arms himself, first are mentioned his greaves, then his cuirass, sword, shield, helmet, and spear(s), invariably in this order; at a sacrifice, first comes prayer and barley sprinkling, then the slaughter of the victim and its flaying, the cutting of the meat, its preparation, roasting, and serving. The embellishing varies a good deal, I suppose in accordance with the pace of the narrative or other aesthetic considerations; thus the Opfermahl scene has 21 possible operations: in the Iliad A 447 ff. has 18, B 402 ff. 17, H 314 ff. 6, Ω. 621 ff. 4, and ψ 166 a mere ἔδερόν τε κα⋯ ἄμεπον.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , October 1966 , pp. 158 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1966

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References

page 158 note 1 Arend, W., Die typischen Scenen bet Homer, Problemata 7 (Berlin, 1933)Google Scholar with discussion of the sacrifice and feast, arrival and departure, arming and dressing, sleeping, pondering, the assembly, oath taking, and bathing: cf. Calhoun, G. M., ‘Homeric Repetitions’, Univ. Calif. Publ. Class. Phil. 12, 1–25Google Scholar. Beye, C. R., ‘Homeric battle narrative and catalogues’, HSCP 68 (1964), 345–73Google Scholar, examines the ⋯νδροκτασίαι from the same standpoint. The integration of the evidence into the theory of the oral Homer was first made by M. Parry in reviewing Arend, , CPh 31 (1936), 357–60.Google Scholar

page 158 note 2 Cf. Γ 328 ff., Λ 16 ff., Π 130 ff., T 364 ff. It appears not to have been observed that the order ‘shield—helmet’ implies a shield slung on a baldric which must be passed over an unencumbered head and then leaves both hands free to adjust the helmet. Whatever may be the case with the details of the equipment, the order of dressing was fixed in prehoplite times.

page 158 note 3 Cf. A 458 ff., B 402 ff., γ 430 ff., and many abbreviated passages.

page 158 note 4 Cf. Armstrong, J. I., ‘The arming motif in the Iliad’, AJP 79 (1958), 337–54.Google Scholar

page 159 note 1 The argumentum is given by the Iliaca, Tabula (IG xiv. 1285Google Scholar, quoted by Allen, T. W., Homeri Opera v. 126)Google Scholar as follows: Πενθεσιληα αμαων Παραγινεται αχιλλευς Πενθεσιληαν αποκτεινει μεμνων αντιλοχον αποκτεινει αχιλλευς μεμνονα αποκτεινει εν ταις σκαιαις Πυλαις αχιλλευς υπο [παριδος αναιρειται, cf. Proclus' summary, ibid. 105–6.

page 159 note 2 e.g. Whitman, C. H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Camb., Mass., and Oxford, 1958), 249 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 159 note 3 Cf. Lord, A. B., Singer of Tales (Camb., Mass., and Oxford, 1960), 168.Google Scholar

page 159 note 4 Hence the persistent effort to find a place for memory's great auxiliary, the art of writing, in the composition of the epos, even among the exponents of oral composition whether they posit a poet who has learned to write (Bowra, C. M., Heroic Poetry [London, 1952], 240–1Google Scholar; now modified, cf. Wace-Stubbings, , Companion to Homer, 37)Google Scholar, or an amanuensis (Lord, A. B., ‘Homer's Originality: Oral dictated texts’, TAPA 84 (1953], 124–34)Google Scholar, or a notebook (Greene, W. C., ‘The Spoken and the Written Word’ HSCP 55 [1951], 23–59).Google Scholar

page 159 note 5 e.g. Hesiod, , Theog. 22 ff., and B 595.Google Scholar

page 159 note 6 B 484 = Λ 218 = 508 = Π 112. The appeal is for the facts in (presumably) a tricky passage, not for inspiration in general, as is rightly observed by Bassett, S. E., Poetry of Homer (Berkeley, 1938), 30.Google Scholar

page 160 note 1 See van Groningen, B. A., La composition litteraire archaïque grecque (Amsterdam, 1958)Google Scholar, and for other references Notopoulos, J. A., ‘Continuity and Interconnexion in Homeric Oral Composition’, TAPA 82 (1951), 81–101Google Scholar. The B scholia evince interest in the devices, but only from the aesthetic or emotional standpoint: cf. Duckworth, G. E., ‘Προαναφώνησις in the Scholia to Homer’, AJP 52 (1931), 320–38.Google Scholar

page 160 note 2 Van Groningen, , op. cit. 31 ff.Google Scholar, using the extensive studies of Otterloo, W. A. A., e.g. Untersuchungen über Begriff, Anwendung, und Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition (Amsterdam, 1944).Google Scholar

page 161 note 1 Th. Zielinski, , ‘Die Behandlung gleichzeitiger Ereignisse im antiken Epos’ Philologus, Suppl. viii (1901)Google Scholar: cf. Bassett, , op. cit. 34–44.Google Scholar

page 163 note 1 Where the structuring of a passage is injured (I and Λ are interrupted, not damaged) we may be more decisive, cf. Armstrong, J. I., ‘The Marriage Song, Od. 23’, TAPA 89 (1958), 38–43Google Scholar, for the thematic impossibility of a literal end to the Odyssey at ψ 296.

page 163 note 2 N.B. the two common lines Λ 46–47 = Μ 84–85 which help to identify the Λ passage, otherwise none too clear—hence Leaf's resort to the ‘military but unskilful diaskeuast’. But the passage is thematically necessary, and therefore original.

page 164 note 1 The details of B 437 ff. are well elucidated by Wade-Gery, H. T., The Poet of the Iliad (Cambridge 1952), 50–53.Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 e.g. Thuc. v. 69.

page 164 note 3 At Λ 232 ff. Agamemnon is given two short speeches at the beginning of the Epipolesis. But these are expressly stated to be for the benefit of the zealous and the slack respectively. They are a general statement of what is then itemized in the Epipolesis itself. The illustration of the general by the particular is a regular sequence.

page 165 note 1 Brief discussions by Webster, T. B. L., From Mycenae to Homer (London, 1958). 217 ffGoogle Scholar. and Kirk, G. S., The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, 1962), 186 ff.Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 In Μ 86–105 the marshalling (κοσμεῑσθαι) into their five divisions is embraced by a ring-composition ⋯ρτύναντες … ἄραρον) describing the closing ranks. κοσμεῑν and ⋯ραρίσκειν or derivatives are not elsewhere so closely equated, and I take their use here to be an example of the creeping anachronism to which all epic traditions seem to be subject.

page 166 note 1 Cf. Beye, , op. cit. 368.Google Scholar