228
ILIAD. XIII.
1—10.
BOOK THE THIRTEENTH.
ARGUMENT.
Neptune engages on the Grecian side, and the battle proceeds. Deïphobus is repulsed by Meriones. Teucer kills Imbrius, and Hector Amphimachus. Neptune, assuming the likeness of Thoas, exhorts Idomeneus, who goes forth with Meriones to battle, when the former slays Othryoneus and Asius. Deïphobus attacks Idomeneus, but misses him, and slays Hypsenor. Idomeneus slays Alcathous, over whose body a sharp contest ensues.
But after Jove, then, had brought the Trojans and Hector near the ships, he left them to endure labor and toil at them incessantly; but he himself turned back his shining eyes apart, looking toward the land of the equestrian Thracians and the close-fighting Mysians, and the illustrious Hippomolgi, milk-nourished simple in living, and most just men.[1] But to Troy he no longer now turned his bright eyes; for he did not suppose in his mind that any one of the immortals, going, would aid either the Trojans or the Greeks.
Nor did king Neptune keep a vain watch; for he sat
- ↑ Arrian, Exp. Alex. iv. p. 239, referring to this passage of Homer, observes, οἰκοῦσι δὲ ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ οὗτοι αὐτόνομοι, οὐχ ἥκιστα διὰ πενίαν τε καὶ δικαιότητα. Dionysius, Perieg. 309, seems, as Hill observes, to consider the name ἱππημολγοί as applicable not to one single clan, but to the whole of the Sarmatian nomads, milk being one of the principal articles of their diet, as among the Suevi (Cæsar, B. G. iv. 1), and the ancient Germans (id. vi. 22). Callimachus, Hymn iii., applies the epithet to the Cimmerians. The epithet ἀβίων (or ἀβιῶν=bowless, not living by archery: cf. Alberti on Hesych. t. i. pp. 17, 794) is involved in doubt, and the ancients themselves were uncertain whether to regard it as a proper name or an epithet. (Cf. Steph. Byz. s. v., p. 7, ed. Pined.; Villois on Apoll. Lex. p. 14; Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 74, sqq.) It seems best to understand with Strabo. vii. p. 460, nations ἀπ' ὀλίγων εὐτελῶς ζῶντας. Knight wished to throw out these verses altogether, alleging that allusion is made in them to the disciphne of Zamolxis, with which Homer must have been wholly unacquainted.
