[304] Wolf, Prolegomen. p. cxxxvii. “Equidem certe quoties in continenti lectione ad istas partes (i. e. the last six books) deveni, nunquam non in iis talia quædam sensi, quæ nisi illæ tam mature cum ceteris coaluissent, quovis pignore contendam, dudum ab eruditis detecta et animadversa fuisse, immo multa ejus generis, ut cum nunc Ὁμηρικώτατα habeantur, si tantummodo in Hymnis legerentur, ipsa sola eos suspicionibus νοθείας adspersura essent.” Compare the sequel, p. cxxxviii, “ubi nervi deficiant et spiritus Homericus,—jejunum et frigidum in locis multis,” etc.
[305] Iliad, xx. 25. Zeus addresses the agora of the gods,—
Ἀμφοτέροισι δ᾽ ἀρήγετ᾽, ὅπη νόος ἐστὶν ἑκάστου·
Εἰ γὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς οἶος ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μαχεῖται,
Οὐδὲ μίνυνθ᾽ ἕξουσι ποδώκεα Πηλείωνα.
Καὶ δέ τέ μιν καὶ πρόσθεν ὑποτρομέεσκον ὁρῶντες·
Νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ θυμὸν ἑταίρου χώεται αἰνῶς,
Δείδω μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπὲρ μόρον ἐξαλαπάξῃ.
The formal restriction put upon the gods by Zeus at the beginning of the eighth book, and the removal of that restriction at the beginning of the twentieth, are evidently parts of one preconceived scheme.
It is difficult to determine whether the battle of the gods and goddesses in book xxi. (385-520) is to be expunged as spurious, or only to be blamed as of inferior merit (“improbanda tantum, non resecanda—hoc enim est illud, quo plerumque summa criseôs Homericæ redit,” as Heyne observes in another place, Obss. Iliad. xviii. 444). The objections on the score of non-Homeric locution are not forcible (see P. Knight, ad loc.), and the scene belongs to that vein of conception which animates the poet in the closing act of his Achillêis.