πάρ τε κασιγνήτῳ Θρασυμήδεϊ καὶ πατέρι ᾧ·
that is, by the side of Nestor; Thrasymedes giving way to make room for them, and remaining on the other side of them, like Minerva in the Twenty-Fourth Iliad.
Of Apollo.
Homer has left no express record on this particular point with reference to Apollo. In the ancient Hymn, however, a part of which is quoted by Thucydides, this honour is distinctly assigned to that divinity in these fine lines[82]:
ὅν τε θεοὶ κατὰ δῶμα Διὸς τρομέουσιν ἰόντα·
καί ῥάτ’ ἀναΐσσουσιν ἐπισχέδον ἐρχομένοιο
πάντες ἀφ’ ἑδράων, ὅτε φαίδιμα τόξα τιταίνει.
Intimacy of their relations with Jupiter.
4. More remarkable and important, however, than this precedence of Minerva in the Olympian Court, are the relations of will and affection between Jupiter and these two, as compared with his other children.
To these, and these only, does he ever use any term of positive endearment. Minerva is twice called φίλον τέκος, and Apollo is twice addressed in the vocative as φίλε Φοῖβε[83]. This is the more worthy of note, because it might have been expected that other divinities rather than these, for example, Mercury on account of his youth, or Venus for her beauty and blandishments, would have been the preferable objects of these phrases. But there is nothing of the sort in the case of Mercury, and in that of Venus, the nearest approach is τέκνον ἐμόν (Il. v. 428). She is only addressed as φίλον τέκος by Juno, who was not her mother, and this at a moment when it was convenient to pass a gross deception upon her[84].