b. For the sea, without reference to any peculiar state of it, in Il. i. 350, et alibi.
There is no small difficulty in combining these two uses by reference to the idea of a common colour. The sea is blue, grey, or green. Oxen are black, bay, or brown. I do not refer to their lighter colours, which are excluded by the nature of the epithet. It is remarkable that, among colours properly so called, Homer has none whatever, derived from the name of an object, that are light, unless it be in the case of the rose. The violet, the unknown κύανος, the φοίνιξ, the αἰθαλὴ, the ἁλιπόρφυρος, the πορφύρη, whatever else they may be, are all dark. And to this class οἴνοψ evidently belongs.
Wine is mentioned by Homer in nearly one hundred and forty places: in the majority of them it has an epithet: but only ten times is it described by an epithet of colour. Of these two are used for it, ἐρυθρὸς and μέλας; so that he plainly conceived of it as dark, but probably without a determinate hue. He more frequently calls it αἴθοψ: but this word, which fluctuates between the ideas of flame and smoke, either means tawny, or else refers to light, and not to colour, and bears the sense of sparkling.
Thus then οἴνοψ, like so many other words that we have gone through, vaguely indicates a dark hue, but cannot be referred to any one of the known principal colours.
12. The word μιλτοπάρηος has already been disposed of in connection with κυάνεος and φοίνιξ.
13. αἴθων is applied in Homer
a. to horses, as in Il. ii. 839; viii. 185.
b. to iron, as in Od. i. 184.
c. to a lion, as in Il. x. 23.