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[340] 340-1. This couplet, which has given endless trouble, is doubtless an addition by the same hand which has given us 175-81, and has the same object, to insist on it that the camp had several gates. It betrays itself at once by the clumsy way in which καὶ πυλέων is added as an after-thought, and by the non-Homeric form “πυλέων” instead of “πυλάων” (see on 7.1). αὐτάς too is used in the weak anaphoric sense. The nom. to ἐπώιχετο is presumably ἀυτή, the war-cry was ranging over all the gates, i.e. all were now being attacked, not that on the left only. (Cf. Od. 4.451, of Proteus and the seals, “πάσας δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐπώιχετο, λέκτο δ᾽ ἀριθμόν” he went over them all.) Ar. thought that he could save his theory of the single gate without the need of athetesis, by reading “πᾶσαι γὰρ ἐπώιχατο”, and explaining the whole gate was shut. This, however, will not serve unless we read “ἐπώχατο”, and take it to be a perf. from “ἐπέχειν”: even then the form and the sense shut to are without analogy (“ἐπέχειν τὰ ὦτα, τὸ στόμα” come under the general sense to keep back), and even if “πᾶσαι” = “ὅλαι” there is no sense in saying that the <*>ole gate was shut (see note on 2.809). “ἐπώιχατο” from “ἐπιϝοίγω” is equally impossible in sense and form.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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