446. mvp-comment-178-1 10.446 ὑπόδρα ἰδών is another formulaic facial expression that is part of speech introductions (compare 10.400). This look is given at least twenty-six times in the two epics, twenty times within the formula τὸν/ τὴν/ τοὺς δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν προσέφη + epithet + name (thirteen times in the Iliad, seven in the Odyssey, Holoka 1983:3n6; Beck 2005:34, 284). Holoka, quoting Stanford, asserts that “The actual facial expression signified by ὑπόδρα ἰδών is quite unmistakable: ‘looking (out) from beneath (scil. beetling or knit) brows’,” and also cites research on facial expressions for the “distinctiveness of this positioning of the brows as a universally recognized sign of anger” (1983:4n8). That anger, Holoka argues, is a reaction to what the previous speaker has just said. In sum, Holoka argues: “In both Homeric epics, to look darkly is to employ a nonverbal cue fraught with judgmental significance. The speaker, whatever his message, transmits by his facial demeanor that an infraction of propriety has occurred … In all instances, the facial gesture ὑπόδρα ἰδών charges the speech it introduces with a decidedly minatory fervency and excitement: a threshold has been reached and such inflammable materials as wounded pride, righteous indignation, frustration, shame, and shock are nearing the combustion point” (1983:16). Holoka is focusing especially on the cases (twelve times in the Iliad) in which this look is given by one comrade (often a superior) to another (often a subordinate), and he says that the situation with Dolon is a different case because it is between enemies (1983:8).

446. mvp-comment-178-2 In fact, the most telling parallels for this fierce look of Diomedes at Dolon come from the Odyssey, where Odysseus gives this look to the suitors, either individually ( Odyssey 22.60, 22.320) or as a group ( Odyssey 22.34), as well as to Iros ( Odyssey 18.14) and the disloyal slave Melantho ( Odyssey 18.337, 19.70). (These last two are exceptional in that the look is given to a woman; other than Zeus looking at Hera this way, all those who receive the expression are male. But the formula is flexible in accommodating the gender change.) These looks given to the suitors show both contempt and suspicion, anger and fear, and we can see this same mix of emotions in the words of Diomedes that follow this instance. Both Diomedes here and Odysseus in Odyssey 22 follow up this look at an enemy with beheading him. In the Odyssey, Odysseus gives this look to Leiodes, the suitor who, as we hear upon his introduction as the first to try the bow ( Odyssey 21.144–147), had found the reckless deeds of the suitors hateful and felt righteous indignation toward them. It is this man who supplicates Odysseus; Odysseus rejects his plea for mercy and beheads him (see also below on 10.456–457). Given to an enemy, then (and we can add that Achilles gives this look to Hektor three times at Iliad 20.428, 22.260, 22.344), this look carries with it a danger of sudden violence: the combustion point is not merely approached, it is quickly reached. So here also we see the flexibility of the formula within its context: the essential meaning of the expression is maintained, but the expectation of what will follow is shaped by whether the look is given to a comrade or to an enemy.

446. mvp-comment-178-3 As we saw above on 10.400, these telling facial expressions are sometimes absent in other versions. Allen’s (and subsequently, West’s) papyrus 90 (Oxyrhynchus 6.949) has the possible multiform [ τον δ ημειβετ επειτα βοην αγα] θος Διομηδης. See 10.283 for more on this multiform.

447. mvp-comment-179-1 10.447 μὴ δή μοι φύξίν γε Δόλων ἐμβάλλεο θυμῷ The scholia in the Venetus A and B and Townley manuscripts on this line are all concerned with the fact that Diomedes calls Dolon by name, when Dolon has not told them his name. In the Venetus A, the line is marked with a diplē, indicating that Aristarchus made a comment about the language of the line. The lemma in this manuscript for the comment is actually the beginning of the line, demonstrating that a lemma can be simply an indication of the line being commented on, and not the specific words concerned. The scholion in the Venetus A explains that the line is marked “because Aristarchus is asking, how does he know the name? Thus some read ‘ δολῶν’ [that is, “being tricky”], like νοῶν [that is, the participle would be formed the same way].” With this alternative reading, the line would read “Don’t be tricky and put thoughts of escape in your heart.” There is at least a sound-alike connection between Dolon’s name and δόλος ‘trick’ (see also Higbie 1995:12). The scholion goes on to point out that Odysseus also later uses Dolon’s name, in 10.478, implying that it cannot be the participle there, and so we have to accept that Diomedes and Odysseus know his name without knowing exactly how they know it. The scholion goes on to suggest that it is likely that they would know the names of some men, since it has been ten years, and perhaps especially Dolon’s since he is the son of a herald who is wealthy (citing 10.315). The scholia in the other two manuscripts take a similar approach to the problem, noting Dolon’s father’s role as a herald and that Dolon is among the leaders of the Trojans who are called to the meeting earlier in the book, or suggesting simply that we should understand that they asked his name when they overpowered him. Higbie (1995:87) compares a similar case in the Odyssey in which the narrator has introduced Theoklymenos to the audience, and Telemakhos knows his name without a direct introduction within the narrative. This concern for how they know his name, although understandable from a literary point of view, does not apply to an oral traditional narrative composed in performance. As Hainsworth (1993:197 ad 10.447) affirms, “what his audience knows an epic poet may let his characters know too.”

454-456. mvp-comment-180-1 10.454–456 Diomedes kills Dolon before Dolon can touch him in a gesture of supplication. On supplication in Homeric epic, see Crotty 1994, Wilson 2002, and Naiden 2006. According to these analyses of the act of supplication, Dolon’s supplication begins at 10.378–381 with his offer of ransom ( apoina) if he can be taken alive (see also our comments at 10.378–381). At that point, Odysseus and Diomedes have grabbed Dolon’s hands, so that he is unable to make this clasping gesture. (Such a scene is visualized by the Dokimasia painter on a kylix cup from c. 480 BCE [St. Petersburg, Hermitage B.1539], with Dolon pictured in his wolf skin.) According to Naiden’s arguments, the person being supplicated always has the freedom to reject the request, as Diomedes does here (see Naiden 2006:181 for this particular example of supplication).

455-457. mvp-comment-181-1 10.455–457 Beheading the enemy, as gruesome or repulsive as it may seem to a modern audience, does occur several times in the Homeric epics, either as the method of killing or as an act carried out after killing, and in most cases, it is the Achaeans who do it. In Iliad 13, the two Ajaxes take the corpse of the Trojan Imbrios, a husband of one of Priam’s illegitimate daughters. They strip the corpse of his armor, and Ajax, son of Oileus, cuts off Imbrios’ head and throws it so that it ends up at Hektor’s feet ( Iliad 13.201–205). Oilean Ajax, the rapist of Kassandra, is known to commit war atrocities during the sack of Troy, but this beheading happens during the course of regular, daytime battle. Achilles beheads Deukalion at Iliad 20.481–483 after pinning his arm with a spear (in other words, Deukalion cannot fight back at that moment). Although Achilles is acting beyond normal human boundaries at this point in his story, he is also depicted in two sixth-century vase paintings as beheading Troilos (see Gantz 1993:600), an incident much earlier in the war, and one that also involves ambush. Agamemnon beheads Köon over the body of his brother Iphidamas ( τοῖο δ’ ἐπ’ Ἰφιδάμαντι κάρη ἀπέκοψε παραστάς, Iliad 11.261) without hesitation. Hektor plans to behead Patroklos’ corpse after he strips it ( Iliad 17.126). In a series of back-and-forth killings with vaunting afterwards, Penelos kills Ilioneus, a Trojan introduced as he dies as the beloved of Hermes and an only child of a wealthy man. Penelos’ spear hits Ilioneus in the eyesocket, and then Penelos cuts off Ilioneus’ head with his sword and holds it up, helmet still on and spear still in eyesocket, to show it to the Trojans ( Iliad 14.493–507). All of these examples come from the battle that rages on the day following this night, when the fighting is most intense and the stakes at their highest for the Achaeans.

455-457. mvp-comment-181-2 The closest parallel to the beheading of Dolon in terms of language and situation, however, occurs during Odysseus’ ambush of the suitors. During the slaughter in Odysseus’ home, Leiodes supplicates Odysseus, but Odysseus kills him anyway ( Odyssey 22.310–329). In both cases, then, there is an attempted supplication, and a verbal response followed by a swift beheading. As Odysseus responds to Leiodes’ arguments for why he should be spared, Odysseus gives him the same fierce look ( Odyssey 22.320) that Diomedes gives Dolon here (see 10.446). In both cases the killer drives a sword through the victim’s neck ( αὐχένα μέσσον ἔλασσε, Iliad 10.455, Odyssey 22.328), and the graphic detail of the victim’s head still talking as it mixes with the dust is included ( Iliad 10.457 = Odyssey 22.329). We may certainly question how these actions inform the character of the killers and the action of the episode, but we must also recognize that beheading is “Homeric” in the sense that the Iliad and Odyssey represent it as happening in the intensity of battle and of ambush.

456. mvp-comment-182-1 10.456 φασγάνῳ ἀΐξας This formula is used to describe a particular cutting motion with the sword. ἀίσσω generally refers to any quick motion, but we can see from the few other uses of this phrase in the Iliad that it means to use the sword to cut rather than to stab. At Iliad 5.81, Eurypylos flashes his sword at Hypsenor and cuts off his arm. In Iliad 8, one of Nestor’s horses has been struck with an arrow as Nestor is trying to retreat from the battlefield. Nestor uses his sword at Iliad 8.88 (there the present participle ἀίσσων is used instead of the aorist participle) to cut the harness straps from that horse in his attempt to escape (compare the use of ἀΐξας alone for cutting a horse loose at Iliad 16.474). Thus we should imagine this motion to be quick, with the edge of the sword positioned to cut through whatever it is aimed at. The one use of the phrase in the Odyssey (at 22.98) occurs when Telemakhos is afraid that one of the suitors will attack him in this way if he stops to remove his spear from one of his victims during the battle with the suitors; it gives no other indications about what the motion is. As in all of the cases in the Iliad, however, the example from the Odyssey does show that this phrase is used in a line initial position, enjambed with the previous line. That consistent position gives us an important clue as to how a singer would use this phrase in performance.

456. mvp-comment-182-2 10.456 ἀπὸ δ᾽ ἄμφω κέρσε τένοντε Compare the same phrase at Iliad 14.466, where a spear thrown by Telamonian Ajax cuts through the top vertebra of Arkhelokhos, effectively beheading him.

458-459. mvp-comment-183-1 10.458–459 If we compare these lines depicting the stripping of Dolon’s weapons and “armor” (the wolf skin) to the arming scene at 10.333–335 where he put them on, we find that different epithets or adjectives and even names of the items are used here. Such differences suggest that compositionally the theme of stripping armor employs different combinations of formulas to repesent the same items described in arming scenes. The ambush-related items nevertheless remain prominent: the headgear made of animal hide, the animal skin, and the bow. Holoka (1983:9) calls this stripping of armor “a near parody of standard battlefield practice” particularly because of the “paltry panoply” of the wolf skin, spear, and bow. Yet it is precisely this panoply that will indicate that Diomedes and Odysseus have ambushed an ambusher.

459. mvp-comment-184-1 10.459 δόρυ μακρόν As Sherratt 1990:811 points out, the single long thrusting spear (as opposed to lighter, smaller, paired throwing spears) is a weapon “most at home in the 13th century or considerably earlier.” Achilles’ Pelian ash spear is likewise of this earlier kind, and Hektor’s spear, which is eleven cubits long (e.g. Iliad 6.319), may be as well. See above on 10.263–264 for more on the way that such artifacts can reveal archaeological layers in the text.

460-464. mvp-comment-185-1 10.460–464 In the prayers to Athena at the outset of the mission, both Odysseus and Diomedes emphasize their personal relationships with Athena in asking for her help and protection (see commentary on 10.275 and 10.291). In this address to the goddess, that request is renewed, but their initial success in capturing and killing Dolon is associated with the goddess as well. Athena’s prominent role not only here but also in the Odyssey reveals her to be a goddess of ambush. At Odyssey 20.44–51, she tells Odysseus that, with her on his side, they could take far more men than the suitors and drive away their livestock, a description that combines the ambush narrative pattern of one or two killing many with that of a cattle raid. Odysseus similarly states earlier that, with Athena on his side, he could fight three hundred suitors ( Odyssey 13.389–391). Proklos’ summary of the epic Little Iliad describes the building of the wooden horse as “according to Athena’s plan of action” ( κατ’ Ἀθηνᾶς προαίρεσιν), indicating that she is the mastermind of that ultimate ambush at Troy. On the shield of Achilles ( Iliad 18.516), Athena and Ares together lead an ambush from the city at war. And it is of course Athena who warns Telemakhos about his impending ambush by the suitors ( Odyssey 15.28). Stagakis (1987–88:70) examines the language here in detail and concludes that this passage does “not indicate that the spoils were vowed or dedicated to Athena,” but the technicalities of the religious nature of what is or is not happening here do not diminish the association between Athena and ambush.

465-466. mvp-comment-186-1 10.465–466 Gernet (1936:192–196) and Davidson (1979:64) both connect the hanging of the wolf skin in a tree with initiation rituals in which the initiate must remove his clothes, hang them on a tree, and live “like a wolf” for his period of separation. We have seen other hints that ambushes and night raids are associated especially with young men, those at the right age for such an initiation (Odysseus would be an exception, of course): see commentary on 10.259. For more on the wolf skin, see commentary on 10.334.

466-468. mvp-comment-187-1 10.466–468 We see here another example of details appropriate to nocturnal actions. Odysseus and Diomedes could leave these spoils behind without worrying that someone else will take them during the night; instead, the concern is that they may not be able to find them again in the darkness, hence the need to make a sign conspicuously or clearly ( δέελον δ᾽ ἐπι σήματ᾽ ἔθηκε, 10.466). Odysseus creates such a sign by tying the branches of the tamarisk tree (a large, dense, shrub-like tree) to the reeds below. We will see later, of course, that this sign works, when Odysseus and Diomedes stop and pick these spoils up on their return (10.526–529). This sort of planning is necessary in the dark.

466-468. mvp-comment-187-2 The tamarisk grows often near water, and the reeds mentioned here also suggest a wetland environment, perhaps the bank of a river. We see these characteristics of the plant in its other appearances in the Iliad: Achilles leans his spear against a tamarisk before he leaps into the Xanthos river to kill the Trojans he has forced into it ( Iliad 21.18) and later, when Hephaistos sets the corpses in the river on fire, tamarisks are among the plants listed as burning along the river ( Iliad 21.350). The denseness of the plant is seen at Iliad 6.39, when the horses of Adrestos become tangled in a tamarisk and his chariot is broken, setting the horses loose. We have seen that a woody or marshy area—that is, one filled with plants—is often chosen for an ambush (see “The Poetics of Ambush”), and the tamarisk itself may also have a particular association with ambush. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the god, who is called “a robber, driver of cattle” ( ληϊστῆρ’, ἐλατῆρα βοῶν, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 14) and “a spy at night” ( νυκτὸς ὀπωπητῆρα, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 15), among other epithets, is himself associated with the night and the ambush theme, as we also see in his role in guiding Priam during Priam’s infiltration of the Achaean camp in Iliad 24 (see “The Poetics of Ambush” and above on 10.1ff. for fuller discussion). According to the hymn, on the evening of the day he is born, Hermes steals the cattle of Apollo (see “The Poetics of Ambush” also for how cattle rustling is part of the larger ambush theme). When Hermes is driving these cattle at night, he stops and makes himself sandals, weaving together tamarisk and myrtle branches ( συμμίσγων μυρίκας καὶ μυρσινοειδέας ὄζους, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 81). Odysseus ties together tamarisk and reeds here in another kind of weaving of this plant, accompanying another night ambush. Schnapp-Gourbeillon (1981:115) suggests that this plant has religious associations (see also Wathelet 1989:221n35).

468. mvp-comment-188-1 10.468 θοὴν διὰ νύκτα μέλαιναν See on 10.394 for this formula.

469. mvp-comment-189-1 10.469 τὼ δὲ βάτην προτέρω For the use of the dual for a pair of ambushers working together, see on 10.254.

471-475. mvp-comment-190-1 10.471–475 The sleeping arrangements of the Thracians seem quite orderly from this description, even though they are exhausted before falling asleep (see also the following note). One implication of this orderliness seems to be that the only arrangement not made was setting up a guard, and this lack results in their being vulnerable to ambush. Within the Achaean camp, the sleeping arrangements of Nestor (10.74–79) and Diomedes (10.150–156) are similarly detailed, suggesting that such descriptions are part of the night ambush theme. We see that the details of the scene are appropriate to each hero or group, similar to the way arming scenes are adapted for each hero.

471. mvp-comment-191-1 10.471 οἱ δ᾽ εὗδον καμάτῳ ἁδηκότες See note on 10.98 for more on καμάτῳ ἀδηκότες. There, we saw that this formula is especially connected to night themes, and that the weariness can be from either fighting all day or traveling, as we saw in the example from Odyssey 12. Since we are dealing here with a version of the Rhesos myth in which he has not yet fought at Troy—Dolon has to tell Diomedes and Odysseus of his presence since he is “newly arrived” (10.434)— the formula seems to be used for their deep sleep after traveling that day to Troy. For more on the versions of the Rhesos myth in which he fought for one day at Troy, see the Rhesos section of our essay “Tradition and Reception.”

482. mvp-comment-192-1 10.482 τῷ δ᾽ ἔμπνευσε μένος γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη Athena breathes menos ‘force’ into Diomedes as he starts the slaughter. A similar expression is used for Apollo breathing menos into Hektor so that he may return to battle ( ὣς εἰπὼν ἔμπνευσε μένος μέγα ποιμένι λαῶν, Iliad 15.262; Apollo does so at Zeus’ suggestion, see Iliad 15.60), and he does the same for Aeneas later ( Iliad 20.110). We also see a connection between menos and breathing at Iliad 3.8, where the Achaeans breathe menos as they enter battle. During Diomedes’ aristeia in the polemos, Athena tells him that she has put menos into his chest, the kind of menos his father used to have ( Iliad 5.124–126). Thus this “inspiration” happens between gods and their favorites, and we find in this episode in Book 10 a pattern of opposition between Athena and Apollo (we can compare their direct rivalry in Iliad 7). In the Rhesos, Athena uses speech instead to incite ambush, as she prompts Diomedes and Odysseus to attack Rhesos and the Thracians though they are ready to turn back to their own camp ( Rhesos 594–625; see also Fantuzzi 2006b:163–170).

485-488. mvp-comment-193-1 10.485–488 This compressed lion simile describing Diomedes’ slaughter of the Thracians calls our attention to the lion similes elsewhere in the Iliad that happen explicitly at night. The shepherdless flocks in this simile correspond well to the Thracians who sleep unguarded, and the absence of a shepherd suggests that, like Diomedes, the lion is attacking at night. To support this argument, we can compare the slightly longer simile at Iliad 15.323–326, where the attackers also find the herds or flocks unguarded:

In this simile, two wild beasts, which Lonsdale (1990:66, 131) identifies as lions, attack. Important details here include the time, the dead of night, and the lack of a shepherd, just as in 10.485. The sudden appearance of the lions ( ἐλθόντ’ ἐξαπίνης) is likewise similar to ambush language, in which the attacker appears out of the darkness or his hiding place to surprise his victims (compare 10.496–497 below for how the poetic language represents such a sudden appearance of an ambusher). Because this simile has so much in common with the one at 10.485–488, we can draw the inference that the simile of Diomedes’ attack is also imagined to be happening in the dead of night, but that compression has left that detail implicit. We can compare also Iliad 12.299–308, where Sarpedon is compared to a lion trying to get inside the πυκινὸν δόμον ( Iliad 12.301) of the sheep—that attack is also likely to be taking place at night, when the sheep are in their pen. See 10.5–9 for more on the relation of the adjective pukinos to the ambush theme. The lion attacks because he is hungry, but also because his audacious spirit bids him to: κέλεται δέ ἑ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ, Iliad 12.300. Compare the “audacious spirit” that motivates both Diomedes (10.220) and Dolon (10.319) to undertake the spying missions.

485-488. mvp-comment-193-2 We see lions attacking flocks explicitly at night in still other similes, such as at Iliad 11.172–178, where the Trojans are compared to cattle when a lion has panicked the whole herd. In that simile, similar to Iliad 15.324, the time, the dead of night, is indicated by the phrase ἐν νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ ( Iliad 11.173; see also Tsagalis 2008:153–187 for more on this phrase and what he sees as its Indo-European imagery, connected to cattle, the sun, and danger), and the fear and confusion of the herd animals is a central feature ( ἐφόβησε, Iliad 11.173), while death comes to one in particular ( Iliad 11.174–176). This fear and confusion is replayed on the battlefield as Agamemnon routs the Trojans, but the simile itself has the feeling of an ambush. Lonsdale (1990:118–122) has also argued that lion and cattle similes like this one adapt the epic theme of the cattle raid. See “The Poetics of Ambush” for the cattle raid as part of the ambush theme.

485-488. mvp-comment-193-3 In two of the similes of lions attacking at night, similes that share much of the same formulaic language, the lion is unsuccessful because of the watchfulness of the men and dogs who guard them ( Iliad 11.546–557 and Iliad 17.655–666). In these examples, we see that they must keep watch all night long ( πάννυχοι ἐγρήσσοντες, Iliad 11.551 and Iliad 17.660), and it is only at dawn that the lion finally withdraws ( Iliad 11.555 and Iliad 17.664). These lions, who go away empty-handed, provide a contrast to what we see depicted at 10.485–488, where the lack of a shepherd watching the herd enables the lion to successfully attack: in the simile world, a steadfast night watch can counteract ambush tactics. We can also hearken back to the watchdog simile at 10.180–189 and see that comparison as an indication both that the wakeful and watchful Achaean guard is indeed the kind needed on this dangerous night and that it is a mistake on the part of the Thracians to fall asleep without a guard to watch over them. Lion similes, so common in the narration of fighting in the polemos, also have affinities with the ambush theme, and a lion attacking at night should especially be seen in this light. That lion similes work for both themes can also be taken as another indication that the two types of warfare are not diametrically opposed, just as we have seen warriors such as Diomedes himself, but also Achilles, who excel at both. See also Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1981:104–131 for her extended discussion of Diomedes the lion in Iliad 10.