503. mvp-comment-200-1 10.503 μερμήριξε A type scene in which two options are pondered appears numerous times in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this verb is a signal of that traditional scene (see also Arend 1933:106–115 for this type scene). Some of these type scenes involve ambush, as here: Odysseus ponders several times how to ambush and slaughter the suitors ( Odyssey 16.237, 16.256, 16.261, 19.2 = 19.52, 20.10, 20.28, 20.38, 20.41), while Phemios ponders during that ambush whether to try to escape or to supplicate Odysseus ( Odyssey 22.333). Aegisthus is also “pondering hideous things” ( ἀεικέα μερμηρίζων, Odyssey 4.533) when he plans his ambush of Agamemnon. In addition, although these episodes are not strictly ambush themes, we find such “pondering” involved prior to plans to deceive, such as Zeus’ sending the deceptive dream to Agamemnon ( Iliad 2.3), Hera’s seduction of Zeus ( Iliad 14.159), Penelope’s “trick” ( dolos) against the suitors ( Odyssey 2.93, Odyssey 24.128), and Odysseus’ deception of his father about his identity ( Odyssey 24.235).

503. mvp-comment-200-2 10.503 κύντατον This superlative adjective is found only here in the Homeric epics, but we should note that thirty manuscripts, according to Allen, have the comparative κύντερον instead, as does p425. Other uses of the comparative in the Iliad and Odyssey describe situations of suffering loss and perhaps also attempting to avenge it: it is used of Hera when she wants to defy Zeus and help the Achaeans in the war ( Iliad 8.483); of Clytemnestra, who kills her husband Agamemnon and avenges her daughter’s death ( Odyssey 11.427); of the insistence of a hungry belly, overriding all other concerns ( Odyssey 7.216); and of the day that the Cyclops eats Odysseus’ men ( Odyssey 20.18). We can also compare its uses in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, where the year during which Demeter is withdrawn is called κύντατον ( Homeric Hymn to Demeter 306) and her grief is κύντερον ( Homeric Hymn to Demeter 90). With this underlying notion of loss and grief connected to possible revenge as part of the traditional resonance of the word, in this line it may possibly allude to the version of the story of Rhesos in which he fights at Troy for one day and inflicts such huge damages on the Achaeans that Diomedes and Odysseus are sent to assassinate him at night (see “Tradition and Reception” for a full discussion of the variations of his story). Considering that version, Diomedes’ actions and his thoughts about further actions could be understood as fueled by grief over the loss of his comrades and as amounting to vengeance for them. The “need” on this night for action is similarly motivated by the Achaean losses earlier that day.

504-505. mvp-comment-201-1 10.504–505 Vermeule notes that these lines had at one time been taken as evidence of the “lateness” of the Doloneia, but that Spruytte’s (1977) reconstruction of a Bronze Age chariot shows that it could indeed “be lifted by any healthy man, and conventional thinking on the Doloneia must be rethought, with hundreds of other conventions” (Vermuele 1986:83). See also Littauer and Crouwel 1983 on Bronze Age chariots. If Diomedes does choose to take the chariot, whether by the pole or by picking it up, he presumably does so in order to move it to where Odysseus has led the horses so they can tie the horses to the chariot for the getaway (see also below on 10.513–514). But such a supposition makes it seem as though Odysseus, at least, did not take the chariot when he took the horses from where they had been tied to it (facing it, it seems, rather than in a position to pull it, at 10.475, or else why untie them?).

507. mvp-comment-202-1 10.507 ἕως ὃ ταῦθ᾽ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα, τόφρα δ᾽ Ἀθήνη This line is formulaically similar to the first four feet of Iliad 1.193 and the last two feet of Iliad 1.194 ( ἧος ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν, / ἕλκετο δ’ ἐκ κολεοῖο μέγα ξίφος, ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνη) and thus may be considered a slightly more compressed version of Athena’s appearance to a hero who is deciding on a course of action. This is a more specific form of the type scene of “pondering options” (see 10.503) and scenes in which a decision must be made between two options, of which there are several examples in the Iliad and Odyssey. We can compare also Iliad 5.671 ( μερμήριξε δ’ ἔπειτα κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμὸν) where it is Odysseus who is divided and then Athena directs his thumos. Stagakis (1986:237–239) argues that the situation here is parallel to that in Iliad 1, when Athena appears to a pondering Achilles and offers an option different from the two the hero had been contemplating. Just as Athena’s suggestion to Achilles to insult Agamemnon with words ( Iliad 1.211) is related to his previously considered option of checking his fury ( Iliad 1.192), so also may Athena’s command to remember their nostos here be related to the previously considered option of taking the chariot, if we understand that Diomedes does take the chariot for their getaway. For more on Athena’s role in this ambush, see our commentary on 10.285, 10.482, and 10.497.

509. mvp-comment-203-1 10.509 νόστου δὴ μνῆσαι We have seen (in “The Poetics of Ambush” and the commentary on 10.211–212 and 10.247) that the mission Diomedes and Odysseus undertake has thematic language in common with journeys, and with homecomings in particular. Thus the word nostos here has a thematic significance. In order for the spying mission, now turned ambush, to be fully successful, Diomedes and Odysseus will have to get back safely to the Achaean ships, which is what Athena reminds Diomedes of here. In the polemos, a warrior might be mindful of his battle lust (some form of μιμνήσκω + χάρμης, Iliad 4.222, 8.252, 13.721–722, 15.380, 15.477, 19.148) or his furious resolve to stand his ground ( μιμνήσκω + θούριδος ἀλκῆς, Iliad 6.112, 8.174, 11.566, 15.487, 15.734, 16.270, 17.185). But in an ambush, the ambushers must be mindful of their return to their own comrades. Not surprisingly, being mindful of one’s nostos is seen more often in the Odyssey. At Odyssey 3.141–142, Nestor recalls how Menelaos bid all the Achaeans to be mindful of their homecoming as they were about to leave Troy. In a different phrasing, Odysseus’ men ask him to be mindful of his fatherland ( μιμνῄσκεο πατρίδος αἴης) specifically in the context of wanting to go home ( ἱκέσθαι οἶκον, Odyssey 10.472–474). And in the closest parallel to this language, Athena goes to Sparta to remind Telemakhos of his nostos and to urge him to return home ( νόστου ὑπομνήσουσα καὶ ὀτρυνέουσα νέεσθαι, see Odyssey 15.1–3).

513-514. mvp-comment-204-1 10.513–514 One difficulty that has puzzled and divided commentators on Iliad 10 is the question of whether or not Odysseus and Diomedes do indeed take the chariot or whether they ride only the horses back to the Achaean camp. That ἵπποι is used in Homeric diction for both “horses” and “horses and chariot” adds to the confusion here. We have seen Odysseus untie the horses from the chariot rail and tie them together (10.498–499, see 10.475 for where the horses had been tied). We have also seen Diomedes contemplate taking the chariot (10.504–505). But did he take it? Leaf’s comment on 10.513 in his first edition (1886) says that ἵππων must mean the horses and chariot, because of the plural and because horseback riding happens only in similes, never in narrative in Homeric epic. In his reasoning, the option of killing more Thracians that Diomedes had been pondering is forbidden by Athena’s injunction to leave, and so, by default, the first option of taking the chariot has been followed. In his second edition (1900–1902), however, Leaf says that a general view of the passage leads to the conclusion that the heroes ride the horses themselves, and that this riding is “among the marks of lateness in this book.” Shewan (1911:180) notes that there is no consensus on whether they ride or drive, but argues that riding would not prove Iliad 10 to be late. He says that he first thought they ride the horses, but is now convinced that they drive the chariot (1911:274). He goes on to consider the phrase ἵππων ἐπεβήσετο and other details of the episode as well as arguments for and against either the riding of the horses or the taking of the chariot (1911:274–278).

513-514. mvp-comment-204-2 These questions and disputes continue in more recent examinations of the passage. Anderson (1975), writing about chariot use in the Iliad, argues that Diomedes and Odysseus are riding horseback even though the poet uses formulas (like the verb ἐπιβαίνω here) that elsewhere are used for chariot driving. Because chariot driving is more common in the epics, “[t]he poet therefore had no ready-made set of formulae to describe riding when the need arose” (Anderson 1975:182). Although Odysseus seems throughout the episode to control both horses, as a driver would, Anderson cites a ninth-century Assyrian visual image that represents a warrior and attendant mounted on horses, and the attendant “seems to control both horses” (1975:183). Thus Anderson argues that the language used in this episode can be understood as horseback riding, and that horseback riding of this sort would have been known in the Bronze and early Iron Ages (1975:184), but his point is that any conclusion about either chariot driving or horseback riding in Homeric epic cannot be based on this one particular representation. Examining these same formulas, however, Stagakis (1985 and 1986) argues that they do seize the chariot and that they therefore drive the horses back. Hainsworth (1993:202–203) argues, as Anderson does, that the formulas are regularly used for chariot driving, but because the chariot is never mentioned again, we must assume that they are riding: “That we must imagine the heroes’ harnessing the horses to the chariot would imply an improbable ellipse after the detail of 498–502. Therefore the heroes do not take the chariot; they were after all in a hurry, and yoking a team of horses was not a simple operation, see 24.268–77” (Hainsworth 1993:203).

513-514. mvp-comment-204-3 The intense scrutiny to which these phrases have been subjected, as well as the changes in interpretation by individual scholars, demonstrates just how intractable the question of whether or not they take the chariot is. Although we cannot necessarily resolve the question by considering it within the theme of ambush, we can note that a cattle-rustling or horse-stealing theme, such as we see at Iliad 11.669–684, seems to involve taking the animals alone. Because the themes of ambush and horse-stealing are closely related, the latter may explain the emphasis on the horses alone (so too might the traditional importance of Rhesos’ horses, see commentary on 10.436–437), even if the chariot is imagined to be taken. If they do ride, not drive, then that fact, as Shewan and Anderson have argued, would not be a sign of the “lateness” of composition. Rather, riding may instead be a signal of the horse-stealing theme, seen elsewhere in the Iliad only in Nestor’s reminiscences.

515. mvp-comment-205-1 10.515 οὐδ᾽ ἀλαοσκοπιὴν εἶχ᾽ This phrase is used not of a human guard or spy, but always of a god in our texts. In addition to Apollo here, it is used of Poseidon twice ( Iliad 13.10 and 14.135), with different epithets completing the line, as he watches the battle so that he may help the Achaeans. In the Odyssey it is used of Ares, who (in the story sung by Demodokos) watches to see when Hephaistos leaves so that he can be with Aphrodite—but he then falls into Hephaistos’ trap. We can also compare the use of this formula at Hesiod Theogony 466, where Kronos keeps a close watch on Rhea so that he can swallow their children as soon as they are born. These last two stories have affinities with the ambush theme, and we can note that, in the cases of both Ares and Kronos, they are the ones who eventually become the victims of an ambush. Those examples may help us to understand the use of the formula with Apollo here, since at first glance it seems odd that he is characterized as not keeping a negligent watch when the Thracians have just been slaughtered. We can also perhaps understand it better by comparing it to Poseidon’s role in helping the Achaeans while they are losing badly: his watch comprises seeing what disaster is befalling them (and then helping them), not preventing it entirely.

516. mvp-comment-206-1 10.516 ἕπουσαν See above on 10.285 for the use of this word to describe gods accompanying a hero on a mission.

518-522. mvp-comment-207-1 10.518–522 The moment of initial discovery and reaction by Hippokoon is quite compressed. A contrast is provided by the tragedy Rhesos, in which Rhesos’ charioteer delivers a messenger speech about the murder of Rhesos, and after his confrontation with Hektor, the divine mother of Rhesos appears to perform a lament for him. (See our essay “Tradition and Reception” for more on the portrayal of Rhesos and his death in the tragedy.) Here, Hippokoon is both the one to realize that Rhesos is dead and the one to perform a lament, although that lament is compressed into only one line (see also below on 10.522). The implication of this compression, however, is that an expanded version could be possible in performance (see also our commentary on 10.317 for more on the compression of lament in the Iliad). The particular version of the story that Iliad 10 presents de-emphasizes Rhesos and his traditional significance for the Trojan War. Petegorsky (1982) explores ways in which this de-emphasis is itself significant for the Iliad’s focus on Achilles and its portrayal of his return as necessary to save the Achaeans. This episode as presented here highlights instead the Achaean success in ambush, while only referring briefly to the loss and grief of their victims.

522. mvp-comment-208-1 10.522 ᾤμωξέν τ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἔπειτα φίλον τ᾽ ὀνόμηνεν ἑταῖρον The scholia in the Venetus A indicate that Zenodotus’ edition had this line following 10.519 and preceding 10.520. It is not clear from the comment whether that order represents his own editorial choice or whether he knew witnesses that recorded that arrangement. Fenik (1964:54–55) notes that this same formula is used at Iliad 23.178 and Iliad 24.591, both in cases of Achilles lamenting Patroklos. Fenik observes that, in those two cases, the formula acts as a speech introduction formula “followed by an actual address and lament” (Fenik 1964:55). He interprets what he considers the “clumsily abbreviated reference” here as an indication of an expanded version elsewhere. But the very “referential character” that Fenik ascribes to this line would mean that it would not need to be expanded to have meaning for a traditional audience. If the formula had a special resonance with the death of Patroklos or lamentation in general, its use here would add to the significance of what Diomedes and Odysseus have done. Thus we can consider this a simple compression, rather than a bungling of the traditional formula.

524. mvp-comment-209-1 10.524 μέρμερα ἔργα For this phrase, see also 10.47–48 and 10.289–290. The awakened Trojans wonder at the astounding deeds. They are astounding because a night raid is unexpected, perhaps, but in Homeric diction this phrase is used for the slaughter of many by one man: see Iliad 8.453, 10.48, 11.502, 21.217. In 10.48, the emphasis is on one man devising astounding deeds; here the Trojans assume that more than one must have been involved, but we the audience know that it is just two. And as we saw at 10.289, this phrase is useful for both daytime battles and for ambush, as it is used here. The references at 10.48 and Iliad 11.502 refer to Hektor’s deeds, and at Iliad 21.217 to Achilles’, attesting to the “heroic” quality of the astounding deeds. At Iliad 11.502 and 21.217, the same verb is used as here, ῥέζω. Some commentators have questioned the value of Diomedes’ and Odysseus’ activities on the night raid, especially since the danger inherent in the presence of Rhesos is not emphasized in this version. For example, Fenik sums up his feelings about Iliad 10 this way: “A marked inferiority in technique here cannot possibly be interpreted away, even with the best of will. There is no good reason for the patrol, it performs no function whatever, it brings no change or development in the situation” (Fenik 1964:40). By understanding the traditional resonance of the phrase mermera erga, however, we can see that the Trojans react to what has happened as a disaster. This reaction may imply the same importance of Rhesos as we see in other versions of his traditional narrative (for more on those, see the Rhesos section in our essay “Tradition and Reception”)—in one version, he is the one committing mermera erga and has to be stopped; in another, he would have been invincible and so would have committed mermera erga had he lived.

527-530. mvp-comment-210-1 10.527–530 These lines use formulaic language that is employed elsewhere in the Homeric epics for chariot driving. See commentary on 10.513–514 for a discussion on the question of whether the heroes take Rhesos’ chariot and are therefore driving, or whether they are riding the horses.

530. mvp-comment-211-1 10.530 μάστιξεν δ᾽ ἵππους In the intermarginal scholia in Venetus A, it is noted that “in others, ‘Odysseus whipped’ ” ( ἐν ἄλλῳ “μάστιξεν δ’ Ὀδυσσεύς”), making it clear that Odysseus is the one driving or controlling the horses. Indeed, forty-three manuscripts, according to Allen, have the variation that the A scholia record, showing the flexibility of leaving either the subject or the object of this verb understood. Of the forty-three manuscripts Allen lists as having this variation, only eight also omit line 531 (see below), perhaps indicating different channels of transmission for these two variations.

531. mvp-comment-212-1 10.531 The Venetus A manuscript, like many others—including some of the oldest, such as the Venetus B and the Townley manuscripts—does not include the line that is canonically called 10.531: νῆας ἔπι γλαφυράς· τῇ γὰρ φίλον ἔπλετο θυμῷ (“toward the hollow ships; for this way was dear to them in their hearts”). According to Allen, thirty of the one hundred eighteen manuscripts he collated do not include this line. At Iliad 11.519–520, we see the same pair of lines that some manuscripts record as 10.530–531: in that context, it is Nestor and Machaon who depart the fierce battle after Machaon is wounded by the arrow of Paris. The presence of this line in some witnesses to Iliad 10 should caution us about overinterpreting the formula in either context. It is tempting in Iliad 11 to see the horses’ desire to go a certain way as relating to their desire to leave battle, or that heading toward the ships, toward home, is what makes the direction dear to their hearts. But in the context of Iliad 10, those same interpretations cannot apply to Rhesos’ horses, which have just arrived at Troy and are now under the control of new drivers or masters. Instead, we can understand it in both places, in conjunction with the horses “flew not unwillingly” ( τὼ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀέκοντε πετέσθην), as a formula dealing with horses who are whipped and then respond by moving quickly in a particular direction.

532. mvp-comment-213-1 10.532 Νέστωρ δὲ πρῶτος κτύπον ἄϊε One aspect of the poetics of the night is the emphasis on senses other than sight, especially hearing. But as we see here, as well as in other examples, what one hears requires interpretation. (See the section on the sensory aspects of the night in “The Poetics of Ambush.”) This same verb of perceiving by hearing is used in 10.160 and 10.189 of hearing the Trojans from a distance (compare Iliad 18.222 and Iliad 21.388).

534. mvp-comment-214-1 10.534 This same line is also found at Odyssey 4.140, where Helen speaks it as she recognizes Telemakhos. Thus we may think of it as a formula used when a person interprets a sensory input, whether sight (Helen notes how much Telemakhos resembles Odysseus) or, as here, sound. Nestor hears the hoofbeats and goes on to interpret what he thinks that sound means.

535-537. mvp-comment-215-1 10.535–537 Nestor says that he hears hoofbeats and hopes that that sound indicates a successful return for Odysseus and Diomedes, driving horses off from the Trojans (after all, they did not leave with horses). That a return with horses is interpreted as success for what was originally a spying mission is another indicator of the thematic association between horse stealing and night themes in general. See “The Poetics of Ambush” for more on how these themes are associated within the epic tradition.

539. mvp-comment-216-1 10.539 ἄριστοι See commentary on 10.236. Nestor calls those who have gone on the spying mission the best men, a common designation in the ambush theme.