De Gruyter (2016) h/b 218pp £97.99 (ISBN 9781501512247)
In this book Achilles redirects his superhuman rage (mênis = central motif; see on 19.35) into more socially useful ends—away from Agamemnon, and the Achaeans who acquiesced in their leader’s humiliation of him, towards Hector and the Trojans who killed Patroclus. While Thetis supernaturally preserves Patroclus’ body from rot, the Achaean troops witness high-level rituals and Agamemnon’s uneasy acceptance of liability, if not responsibility. Achilles ignores Agamemnon’s clumsy (thematic) and irksome insistence that his actions were down to god-inspired atê (vv.88-95; 134-8). As C. realizes, he never accepts Agamemnon’s self-validating excuses that reinforce his hierarchy, scorning Agamemnon’s lavish amends. While Agamemnon virtually disappears henceforth, Achilles prepares and advances towards battle with his Achaean comrades. As he does so, his horse Xanthos foretells Achilles’ death, capping the ‘Wrath Unsaid’ book, as Byzantine scholiasts dubbed it.
This commentary, well translated by Benjamin Willis and Sarah Strack under Professor Douglas Olson’s editorship, does not intend to offer the most sophisticated exegetical tools to unlock oral theory, archaeology, Homeric sociology, philology proper or literary criticism, but to be a useful introduction for non-classicists and classicists alike that takes notice of earlier work and advances made since the publication of Geoffrey Kirk’s collaborative Cambridge Commentary (1985-1993). There, the now recently deceased and much mourned Mark Edwards offered fifty succinct pages on XIX compared to C.’s two hundred. C. has admirably profited, for instance, from the Lexikon der frühgriechischen Epos (ed. B. Snell et alii, 1955-2010) and the Homer Encyclopedia (ed. M. Finkelberg 2011). C., like the other Basler scholars, emphasizes recent narratological insights derived from Irene de Jong’s oeuvre.
The commentary includes section introductions, followed by line-by-line elucidation. There are three sizes of type, plus footnotes: regular font explains matters for even Greekless enthusiasts with a text keyed to Richmond Lattimore’s English translation; smaller type provides more usual philological exegesis; and the smallest font (hard to distinguish) assists readers on sub-fields of Homeric scholarship such as metrical irregularities, Indo-European linguistics including etymology, athetized verses, but little material culture (Bronze Age or Archaic archaeology).
C.’s treatment of Xanthos, the once-talking horse, a unique Homeric event with the unique ‘iffily’ uppity vocative ὄβριμ’ ᾿Αχιλλεῦ (408), supplies us with a sounding. C. notes that many Iliadic warriors meet rebuke, a prominent pattern, indeed a type-scene (cf. Edwards’ Comm. ad 399-403), oddly allied with elements of encouragement (parainesis). C. cites Iliad 2.225-42 (Thersites), but consider 4.231-418 (Agamemnon’s querulous series). Xanthos’ defensive but justified indignant response to Achilles finds expression in ring-composition mode. The supernal equid provides an ‘external prolepsis’ of Achilles’ approaching death. Regular font annotation (on verses 409-10) discusses: piecemeal presentation (‘paralipsis’), a curt catalogue of ‘mega gods’, and the nature of Moira. Smaller font provides the correspondence of these verses to 416-17, emphatic word placement, a nine-time verse-end formula, and word formation of κραταιή.
The exorbitant price of the Baslers impedes wider usefulness. Frequent cross-references to Basler Iliad I, II, etc., and to the ten chapters of the separate 2015 Prolegomena, frustrate the reader. Few libraries can sustain this extravagance. These English volumes, in contrast to the German edition, lack both the Greek of Martin West’s Teubner Iliad and a translation. Individual volumes supply no Greek text or indexes, thus rendering any volume unsuitable for classroom adoption, unlike the similarly divided but self-sufficient Cambridge Homeric ‘Green and Yellows.’ A promised book-by-book digital web edition would seem unwieldy for the educated public’s use. Students will need at hand text, commentary, Homeric lexicon, Prolegomena, and earlier, cross-referenced Basler volumes. The Commentary’s experimental typographic levels are a mixed blessing: perhaps the Basel project over-ambitiously collects information for too diverse audiences. But despite difficulties not of the author’s making, C.’s sophisticated commentary can often enlighten and delight both Greekless Homerists and even experienced scholars.
Donald Lateiner—Ohio Wesleyan University
HOMER’S ILIAD: THE BASEL COMMENTARY BOOK XIX
De Gruyter (2016) h/b 218pp £97.99 (ISBN 9781501512247)
In this book Achilles redirects his superhuman rage (mênis = central motif; see on 19.35) into more socially useful ends—away from Agamemnon, and the Achaeans who acquiesced in their leader’s humiliation of him, towards Hector and the Trojans who killed Patroclus. While Thetis supernaturally preserves Patroclus’ body from rot, the Achaean troops witness high-level rituals and Agamemnon’s uneasy acceptance of liability, if not responsibility. Achilles ignores Agamemnon’s clumsy (thematic) and irksome insistence that his actions were down to god-inspired atê (vv.88-95; 134-8). As C. realizes, he never accepts Agamemnon’s self-validating excuses that reinforce his hierarchy, scorning Agamemnon’s lavish amends. While Agamemnon virtually disappears henceforth, Achilles prepares and advances towards battle with his Achaean comrades. As he does so, his horse Xanthos foretells Achilles’ death, capping the ‘Wrath Unsaid’ book, as Byzantine scholiasts dubbed it.
This commentary, well translated by Benjamin Willis and Sarah Strack under Professor Douglas Olson’s editorship, does not intend to offer the most sophisticated exegetical tools to unlock oral theory, archaeology, Homeric sociology, philology proper or literary criticism, but to be a useful introduction for non-classicists and classicists alike that takes notice of earlier work and advances made since the publication of Geoffrey Kirk’s collaborative Cambridge Commentary (1985-1993). There, the now recently deceased and much mourned Mark Edwards offered fifty succinct pages on XIX compared to C.’s two hundred. C. has admirably profited, for instance, from the Lexikon der frühgriechischen Epos (ed. B. Snell et alii, 1955-2010) and the Homer Encyclopedia (ed. M. Finkelberg 2011). C., like the other Basler scholars, emphasizes recent narratological insights derived from Irene de Jong’s oeuvre.
The commentary includes section introductions, followed by line-by-line elucidation. There are three sizes of type, plus footnotes: regular font explains matters for even Greekless enthusiasts with a text keyed to Richmond Lattimore’s English translation; smaller type provides more usual philological exegesis; and the smallest font (hard to distinguish) assists readers on sub-fields of Homeric scholarship such as metrical irregularities, Indo-European linguistics including etymology, athetized verses, but little material culture (Bronze Age or Archaic archaeology).
C.’s treatment of Xanthos, the once-talking horse, a unique Homeric event with the unique ‘iffily’ uppity vocative ὄβριμ’ ᾿Αχιλλεῦ (408), supplies us with a sounding. C. notes that many Iliadic warriors meet rebuke, a prominent pattern, indeed a type-scene (cf. Edwards’ Comm. ad 399-403), oddly allied with elements of encouragement (parainesis). C. cites Iliad 2.225-42 (Thersites), but consider 4.231-418 (Agamemnon’s querulous series). Xanthos’ defensive but justified indignant response to Achilles finds expression in ring-composition mode. The supernal equid provides an ‘external prolepsis’ of Achilles’ approaching death. Regular font annotation (on verses 409-10) discusses: piecemeal presentation (‘paralipsis’), a curt catalogue of ‘mega gods’, and the nature of Moira. Smaller font provides the correspondence of these verses to 416-17, emphatic word placement, a nine-time verse-end formula, and word formation of κραταιή.
The exorbitant price of the Baslers impedes wider usefulness. Frequent cross-references to Basler Iliad I, II, etc., and to the ten chapters of the separate 2015 Prolegomena, frustrate the reader. Few libraries can sustain this extravagance. These English volumes, in contrast to the German edition, lack both the Greek of Martin West’s Teubner Iliad and a translation. Individual volumes supply no Greek text or indexes, thus rendering any volume unsuitable for classroom adoption, unlike the similarly divided but self-sufficient Cambridge Homeric ‘Green and Yellows.’ A promised book-by-book digital web edition would seem unwieldy for the educated public’s use. Students will need at hand text, commentary, Homeric lexicon, Prolegomena, and earlier, cross-referenced Basler volumes. The Commentary’s experimental typographic levels are a mixed blessing: perhaps the Basel project over-ambitiously collects information for too diverse audiences. But despite difficulties not of the author’s making, C.’s sophisticated commentary can often enlighten and delight both Greekless Homerists and even experienced scholars.
Donald Lateiner—Ohio Wesleyan University