[p. 33] For any attempt at assessing the state of the Homeric text in the fourth century BCE or determining the existence and content of a pre-Alexandrian Homeric vulgate, Homeric quotations in fourth-century authors are our primary source. There are several supplementary sources that are valuable as auxiliary, although later, witnesses. The papyri of the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, the scholia, and quotations by post-fourth-century authors are among the ancient authorities that can give further support to the early Homeric quotations. When taken altogether the picture they create of the fourth-century Homeric text is quite different from our own. There are numerous verses that are seemingly intrusive from the standpoint of the medieval vulgate, the so-called plus verses, and others that are absent, which may be termed minus verses.n1 Equally prevalent is variation of phraseology within lines.n2 In most cases the variation is of a demonstrably formulaic nature in which one Homeric formula is present in place of another, and the superiority of one or the other reading cannot be assumed. Some scholars are inclined, like Stephanie West, to dismiss most variants preserved in the early papyri. Nevertheless, West concedes that in most cases the plus verses presented by the early Ptolemaic papyri seem no less "Homeric" than those that survived medieval transmission. As West summarizes: "It is disconcerting to have to admit the possibility that authentic lines may have been lost after surviving till the second century B.C."n3

[p. 34] Proponents of the numerous dictation theories deal with this unsatisfactory situation in a variety of ways.n4 They attribute variation to "interpolation," a vague term which has been all things to all people and which requires clarification.n5 Alternatively they explain such variants as lapses of memory, under the common assumption that fourth-century authors like Plato and Aeschines did not have texts before them when quoting Homer.n6 It has become fashionable, moreover, to disparage as "banal"n7 or even "inept"n8 (and therefore not worth our consideration) the types of variation that fourth-century quotations and early papyri present.n9 But this criticism not only does nothing to solve the problem of what to do with these variants, it is untrue.

In this paper I present Aeschines' quotation of Iliad 23.77-91 in Against Timarchus 149 as a case in point for discussion and I raise the following questions. What authority do fourth-century quotations have in the establishment of the Homeric textsn10? What do the variations tell us about the early history of the Homeric text? Finally, what impact can they have on our understanding of Homer? I argue for a reevaluation of the importance of [p.35] fourth-century witnesses and the validity of the variants they preserve. But although I call for their inclusion in our awareness and our texts, I do not do so at the expense of the transmitted vulgate and other authoritative readings. Rather I call attention to the need for a multitextual approach to Homer that affirms the reality of the oral performance and transmission as it is illustrated by Aeschines' quotation.n11

Throughout his prosecution Aeschines provides carefully selected citations of Homer and the tragedians to support his claim that Timarchus has led the kind of life that, according to Athenian law, precludes him from speaking in the democratic assembly. The following is Aeschines' text of Patroklos' address to Achilles in Iliad 23,n12 which the speaker cites in an attempt to refute the defense's claim that Homer highly approved of sexual relationships between men. Aeschines' point is that Homer never explicitly says that Achilles and Patroklos were lovers; rather, the speaker argues, they possessed the noblest of friendships (τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν φιλίαν ἄξιον αὐτῶν 146).n13

77οὐ γὰρ ἔτι ζωοί γε φίλων ἀπάνευθεν ἑταίρων
βουλὰς ἑζόμενοι βουλεύσομεν: ἀλλ᾽ ἐμὲ μὲν Κὴρ
ἀμφέχανε στυγερή, ἥπερ λάχε γεινόμενόν περ:
80καὶ δὲ σοὶ αὐτ" μοῖρα, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ᾽ ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
τείχει ὕπο Τρώων εὐηγενέων ἀπολέσθαι,
81α+μαρνάμενον δηίοις Ε῾λένης ἕνεκ᾽ ἠυκόμοιο.
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω, σὺ δ᾽ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν:
μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ᾽, ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
83α+ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα περ σε καὶ αὐτὸν ὁμοίη γαῖα κεκεύθῃ,
83β+χρυσέῳ ἐν ἀμφιφορεῖ, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ,
...ς ὁμοῦ ἐτράφεμέν περ ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν,
85εὖτέ με τυτθὸν ἐόντα Μενοίτιος ἐξ ∞Οπόεντος
ἤγαγεν ὑμέτερόνδ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης ὕπο λυγρῆς,
ἤματι τ", ὅτε παῖδα κατέκτανον ∞αμφιδάμαντος,
νήπιος, οὐκ ἐθέλων, ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς:
ἔνθα με δεξάμενος ἐν δώμασιν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς
90ἔτρεφέ τ᾽ ἐνδυκέως καὶ σὸν θεράποντ᾽ ὀνόμηνεν:
ὣς δὲ καὶ ὀστέα νῶιν ὁμὴ σορὸς ἀμφικαλύπτοι.

Compare the transmitted text of the medieval manuscripts, including line 92 [83b], which was athetized by Aristarchus and not quoted by Aeschines:

77οὐ μὲν γὰρ ζωοί γε φίλων ἀπάνευθεν ἑταίρων
βουλὰς ἑζόμενοι βουλεύσομεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐμὲ μὲν κὴρ
ἀμφέχανε στυγερή, ἥ περ λάχε γεινόμενόν περ:
80καὶ δὲ σοὶ αὐτ" μοῖρα, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ᾽ ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
τείχει ὑπὸ Τρώων εὐηγενέων ἀπολέσθαι.
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω καὶ ἐφήσομαι αἴ κε πίθηαι:
μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ᾽ ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοῦ ...ς ἐτράφημεν ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν,
85εὖτέ με τυτθὸν ἐόντα Μενοίτιος ἐξ ∞Οπόεντος
ἤγαγεν ὑμέτερον δ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης ὕπο λυγρῆς,
ἤματι τ" ὅτε παῖδα κατέκτανον ∞Αμφιδάμαντος
νήπιος οὐκ ἐθέλων ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς:
ἔνθά με δεξάμενος ἐν δώμασιν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς
90ἔτρεφέ τ᾽ ἐνδυκέως καὶ σὸν θεράποντ᾽ ὀνόμηνεν:
ὣς δὲ καὶ ὀστέα νῶιν ὁμὴ σορὸς ἀμφικαλύπτοι
(-) χρύσεος ἀμφιφορεύς, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ.

[p. 36] As Michael Haslam has pointed out, this quotation has a relationship with the vulgate that is similar to that of the early Ptolemaic papyri.n14 The quotation shows three "plus verses" and significant internal variation in three separate lines. We do not know if Aeschines' text contained line 92 and its reference to the golden amphora of 83b, because his quotation breaks off at 91.n15

The passage defies the traditional arguments that have been used to dismiss such variation in the papyri. It is an older witness than any papyrus or manuscript, and has not undergone the scholarly editing of the Alexandrians. It has been assumed that this text was provided to a court reporter, who read aloud from it when called upon by Aeschines to do so, starting and stopping where he indicated.n16 A lapse in memory on the part of Aeschines is in any case not a solution to the variation within lines. Also, the official nature of the situation in which the quotation took place makes it unlikely that the passage is an eccentric private copy of the sort that a collector might possess, but rather the contrary. A standard wording is what is called for here, and one that was familiar to the jury if it was to carry any weight.n17

[p. 37] To confront this situation, in which a fourth-century witness challenges our vulgate text,n18 a scholarly consensusn19 seems to have been reached which asserts that verses 83a and 83b are an interpolation "effecting the equation of the σορός of 91 with the golden amphora which Thetis provides for Achilles' bones at Odyssey 24.73-77."n20

73δῶκε δὲ μήτηρ
χρύσεον ἀμφιφορῆα: Διωνύσοιο δὲ δῶρον
75φάσκ᾽ ἔμεναι, ἔργον δὲ περικλυτοῦ Ἡφαίστοιο.
ἐν τ" τοι κεῖται λεύκ᾽ ὀστέα, φαίδιμ᾽ ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
μίγδα δὲ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο θανόντος

Haslam has argued: "discussions of the amphora [on the François Vase] generally fail to realize that the verse [23.92] is an interpolation, and that the jar's only Homeric occurrence - provided we define Od. 24 as Homeric - is in Od. 24."n21 Proponents of this solution, including Haslam, point to Aristarchus' athetesis of line 92, a verse that is also missing in papyrus 12, a mid-third-century BCE text.n22 They argue that verses 83a and b and 92 are alternative means of bringing the Iliad passage into alignment with that of the Odyssey. They therefore maintain that the text from which Aeschines made his citation did not contain 92.

Allen saw long ago that this supposition is by no means demonstrable: "Aeschines' quotation stops at 91; it is therefore impossible to say with certainty that he omitted 92, the sense of which he had already given."n23 And yet most modern scholars do not even admit this possibility, which would weaken their case for interpolation. Giorgio Pasquali argues circularly that the presence of 83a and b in Aeschines guarantees that his text did not read 92.n24 Stephanie West declares that 92 is "replaced" by 83a and b.n25 Both Richard Janko and Geoffrey Kirk in their respective discussions in the Cambridge commentary state simply that the text of Aeschines omits 92 without even hinting that we have no way of being absolutely certain that this is so.n26

[p. 38] In the face of such a unified front, I propose to reformulate, adding some of my own examples, the general argument of Aldo Di Luzio, who has shown persuasively that 83a and b are not likely to be interpolations based on the Odyssey 24 passage.n27 Di Luzio argues instead that 83a and b were originally in the text along with 92. I omit for now but will return later to the question of whether to include 81a or the internal variants in 77 and 82. Di Luzio's presentation of the text reads as follows:

83μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ᾽ ∞Αχιλλεῦ,
83α+ ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα περ σε καὶ αὐτὸν ὁμοίη γαῖα κεκεύθῃ,
83β+ χρυσέῳ ἐν ἀμφιφορεῖ, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ,
...ς ὁμοῦ ἐτράφεμέν ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν,
85εὖτέ με τυτθὸν ἐόντα Μενοίτιος ἐξ ∞Οπόεντος
ἤγαγεν ὑμέτερον δ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης ὕπο λυγρῆς,
ἤματι τ" ὅτε παῖδα κατέκτανον ∞Αμφιδάμαντος
νήπιος οὐκ ἐθέλων ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς:
ἔνθά με δεξάμενος ἐν δώμασιν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς
90ἔτρεφέ τ᾽ ἐνδυκέως καὶ σὸν θεράποντ᾽ ὀνόμηνεν:
ὣς δὲ καὶ ὀστέα νῶιν ὁμὴ σορὸς ἀμφικαλύπτοι
(-) χρύσεος ἀμφιφορεύς, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ.

In this text, there is ring composition as in nearly every speech in Homer. This ring composition is reinforced by the repetition of the reference to the golden amphora in 83b. The ring composition is further enhanced by the parallelism between ὁμοίη in 83a and ὁμή in 91 as well as the ὀστέα of 83 and 91. The verses 83-83a then correspond to verse 91, while 83b corresponds to 92.n28

Di Luzio's arguments demonstrate that the passage as printed above is just as "Homeric" as our vulgate, and possibly more so. He writes: "con 83ab, il passo 83-92 manifesterebbe una struttura isomorfica con quella di altri discorsi del testo epico in cui le frasi alla fine del discorso sono spesso la ripresa di frasi occorrenti all' inizio di esso."n29 Not only is the overall structure Homeric, but the individual constructions within this structure correspond to Homeric usage as well. Together 83a and b form the familiar pattern of a negative protasis followed by a reinforcing positive apodosis that expresses the same idea. Compare these lines from the Odyssey:

113οὐ γάρ οἱ τῇδ᾽ αἶσα φίλων ἀπονόσφιν ὀλέσθαι,
ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι οἱ μοῖρ᾽ ἐστὶ φίλους τ᾽ ἰδέειν καὶ ἱκέσθαι
115οἶκον ἐς ὑψόροφον καὶ ἑὴν ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν.

The three-verse structure here is nearly identical to that of 83-83b. We can observe the same phenomenon in a more compressed form in the phrase "ἔοικέ τοι, οὔ τοι ἀεικές" (Iliad 9.70). Moreover, within this structure Di Luzio [p. 39] distinguishes still further examples of Homeric usage. The first half of 83b (χρυσέῳ ἐν ἀμφιφορεῖ) consists of a complementary locative phrase which specifies the preceding clause.n31 The second half of the line is a parenthetical relative clause of a kind that is used frequently in Homeric poetry to designate particular objects. A parallel is Iliad 4.215-216: λῦσε δέ οἱ ζωστῆρα παναίολον ἠδ᾽ ὑπένερθε / ζῶμά τε καὶ μίτρην, τὴν χαλκῆες κάμον ἄνδρες. There are numerous other examples.n32

Di Luzio's compelling analysis illustrates precisely why variants presented by fourth-century quotations and the Ptolemaic papyri cannot be dismissed as inept or unworthy. Thus there is room to disagree with Stephanie West 's analysis of this passage. She writes: "The objections to this version are obvious: 83a seems to be based on S 329, but barely makes sense; its insertion makes the construction of Patroclus' speech very confused."n33 And yet, as we have seen, there is nothing inherently objectionable within the lines themselves. They simply do not survive in our vulgate.

Nor does 92 present problems of usage. If we analyze it independently of 83b, we see that it contains an appositional phrase consisting of a synonym that specifies a preceding noun, the σορός of 91.n34 To this we can compare the following examples:n35

μινυνθάδιον δέ με μήτηρ
85γείνατο Λαοθόη θυγάτηρ Ἀλταο γέροντος
Ἀλτεω, ὃς Λελέγεσσι φιλοπτολέμοισιν ἀνάσσει

Τρωσὶν δ᾽ αὖ μετόπισθε γερούσιον ὅρκον ἕλωμαι
μή τι κατακρύψειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἄνδιχα πάντα δάσασθαι
κτῆσιν ὅσην πτολίεθρον ἐπήρατον ἐντὸς ἐέργει:

340ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν χαλκόν τε ἅλις χρυσόν τε δέδεξο
δῶρα τά τοι δώσουσι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ

In the first example the name Altes is repeated in the same case in order to introduce a specifying relative clause. In the second example there is a similar construction, but πάντα of line 120 is further specified by the apposition of κτῆσιν at the beginning of line 121. I adduce the last example because of its striking similarity to 23.92, the very verse in question. Like 83a and b, it seems that on its own 92 presents no difficulties.

The problem must originate in the existence of both 83a and b and 92 together at some pre-Alexandrian stage of the text. As Di Luzio points out, this sort of doubling, though unquestionably Homeric, was just the sort of [p. 40] thing that troubled Alexandrian critics. It is only to be expected that one or the other would have been omitted by Aristarchus' time in many texts. And indeed it seems that 83a and b had almost completely dropped out of the tradition by Aristarchus' day in deference to 92, but that remnants of an alternative excision of 92 still remained. The T scholiast states: ἐν πάσαις {δὲ} οὐκ ἦν ὁ στίχος. καὶ 'Αρίσταρχος ἐκ τῆς <δευτέρας> Νεκυίας αὐτὸν ἐσπάσθαι φησίν. Di Luzio suggests that Aristarchus conjectured that verse 92 was an interpolation based on the Odyssey only after he felt compelled to explain why it was not present in all the texts available to him.n36 This scenario is all the more likely if some of Aristarchus' texts no longer contained 83a and b.

Nor is it surprising that verses 83a and b lost out so decisively to verse 92 when we consider that Iliad 22.121, discussed above, has likewise disappeared from a large majority of manuscripts (including papyrus 27). Di Luzio's examples exhaustively demonstrate that this sort of construction is Homeric, yet its repetitive quality troubled editors enough to jeopardize its place in the tradition. Verses 83a and b had double reason to be suspect in the eyes of the Alexandrians. They contained the repetitive negative and positive formation like that of 22.121 on the one hand, and on the other they nearly duplicated 92.

My formulation of the history of the passage is the opposite of that of Haslam, Stephanie West, Janko, and Kirk.n37 I posit the loss of 83a and b or 92 in all or most texts between the fourth and second centuries BC rather than their insertion sometime prior to Aeschines' quotation of them. It is easier to understand the loss of such lines that we know to have been troublesome for scholars of the post-Homeric era than to postulate an interpolation in a text as early and authoritative as that of Aeschines. The attribution of interpolation to such an early text indeed stretches the limits of the term, for there could have been scant means and little motive to interpolate in a time when literacy was limited and performance was still alive and well as, for most people, the primary means of access to the Homeric epics for most people.n38

Not only is there no reason to theorize that 83ab/92 is an interpolation, but such a theory does nothing to explain other variant readings in this passage that are equally difficult to explain by conventional text-critical methods. The first words of the first line of the passage are not the same as we find in the transmitted vulgate: οὐ γὰρ ἔτι vs. οὐ μὲν γὰρ (ζωοί γε φίλων ἀπάνευθεν ἑταίρω?. The phrase οὐ γὰρ ἔτι is certainly Homeric; it occurs four times in our Iliad and Odyssey. The phrase οἀ μὲν γᾡρ, on the other hand, occurs forty-three times. Van der Valk objects to Aeschines' [p. 41] reading, stating simply: "It is obvious that the solemn formula of the Homeric mss. οὐ μὲν γὰρ represents the original text."n39 It is not obvious at all: the number of occurrences suggests that οὐ γὰρ ἔτι is the more marked form and arguably the more solemn. But by far the most remarkable evidence in support of Aeschines' reading is the fact that the A scholia confirm that this was the reading in some of the city editions (ἔν τισι τῶν πολιτικῶν). An old attestation with ancient authority, it deserves at least as much consideration as the text transmitted into medieval times.

Line 81a, another plus verse, holds up to similar scrutiny. This line is perfectly formulaic. The phrase μάρνασθαι δηΐοισιν occurs in verse-initial position four times in our Iliad (9.317, 11.190, 11.205, 17.148). The participle μαρνάμενον is likewise attested in various cases in verse-initial position throughout the Iliad: μαρνάμενον 3.307, 6.204; μαρνάμενοι 6.257, 6.328, 14.25; μαρναμένων 12.429, 13.579, 16.775; marnam¡noisi 13.96. The phrase Ἑλένης ἕνεκ᾽ ἠυκόμοιο is also found at Iliad 9.339, and there are six instances of the phrase Ἑλένης πόσις ἠυκόμοιο, all in verse-final position.n40 Others have viewed the formulaic nature of verse 81a as proof of interpolation.n41 This view is at odds with the argument of Lord that in the system within which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, every line is formulaic.n42 Stephanie West is sympathetic to the idea of interpolation, but acknowledges: Some of these [verses] may have been composed for interpolation, but it is equally possible that they come from lost hexameter poetry. Obviously none of these plus-verses is indispensable, but since there are many equally dispensable lines in our texts of Homer which no one would excise, this would not in itself be a sufficient reason for rejecting them. n43

West here distinguishes between two types of interpolation: those composed by the "interpolator," and those taken out of their original context and inserted improperly by the "interpolator" into another passage. West's own analysis suggests that the plus verses are as "Homeric" as the vulgate, but West nevertheless treats them as "interpolations" that have no place in our texts of the Iliad and Odyssey.

[p. 42] Line 23.82 presents a comparable difficulty for those who insist on the aberrance of the fourth-century quotations of Homer. The vulgate at this line reads ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω καὶ ἐφήσομαι αἴ κε πίθηαι. As with 77, the variation is internal to the line and therefore is not a question of the numerus versuum. Line 82 is the only instance of this verse in Homer, although the construction is a familiar one.n44 The phraseology of Aeschines' reading, on the other hand (ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω σὺ δ᾽ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν), is attested eleven times in the vulgate. I do not suggest that Aeschines' reading is superior or more "Homeric": I merely propose that it is no less so.

On this point the positions taken by editors break down. The work of Di Luzio, Labarbe, Haslam, and others has challenged the negative assumptions scholars make about the validity of ancient variants.n45 But where the intent of Di Luzio, for example, is to find the ipsissima verba of the one true Homer, he must necessarily privilege one reading over another in every case. D'Ippolito, to cite another example, prides himself on being the only editor to include plus verses in his text of Odyssey 5,n46 but his acceptance of the authenticity of plus verses does not solve the question of what to do with variation such as what we find in Iliad 23.82, or the situation in which a papyrus or quotation presents an entire formulaic line in place of another.n47 They cannot both be accepted within the model of the single monumental composer that D' Ippolito proposes. Janko and others, on the other hand, accept the principle of the Aristarchean numerus versuum, but do not admit that the textual variants that Aristarchus records can be genuine performance variants and worthy of inclusion in the text.n48 Like D' Ippolito, they have no solution for multiple readings, mutually exclusive in their view, that occur in the same line or formular unit - other than the elevation of one reading at the expense of others which may be equally genuine.n49

The substitution of one formula for another is part of the poetics of the oral-formulaic system. Milman Parry demonstrated the significance of this for the text of Homer. He writes: [p. 43] The formula thus is by no means the unit of the singer's poetry, but it nevertheless ever tends to become so, for no singer ever tells the same tale twice in the same words. His poem will always follow the same general pattern, but this verse or that will be left out, or replaced by another verse or part of a verse, and he will leave out and add whole passages as the time and mood of his hearers calls for a fuller or briefer telling of a tale or of a given part of a tale. Thus the oral poem even in the mouth of the same singer is ever in a state of change; and it is the same when his poetry is sung by others.n50

Variation is a clear sign of the oral poetics of recomposition-in-performance and no one formula is more or less Homeric than another. Here we come to the problem. What do textual critics of Homer mean when they say that a verse has been interpolated? For Parry the term interpolation would be applicable neither to plus verses nor to variation such as that found in line 82 of Aeschines' quotation.

This passage challenges the way we deal with poetic variants, particularly those that are demonstrably formulaic and in strict accordance with Homeric usage. These variants take the form of both internal variation within lines as well as fluctuation in the numerus versuum resulting from expansion and compression at the performance level.n51 Many of the features that are Homeric in 83-92 are present in a more compressed form even if 83a and b and 92 are eliminated from the text. Let us consider:

83μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ᾽ Αχιλλεῦ,
ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοῦ ...ς ἐτράφημεν ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν,
85εὖτέ με τυτθὸν ἐόντα Μενοίτιος ἐξ Οπόεντος
ἤγαγεν ὑμέτερον δ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης ὕπο λυγρῆς,
ἤματι τ᾽ ὅτε παῖδα κατέκτανον ∞Αμφιδάμαντος
νήπιος οὐκ ἐθέλων ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς:
ἔνθά με δεξάμενος ἐν δώμασιν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς
90ἔτραφέ τ᾽ ἐνδυκέως καὶ σὸν θεράποντ᾽ ὀνόμηνεν:
ὣς δὲ καὶ ὀστέα νῶϊν ὁμὴ σορὸς ἀμφικαλύπτοι

The variation found within verse 84, caused by the fluctuation between the shorter and longer version, has been eliminated. There is still ring composition and verbal repetition of ᾀστᾓα in 83 and 91. Verses 83-84 alone are a somewhat elliptical version of the construction featuring a negative protasis / positive reinforcing apodosis - if we understand an ellipse of τιθἒμεναι in 84. The presence of 83ab and 92 expands and reinforces these features. The textual critic who wishes to print an edition of the Iliad is forced to choose between these two quite different texts, either of which is defensible in terms of Homeric usage.

For the Alexandrian editors, that choice was nearly always in favor of the shorter of two variants. As Di Luzio points out, many characteristics of oral poetry such as the adding of description, specification, recapitulation, and repetition, all connected paratactically or in apposition, were antithetical to [p. 44] the aesthetics of the day in much the same way that they are now.n52 Verses that contained these features met with a very difficult reception. The plus verses which are so weakly attested and other verses which have survived medieval transmission but which we know to have been athetized or omitted by Alexandrian editors are proof of this. Their possession of these same features surely accounts for the disappearance of plus verses from most texts that survived to Aristarchus' day. Nagy has shown that once a line was eliminated from what becomes the definitive text and a fixed numerus versuum, its only means for re-entering the text was interpolation - "retrospectively, from the standpoint of the hypothetical edition."n53 This qualified definition of interpolation can be applied to variation within lines as well. It accounts for the genuineness of performance variants within the oral-formulaic system described by Parry, and it is the only definition that can be applied to plus verses and variants such as those presented by Aeschines' quotation.

I now return to my initial questions concerning the importance of the kind of variation presented by the text of Aeschines. How does the presence or absence of the golden amphora in this passage affect our larger Iliad? If we take a step beyond the history of transmission and interpret their significance from an artistic or "literary" perspective, we can see that in fact the issue is neither minor, nor banal. Homeric variants can and do present vastly different narrative consequences. These narrative consequences are not accidental, nor are they ad hoc inventions; rather, variants can signal alternative performance traditions that are not incorporated into our Iliad and Odyssey. n54 In this case, the presence or absence of the golden amphora [p. 45] has not only a literary but also cultural and religious consequence: it is a case of signaling or not signaling the reassembly of Achilles' bones into an immortalized hero.n55

Throughout the Iliad there is reference to a larger event that will take place outside of the confines of the epic, and that is the death of Achilles. We are constantly reminded of his short life and impending doom, close on the heels of Hector's. n56 The presence here of the golden amphora, which Achilles' mother gave him in anticipation of his approaching death, evokes in Patroklos' reminder not only that impending death but its aftermath.n57 Our awareness of the presence or absence of the golden amphora in the narrative of Achilles' death determines whether he will achieve immortality through cult or pass into obscurity in the underworld.n58 Although the Iliad centers on Achilles' mortality, here we have a glimpse of the immortality that is so important in the tradition outside of the Iliad.n59 The golden amphora points to a critical dichotomy in how the Achilles story ends.n60

Variation within lines and plus verses are also significant because they give us valuable insight into oral composition in performance. They confirm that what Parry and Lord observed in South Slavic oral poetry is applicable to the Homeric epics as well. They tell us that as Parry's work expected, the Homeric texts were performed and recorded with variation on the level of formulae and expansion and compression of passages.n61 We can now apply Lord's description of the oral poet's aesthetic to Aeschines' quotation of Iliad 23.77-92 and to all variation found in early quotations and papyri whose expansions and alternative phrasing have been characterized as banal and unworthy of Homer: The singer's mode of composition is dictated by the demands of performance at high speed, and he depends upon inculcated habit and association of sounds, words, phrases, and lines. He does not shrink from the habitual; nor does he either require the fixed for memorization or seek the unusual for its own sake. His oft-used phrases and lines lose something in sharpness, yet many of them must resound with overtones from the dim past whence they came. Were we to train our ears to catch these echoes, we might cease to apply the clichés of another criticism to oral poetry, and thereby become aware of its own riches.n62

[p. 46] Formulaic expansion and variation are not a sign of inferior imitation but rather are inherent in Homeric poetry. In order to be effective editors, we must set aside modern conceptions of poetry and appreciate the multiformity of the epic before us.

This precept brings me to my final query. What authority should we attribute to variants that are weakly attested or simply not present in the vulgate when it comes to the practical tasks of editing, reading, and teaching the Homeric texts? I have tried to show that the answer is not dismissal or disregard, or the privileging of one reading over another in the way that a conventional text critic of classical texts must. Fourth-century quotations of Homer are some of our oldest witnesses and preserve information about the various epic traditions that we have lost. In one of those traditions, Achilles was not left to dwell in Hades, lamenting the choice he made to re-enter the fight and preferring a life of servitude to death with κλέος. Instead his bones were assembled and placed in a golden amphora along with those of Patroklos, thereby securing his immortality in cult. A multitextual approach could embrace both possibilities, as well as demonstrate the reality of oral performance and transmission which requires that no oral text will ever be composed, performed, and recorded the same way twice.

West's Teubner edition of the Iliad is the closest thing that we have in print to a multitext. It incorporates more ancient readings into its apparatus than any previous edition and includes many papyrus fragments that have never been published before. Yet this work too is reminiscent of a quest for the one true text, as West suggests in the first sentence of the first volume: "Ilias materiam continet iamdiu per ora cantorum diffusam, formam autem contextumque qualem nos novimus tum primum attinuit, cum conscripta est; quod ut fieret, unius munus fuit maximi poetae."n63 West appreciates the diachrony of the Homeric texts, the final form of which he attributes to the efforts of a maximus poeta, but he treats as interpolation such variation as that found in Aeschines.n64

The ideal format for a multitext edition of Homer may be an electronic text. Unlimited in its ability to handle complex sets of variants, an electronic multitext offers critical readers of Homer the opportunity to consider many possible texts at many different stages of transmission. It allows the reader to select and navigate between many different kinds of transmission, and to recover both a more accurate and more accessible picture of the fluidity of the tradition in the earliest stages of the text.

As Allen saw nearly a century ago, it is important to realize that papyrus evidence confirms the quotations in that they present a text no less fluid in its numerus versuum and formulaic variants: The importance of the fragments is that they at last furnish us with a specimen, actually in writing and on papyrus, of such editions, - in other words that they confirm the quotations. Their effect in this direction is most important and salutary. Quotation has [p. 47] always been a discredited source of evidence. All sorts of obvious conditions (lapse of memory, association, carelessness, deliberate alteration to suit a context, on the part of the writer; and all these plus his own private sins on the part of the scribe) have allowed critics to disregard almost any given quotation. We now know that Plato and Aeschines were not the victims of recollection, and did not adapt passages to their ends...n65

Instead of choosing between variants and plus verses in an attempt to recover the ipsissima verba of Homer, I propose that we find ways of including them in a multitext that embraces the fluidity of the textual traditions of the Iliad and Odyssey. Van Thiel points out it in his recent edition of the Odyssey that we now have the technology to compile a complete apparatus for Homer including all sources, testimonia, and conjectures, but he questions "whether it would be worth the effort and expense."n66 I maintain that it would be, and I have put forth Aeschines' quotation as a both a test case for such an approach and a demonstration of why we should do so.n67

1 On the concept of "plus" verses, see M. J. Apthorp, The Manuscript Evidence for Interpolation in Homer (Heidelberg 1980). For "minus" verses, see G. Nagy, "Homeric Scholia," in the New Companion to Homer, ed. B. Powell and I. Morris (Leiden, 1996), p. 116, note 48. A corrected version of "Homeric Scholia," which was printed with several typographical errors in the New Companion, will appear in the forthcoming Homeric Responses (Austin, 2002). I use the term variant strictly in relation to what most modern critics of Homer call the vulgate, an amorphous entity, conventionally conceived as the combined totality of majority readings in the medieval manuscripts of Homer. For a critique of conventional modern usage of the term vulgate see G. Nagy, "Homeric Scholia," 114-22, as well as M. Haslam, "Homeric Papyri and Transmission of the Text" in New Companion to Homer, 63-69.

2 As I will argue throughout this paper, I understand most formulaic variants to be a necessary product of the process of recomposition-in-performance, and I therefore consider such variation a heritage of oral poetry. But by strict definition, we cannot speak of the term "variant" at all, for in oral poetry each performance is a new composition, and therefore there can be no reconstruction of an "original." See A. B. Lord, Singer of Tales2 (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 101.

3 Stephanie West, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Cologne and Opladen, 1967), 13.

4 E.g. M. S. Jensen, The Homeric Question and the Oral Formulaic-Theory (Copenhagen, 1980); R. Janko, Homer, Hesiod, and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic Diction (Cambridge, 1982) and "The Homeric Poems as Oral Dictated Texts," CQ 48 (1998): 1-13; M. L. West, "Archaische Heldendichtung: Singen und Schreiben," Der ∫bergang von der Mƒndlichkeit zur Literatur bei den Griechen, ed. W. Kullmann and M. Reichel, Tübingen, 1990, 33-50; and B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge, 1991) and "Homer and Writing," New Companion to Homer, 3-32. For a different and more comparative approach, see A. B. Lord, "Homer's Originality: Oral Dictated Texts," TAPA 94 (1953): 124-134. For a summary and discussion of the various dictation theories see G. Nagy, Homeric Questions (Austin, 1996), 30-35.

5 See, e.g., R. Janko in The "Iliad": A Commentary, vol. 4, Books 13-16 (Cambridge, 1992), 21. He argues that extra verses were "interpolated" later into an originally dictated text. M. L. West calls the extra verses found in fourth-century quotations "embellishments" by rhapsodes in his Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (Stuttgart, 1973), but in his new Teubner edition of the Iliad (Homerus Ilias Volumen Prius [Stuttgart, 1998]) he calls them interpolations (p. vii). Stephanie West likewise refers to plus verses as "interpolations," later adding that these were largely the work of rhapsodes, and compares them to actor's interpolations in Attic drama (Ptolemaic Papyri [n. 3 above], 12-13). For a critical discussion of the use of the term interpolation by classicists in reference to performance variants, see Nagy, Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond(Cambridge, 1996), 28-32.

6 See M. L. West's Ilias (n. 5 above), p. x. T. W. Allen, on the other hand, attributes to Plato "a designed carelessness of Socrates" that makes him a doubtful witness; see his Homer: The Origins and Transmission (Oxford, 1924), 254. In the same volume (pp. 249-70), Allen provides a useful survey of early Homeric quotations and the variants they preserve. For a thorough study of the quotations of Homer in Plato specifically see J. Labarbe, L'Homère de Platon (Liège, 1949). His overall purpose in considering the variants found in Plato is the establishment of the one true text of Homer. As a result his work is fundamentally at odds with my own approach, which accounts for an awareness of the inherent fluidity of textual traditions that reflect an oral tradition and an inclusion of ancient variants in a "multitextual" approach to editing Homer. Nevertheless his discussion is an important contribution to the study of quotations in Homeric textual criticism. On ancient quotations of Homer see also C. Higbie, "The Bones of a Hero, The Ashes of a Politician: Athens, Salamis, and the Usable Past," CA 16 (1997): 279-308, and M. D. Usher, "Variations: On the Text of Homer" in Speaking Volumes (ed. Janet Watson, Leiden, 2000).

7 H. Pelliccia, "As Many Homers as You Please," New York Review of Books 44.18 (20 November 1997), 46. See also M. Finkelberg ("The Cypria, The Iliad, and the Problem of Multiformity in Oral and Written Tradition," CP 95 (2000): 1-11), who cites Pelliccia as well as S. West and B. Powell in her argument that the known variants of the Iliad and Odyssey are too restricted to be considered multiforms. For further discussion, see n. 54 below.

8 G. S. Kirk, The "Iliad": A Commentary, vol. 1, Books 1-4 (Cambridge, 1985), ad 1.1, on a variant Iliad proem.

9 Cf. Janko's criticism of Van Thiel's decision not to bracket many verses considered by Apthorp to be interpolated: "This is not progress... the removal of such lines almost always improves the poem's literary qualities" ("Homeri Odyssea," Gnomon 66 [1994]: 293).

10 I do not use "text" here in the strictest sense of a written document but rather that of a fixed composition, using Nagy's formulation: textuality is determined "by the degree of a composition's invariability from performance to performance" (Homeric Questions [n. 4 above], 19).

11 On "multitextual" approaches to Homer see Nagy, Poetry as Performance (n. 5 above), in particular chap. 5, "Multiform Epic and Aristarchus' Quest for the Real Homer," as well as G. Bird, Multitextuality in Homer's Iliad: the Evidence of the Ptolemaic Papyri (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1997).

12 For the purposes of this paper I will use the text of the Iliad and Odyssey edited by H. Van Thiel (Hildesheim, 1996 and 1991) as a close approximation of the vulgate, which due to the complexities of transmission is not an absolutely fixed and precise entity. The importance Van Thiel places on the medieval transmission and his resistance to normalizing traditions make his text an ideal point of comparison with the variants found in papyri and ancient quotations, which he deems "of minor importance" and treats "as if it were conjecture" (Homeri Odyssea, xxi).

13 See also In Tim. 151 τᾷ σωφρᾴνως ίρᾦν. Aeschines is careful to distinguish between sexual relations between men and erotic/romantic love between men and (male) youths (which he calls ἔρωτα δίκαιον, In Tim. 136). He anticipates some of his own erotic poetry will be read to the jury along with passages from the poets (In Tim. 132-136). See Dover, Greek Homosexuality2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 39-54.

14 M. Haslam, "Homeric Papyri" (n. 1 above), 75. See also B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, The Hibeh Papyri I (Oxford, 1906), 67-75, and T. W. Allen, "Ludwich's Homervulgata," CR (1899): 39-41.

15 Cf. 83b: χρυσέῳ ἐν ἀμφιφορεῖ, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ ~ 92: χρύσεος ἀμφιφορεύς, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ. On the possibility that Aeschines' text did contain verse 92 see the discussion below.

16 Allen supposes that the text is that of the clerk of court's own copy (Origins and Transmission [n. 6 above], 257).

17 The question of just what text the court reporter would have read out to the jury is a difficult one. We have no direct evidence that a state text existed for Homer or any other poetry at this time. Elsewhere I have suggested that the later Lycurgan law that called for official state copies of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to be placed in the Metroon had little to do with the establishment of the text and more to do with symbolically elevating the poetry to the status of law. See C. Dué, "Poetry and the Demos: State Regulation of a Civic Possession" (published 2000 by the Stoa Consortium, ed. R. Scaife, http://www.stoa.org/demos/camws-casey.html). We cannot simply assume that at this transmissional stage any one text of Homer was canonical. Nevertheless, on principle I do not believe, as does M. Van der Valk, that Aeschines could have or would have deliberately altered the text either on the occasion of delivering the speech or in its subsequent publication. (He argues that Aeschines has inserted 83ab in place of 92 early in Patroklos' appeal in order to support his argument that Patroklos and Achilles are the archetypal pair of "chaste" lovers; see Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad II [Leiden, 1964], 326-31.) Wherever ancient citations of Homer differ from the medieval transmission I submit that there are generally other reasons than deliberate alteration by the quoter. Altering Homer to suit an argument and paraphrasing (as in Plato) are different matters entirely. Quoting Homer is not the same as quoting the bible, as A. Ford has recently pointed out, but Homeric poetry carried an undeniable authority. See Higbie, "Bones" (n. 6 above); A. Ford, "Reading Homer from the Rostrum: Poems and Laws in Aeschines' Against Timarchus," in Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, ed. S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (Cambridge, 1999), 231-56; and S. Perlman, "Quotations from Poetry in Attic Orators of the Fourth Century B.C.E.," AJP 85 (1964): 155-172. Aeschines argues with the defense about the interpretation of the cited text, not about which text is the correct one. Moreover, I do not agree with Van der Valk's argument that the text of Aeschines' citation supports his argument more than the transmitted medieval text does.

18 This is not to say that the text of Aeschines has not undergone the same transmissional hazards as any ancient text. I mean only that there is no reason to presume that Aeschines' quotation was more susceptible than any other text of Homer to deliberate or accidental change in antiquity.

19 As set forth in two separate places within the Cambridge commentary on the Iliad by N. Richardson ad 23.96 (vol. 6: Books 21-24 [Cambridge, 1993]) and by Janko, "Iliad" [n. 5 above], 28, as well as by Haslam, "Homeric Papyri," 76.

20 Haslam, "Homeric Papyri," 76.

21 M. Haslam, "Kleitias, Stesichoros, and the Jar of Dionysos," TAPA 121 (1991): 36. On the relationship of these lines to Stesichoros and the François Vase see also A. Stewart, "Stesichoros and the François Vase," in Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, ed. W. Moon (Madison, 1983), and see n. 58, below.

22 Verses 1-85 of Iliad 23 are lost in papyrus 12, with the result that we have no direct way of knowing whether or not it contained 83a-b. See Haslam, "Homeric Papyri," 76.

23 Allen, Origins and Transmission, 257.

24 "Il secondo dei versi che in Eschine seguono l' 83 ∂ quello che nei nostri testi noi leggiamo quale C 92: segno certo che nel testo di Eschine C 92 al suo posto mancava." G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (Florence, 1962), pp. 221-22.

25 S. West, Ptolemaic Papyri, 171.

26 See citations in n. 19 above. I do not mean to claim that Aeschines ever quoted line 92. I merely point out that we cannot know whether or not the text from which Aeschines took his quotation contained 92.

27 A. di Luzio, "I papyri omerici d' epoca tolemaica e la costituzione del testo dell' epica arcaica," RCCM 11 (1969): 3-152.

28 See further Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 84-85.

29 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 83.

30 On this construction and on these lines from the Odyssey see Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 85 and 110.

31 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 85.

32 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 84, and even more examples on p. 86.

33 S. West, Ptolemaic Papyri, 172.

34 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 84. There are several comments by the scholiast concerning Homer's use of three different words (σορος 23.91, ἀμφιφορεύς 23.92, λάρναξ 24.795) to refer to the same sort of object. Di Luzio effectively demonstrates their semantic equivalence in a discussion of the various Homeric uses of these and other words for vessels.

35 More examples at Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 84.

36 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 83.

37 See page 37, above.

38 Allen hits the nail on the head when he says, "the origin of additions and omissions cannot be referred to anything except to the recitation of rhapsodes, and therefore the phenomenon must have existed and presumably been most frequent during the period when a reading public hardly existed" (Origins and Transmission, 267). If we understand performance in place of Allen's "recitation" (which implies memorization) we have here an early formulation of what Milman Parry was to demonstrate by way of fieldwork. What Allen could not have realized is that these additions and omissions are not interpolations but genuine performance variants no less "Homeric" than the vulgate.

39 Van der Valk II, Researches (n. 17 above), 2:327, n. 230.

40 Cf. Richardson, "Iliad"(n. 19 above) ad 23.81.

41 As evidenced by such statements as Allen's "a dispensable line... constructed of two Homeric pieces" (Origins and Transmission, 257). Allen's remark is a typical response to plus verses, even today.

42 See Lord, Singer of Tales (n. 2 above), 47. Textual critics of Homer today seem no less reluctant to accept this formulation than those of Parry's time. See Parry's comments (written in 1928) in "The Traditional Epithet in Homer," in The Making of Homeric Verse, ed. A. Parry (Oxford, 1987), 8-9. Parry cites Antoine Meillet, whose Origines indo-européennes des mètres grecs (Paris, 1923) had appeared five years earlier: "Homeric epic is entirely composed of formulae handed down from poet to poet. An examination of any passage will quickly reveal that it is made up of lines and fragments of lines which are reproduced word for word in one or several other passages. And even lines, parts of which are not found in another passage, have the character of formulae, and it is doubtless pure chance that they are not attested elsewhere" (Origines, 61 = Homeric Verse, 9). This is not the place to examine the question of originality in the Homeric texts, but in asserting that Homeric diction is formulaic I do not deny Homeric artistry. Cf. Parry, Homeric Verse, 335: "The fame of a singer comes not from quitting the tradition but from putting it to the best use." In a forthcoming work I argue that the very fact that the Iliad is "oral traditional" often allows even deeper and more complex levels of meaning than may be found in poetry that is composed in a literate, text-based culture.

43 S. West, Ptolemaic Papyri, 13.

44 Cf. Iliad 1.207: ἦλθον ἐγὼ παύσουσα τὸ σὸν μένος, αἴ κε πίθηαι.

45 Labarbe, L'Homère de Platon (n. 6 above); Haslam, "Homeric Papyri"; Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici."

46 G. D'Ippolito, Lettura di Omero: Il Canto V dell' "Odissea" (Palermo, 1977), ad Odyssey 5.24a.

47 See, for example, Odyssey 5.21 τὴν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς. Papyrus 30 has in place of this line tὴν δ᾽ ἠμείβετ᾽ ἔπειτα πατὴρ ἀωδρῶν τε θεῶν τε (as restored by D'Ippolito), which also occurs at Iliad 1.544. D'Ippolito does print the alternate line in his apparatus.

48 Janko, "Iliad", 4:22. For arguments against Janko's position, see G. Nagy, Poetry as Performance (n. 5 above), 138-40.

49 Haslam's position on plus verses and variations found in the Ptolemaic papyri is more subtle than the other positions surveyed here. He notes: "Whatever kind of a history they have behind them, the verses existed, and while editors whose quest is the original Homer may not see fit to admit them or even to report them, the fact remains that they were just as much a part of the Homeric text as verses whose subsequent life was longer" ("Homeric Papyri," 68). I am much in agreement on this point. But Haslam does reveal a prejudgment when he says "From a transmissional point of view, however, it is easier to view plus-verses as accretions which did not gain a sufficiently firm hold to be perpetuated than as pristine material which has dropped" ("Homeric Papyri," 68). See also his earlier article in which he calls Iliad 23.92 an "interpolation" and not "Homeric" ("Kleitias" [n. 21 above]). The distinction between "accretions" and "pristine material" is still contingent upon an original text. Haslam's model, like those of the other scholars I have cited, excludes the possibility of a multiform text that does not privilege any single performance-based textual tradition (see Nagy, Poetry as Performance , 107-152, on the idea of a transcriptional stage of the Homeric text. On the concept of an "original" see n. 2 above).

50 M. Parry, "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making, II: The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry," in Homeric Verse, 336.

51 On fluctuation of the numerus versuum and expansion/compression see Nagy, Poetry as Performance, pp. 138-40, with citations.

52 Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 142-143. See also D'Ippolito, Canto V, 246-247.

53 Poetry as Performance, 140.

54 My understanding of the multiformity of the Iliad and Odyssey contrasts with that described by Finkelberg ("Problems of Multiformity" [n. 7 above]). Finkelberg argues that the Iliad and Odyssey are not in fact multiforms, and that the variants of these texts are characteristic of the transmission of a fixed composition. Finkelberg maintains, following M. L. West, that the variation is on the level of formulae and wording, not substance or plot. She even goes so far as to say: "the only variations that entered the Homeric text have been trivial variations in wording" (p. 10). In this connection I adduce G. Nagy's theory of the "Panathenaic bottleneck." Nagy argues that the Iliad and Odyssey did undergo a process of text fixation, not through writing but in the context of increasingly limited performance. As the poems passed through this "bottleneck" the degree of variability became increasingly limited until the point at which we find them in the Ptolemaic papyri. Finkelberg also cites the Panathenaia as the context for the text fixation of the Iliad and Odyssey (without citing Nagy's publications on this subject). I agree with Finkelberg that the medieval transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey reflect a text that has become relatively fixed. Nevertheless, in the Classical period, although variability was limited, significant performance variants are attested that are signals of alternative traditions that once flourished. The variants attested in the Classical period and beyond, even though in most cases they do not survive in the medieval manuscripts, are important. In at least one version of the Odyssey, to cite just one example that Finkelberg herself mentions, Telemachus goes not to Sparta, but to Crete (see the scholia ad Odyssey 3.313). I argue therefore (following Nagy) that the Iliad and Odyssey should be interpreted as multiforms in the sense that our fixed texts are the product of a performance tradition that was at one time a multiform. Variants allow us to recover some of the multiformity that was lost in the process of text fixation, i.e., the "Panathenaic bottleneck." On the "Panathenaic bottleneck" see especially Nagy's contribution to the 1999 Symbolae Osloensis debate (vol. 74), p. 67 and Nagy, "Irreversible Mistakes and Homeric Poetry," in Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Epic and its Legacy in Honor of Dimitris N. Maronitis, ed. J. N. Kazazis and A. Rengakos (Stuttgart, 1999), 259-274. For even earlier formulations of the role of the Panathenaia in shaping the Iliad and Odyssey see Nagy, Pindar's Homer (Baltimore, 1990), 23, Homeric Questions, 43; and Poetry as Performance, 77. For a discussion of a medievally transmitted variant at Iliad 23.103 see C. Dué, "Sunt Aliquid Manes: Homer, Plato, and Alexandrian Allusion in Propertius IV 7," Classical Journal 96 (2001): 401-413.

55 See especially G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry2 (Baltimore 1999), 208-9. See also Stewart, "Stesichoros" (n. 21 above), 64.

56 Cf. Il. 1.352, 416; 18.59-60, 89-90, 95-96; 24.132.

57 On the significance of Patroklos' reminding Achilles of his own death see also Di Luzio, "Papiri Omerici," 85, and H. Pestalozzi, Die Achilleis als Quelle der "Ilias" (Zurich, 1945), 33.

58 For a discussion of Hades-type narrative closure vs. "Elysium"-type narrative closure, see Nagy, Best of the Achaeans (n. 55 above), chaps. 9-10. See also Stewart, "Stesichoris," 64. Stewart argues for a compositional unity to the François Vase centered on the golden amphora depicted on it. The wedding of Peleus and Thetis is set amidst narratives that explore the tensions between mortality and immortality, peerless heroism and savage wrath, and mighty prowess and terrible hubris in the figure of Achilles. He notes: "Appropriately, all these themes intersect in the motif of Dionysos' amphora and its twin promises of death and immortality" (p. 66).

59 On the hero cult of Achilles in the area of the Black Sea, where Achilles was believed to live as an immortal on the island of Leuke ("the White Island"), see G. Hedreen, "The Cult of Achilles in the Euxine," Hesperia 60 (1991): 313-330.

60 Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, p. 164-73.

61 Variation occurred less and less over time. See G. Nagy, "Irreversible Mistakes and Homeric Poetry" (n. 54 above), 259-274.

62 Lord, Singer of Tales, 65.

63 M. L. West, Ilias, v. On the multitextual aspects of West's edition see also his "The Textual Criticism and Editing of Homer" in Editing Texts, ed. G. Most (Göttingen, 1998), 94-110.

64 See n. 5 above.

65 Allen, "Ludwich's Homervulgata" (n. 14 above), 40.

66 Van Thiel, "Odyssey" (n. 12 above), xxii.

67 Such a project is already underway. With a group of scholars (under the auspices of the Center for Hellenic Studies) I am working on an electronic edition that we envision as a combination of a neo-Alexandrian edition and a Venetus A for the 21st century. This edition will include known variants from papyri, scholia, medieval manuscripts, and quotations.

Achilles' Golden Amphora in Aeschines' Against Timarchus and the Afterlife of Oral Tradition. Casey Dué. Classical Philology 96 (2001): 33-47.
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