Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/205

 THE DOLONEIA. jgj The tenth book, or Doloneia, was considered by soms of the ancient scholiasts, 1 and has been confidently set forth by the modern Wolfian critics, as originally a separate poem, inserted by Peisistratus into the Iliad. How it can ever have been a separate poem, I do not understand. It is framed with great specialty for the antecedent circumstances under which it occurs, and would suit for no other place ; though capable of being separately recited, inasmuch as it has a definite beginning and end, like the story of Nisus and Euryalus in the JEneid. But while distinctly presupposing and resting upon the incidents in the eighth book, and in line 88 of the ninth, (probably, the appointment of senti- nels on the part of the Greeks, as well of the Trojans, formed the close of the battle described in the eighth book,) it has not the slightest bearing upon the events of the eleventh or the follow- ing books : it goes to make up the general picture of the Trojan war, but lies quite apart from the Achilleis. And this is one mark of a portion subsequently inserted, that, though fitted on lo the parts which precede, it has- no influence on those which follow. If the proceedings of the combatants on the plain of Troy, between the first and the eighth book, have no reference either to Achilles, or to an Achilleis, we find Zeus in Olympus still more completely putting that hero out of the question, at the beginning of the fourth book. He is in this last-mentioned pas- sage the Zeus of the Iliad, not of the Achilleis. Forgetful of his promise to Thetis, in the first book, he discusses nothing but the question of continuance or termination of the war, and manifests anxiety only for the salvation of Troy, in opposition to the miso- Trojan goddesses, who prevent him from giving effect to the victory of Menelaus over Paris, and the stipulated restitution of Helen, in which case, of course, the wrong offered to Achilles would remain unexpiated. An attentive comparison will render it evident that the poet who composed the discussion among tho gods, at the beginning of the fourth book, has not been careful to put himself in harmony either with the Zeus of the first book, or with the Zeus of the eighth. The building of the Grecian wall, as it now stands described, is an unex- plained proceeding, which Miiller'j ingenuity does not render consistent. 1 Schol. ad Iliad x. 1.