4.8 Boeotian Athena, guard of armies: Athena here (and at 5.1052) is given an epithet that connects her with her cult at Alalcomenae in Boeotia.
4.24 Plotting Troy’s destruction: for Hera’s and Athena’s hatred of Troy, see Introduction, p. 41, and note 24.35-36.
4.117 Wolf-god: Lukêgenês in Greek—its meaning is disputed. Lukos is the normal Greek word for “wolf,” but some scholars would rather connect the title with the place name Lycia (Lukia in Greek).
4.345-56 Nestor’s speech to his charioteers seems to envisage a charge against the enemy, something that never happens in the poem. The passage seems to preserve the memory of a time when massed chariot charges were the decisive element in land battles. See Introduction, p. 25, and note 2.61-64.
4.432 Passageways of battle: the Greek words are not fully understood. The word rendered “passageways” means “bridges” in later Greek: elsewhere in Homer it seems to mean something like “embankments” or “causeways.” An ancient note explains it as “ways through the battle lines”—the clear spaces between the ranks or formations of troops.
4.433-6 Tydeus: the father of Diomedes was one of the Seven against Thebes and was killed in the unsuccessful assault on the city. Here we are given a story of a previous visit to Thebes, in which he came off victorious. The story is repeated, with some differences of detail, at 5.921-31 and referred to at 10.334- 41. See notes 4.472, 5.926.
4.459-60 The Greek names translated as “Hunter,” “Bloodlust,” etc. are probably “significant names”: i.e., names invented or selected by the poet for their obvious suggestiveness (e.g., “Bloodlust” in Greek is Haimon and the Greek word for blood is haima). See note 18.43-56.
4.472 We are the ones: after the failure of the assault by the Seven against Thebes, their sons, among them Diomedes and Sthenelus, attacked the city in their turn, this time successfully.
4.597 Third-born of the gods: this is a literal rendering of Athena’s title Tritogeneia, but the meaning of the word is disputed. Some ancient sources connect it with Lake Tritonis in Libya, where Zeus sent Athena to be reared, or with the river Triton in Boeotia. A modern explanation compares the Athenian Tritopateres. i.e., genuine ancestors: this would give the meaning “genuine daughter of Zeus.”
5.lff. From time to time Homer inserts, in his account of the general melee, the preeminent deeds of one particular hero: such an excursus is known as an aristeia (from the Greek word aristos, “best”). Book 5 and the opening section of Book 6 constitute the aristeia of Diomedes: it is the longest and most murderous of all, except for that of Achilles in Books 20-22.
5.5 The star that flames at harvest: the Dog Star, Sirius; see note 22.35.
5.294 Ganymede: one of the three sons of Tros. the first king of Troy. He was “the handsomest mortal man on earth” (20.269), and Zeus carried him off to Olympus to be the cup-bearer and wine-pourer of the gods. For the genealogy of the Trojan royal line, see Aeneas’ account in 20.248-79, note ad loc and the Genealogy, p. 617.
5.434-62 Dione comforts Aphrodite by pointing out that she is not the only god to be wounded by a mortal. Ares was imprisoned in a bronze cauldron by the young giants Ephialtes and Otus, and almost died before he was rescued by Hermes. Hera and Hades, the Death-god, were both wounded by Heracles, Hades apparently in the course of a battle at Pylos. None of these legends appears in other sources, and the ancient commentators were evidently puzzled by them. Homer may have invented them for the occasion. See note 2.748.
5.733-38 What they say of mighty Heracles: Heracles rescued the daughter of Laomedon, Hesione, from a sea monster sent by Poseidon. His reward was to be the famous horses of Laomedon, but the king refused to pay. Heracles took and sacked the city.
5.859-61 The gates of heaven: i.e., of Olympus, the house of the gods, consist, naturally enough, of clouds, and clouds are thought of as controlled by the Seasons of the year. So here they are, so to speak, the gate-keepers.
5.926 The message into Thebes: Adrastus, king of Argos, gave shelter to Polynices, son of Oedipus of Thebes, and organized an army (led by seven champions, the “Seven against Thebes”) to restore him to the throne of Thebes, from which he had been expelled by his brother Eteocles. Tydeus, later one of the Seven, was sent with a demand that Eteocles give up his throne to Polynices.
5.976 Helmet of Death: this helmet, which made its wearer invisible, is attributed to the Death-god, Hades, because his name in Greek, Aïdês, was thought to mean “the unseen one” (a = “not,” and the root *id = “see”).
5.1017-18 You gave her birth I from your own head: according to legend, Zeus made love with Metis, a Titaness; she conceived a daughter, and Mother Earth prophesied that if Metis conceived again she would bear a son, who would dethrone his father. So Zeus swallowed her whole and then was seized with a raging headache; Hephaestus split his skull with an ax, and Athena sprang to light, full-blown, from Zeus’s forehead.
6.153 Maenads: literally “madwomen.” They are the female devotees of the god Dionysus, who range the hills in ecstasy, carrying the thyrsus (the “sacred stave”), a staff wreathed with ivy and topped by a pine cone.
6.157-60 And Dionysus was terrified: Homer’s picture of a frightened Dionysus taking refuge with Thetis is very different from the terrifying figure of the god presented in Euripides’ play The Bacchae.
6.385 This anger: commentators have wondered why Paris should be angry and proposed various solutions (for example, that the anger is that of the Trojans against Paris), but Paris’ reply “from anger ... at our people” (396-97) is clear enough. Hector thinks Paris is sulking because he senses the resentment of his fellow Trojans and is angry with them.
7.386-95 A single great barrow ... a landward walclass="underline" see 7.503-11, 12.4-42, Introduction, p. 38, and notes 9.78, 14.35-44.
7.523-25 Those ramparts I and Apollo l reared for Troy in the old days: Apollo and Poseidon, as a punishment for their part in a revolt against Zeus, were sent to work for a year at the orders of Laomedon, king of Troy, Priam’s father. While Apollo acted as a shepherd to the king’s flocks, Poseidon built a wall around the city. At the end of the year, Laomedon cheated the two gods of the wages he had promised. Poseidon reminds Apollo of this in 21.505-22.
8.45 Nothing I said was meant in earnest: Zeus tones down the violence of his previous statement to the gods as he speaks to his favorite daughter, but of course he has not changed his mind.