Commentary on Homer's Iliad is the work of Eustathius, the 12th-century Byzantine scholar who became archbishop of Thessalonica. Its own heading is Parekbolai eis tēn Homērou Iliada. A preface presents Homer as the Ocean from which philosophers, orators and grammarians all drew, and the commentary then follows the Iliad book by book and line by line in short notes, most of them opening with hoti.
The notes range over grammar, accentuation, etymology, figures of speech, rhetoric, geography, myth and allegory, and record proverbs and later echoes of Homeric lines. Each book opens with its verse and prose titles. Eustathius drew on the older Homeric scholia, the grammarians, Atticist and other lexica, Strabo, Athenaeus and many classical authors, often citing them as hoi palaioi, so the work preserves much from sources that are otherwise lost. It survives complete, in manuscripts that include the author's own copy; the standard edition is that of M. van der Valk (Leiden, 1971–1987).
Eustathius of Thessalonica Commentary on Homer's Iliad: summary and contents (PDF)
Eustathius of Thessalonica Commentary on Homer's Iliad: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Α Book I
Eustathius's preface opens the commentary, likening Homer to the Sirens and to Ocean, the source from which philosophers, orators and grammarians all drew. The notes on Iliad 1, the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles, then range widely through grammar and figures of speech, with excursions on metalepsis that cite Aeschylus, Sophocles and Theocritus, and close on Zeus asleep beside Hera, with the allegory that reads her golden throne as fire.
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Β Book II
Book 2 of the Iliad holds the Dream, the assembly and the Catalogue of Ships, known as the Boeotia. From the Dream Eustathius takes the lesson that a ruler should not sleep through the night; he then works through the Catalogue place by place, explaining Boeotian towns such as Copae, Plataea and Eutresis from Strabo and local legend, and closes by setting Homer's catalogue above its later imitators.
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Γ Book III
Paris and Menelaus meet in single combat over Helen in Book 3 of the Iliad, and the notes follow the oaths and the duel. Here Eustathius comments on the Trojans' clamorous advance like birds, Priam's praise of Agamemnon from the walls of Troy, and why Homer calls Menelaus dear to Ares while giving Paris only godlike looks, ending on Agamemnon's demand that the Trojans give Helen back.
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Δ Book IV
Gods in council, a truce broken and Agamemnon's review of his ranks make up Iliad 4. Eustathius reads the divine council as a mixture of kingship and democracy, studies how Homer pairs each Greek leader with a companion, Idomeneus with Meriones and Diomedes with Sthenelus, while the aged Nestor needs five officers, and distinguishes wounding at close quarters from striking at a distance.
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Ε Book V
Diomedes' exploits, in which he wounds Aphrodite and Ares, fill the commentary on Iliad 5. It explains how Agamemnon's rebuke spurs the hero on, comments on Dione's warning that the children of a man who fights the gods do not call him papa at his knees, with a note on the baby-word itself, and ends with the healing of Ares, likened to curdling milk, and Hebe bathing him on Olympus.
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Ζ Book VI
Named for the meeting of Hector and Andromache, Book 6 of the Iliad opens with the battle between the Simoeis and the Xanthus, where Ajax kills the Thracian Acamas once the gods have left the field. The notes follow Hector's return to Troy and Hecuba's offer of wine, and end on his promise to make amends with Paris once they set up the bowl of freedom, with the Achaeans driven from Troy.
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Η Book VII
The duel of Hector and Ajax is the subject of Iliad 7. Its notes begin with Hector and Paris returning to battle, which Homer likens to a fair wind sent to weary rowers, pause over Ajax's long strides and rare noun forms argued from Herodian's analogies, and close with the evening libations and Homer's distinction between lying down to rest and falling asleep.
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Θ Book VIII
The curtailed battle was the old name for Book 8 of the Iliad, and Eustathius explains it: a whole day's fighting compressed into one book, after Zeus calls the gods to council. He follows Diomedes and the nine Greek champions who rally after the eagle omen, Teucer the ninth, and ends with the Trojan horses standing by the chariots to wait for dawn, a detail he reads as Homer's ornament beyond what the story needs.
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Ι Book IX
The embassy to Achilles in Book 9 of the Iliad is, for Eustathius, Homer's fullest display of forensic and political oratory. He analyses the envoys' speeches and Achilles' replies, notably the string of refusals and his rejection of Agamemnon's daughter even if she rivalled Aphrodite in beauty and Athena in handiwork, and ends with Diomedes' counsel to fight at dawn and the libation before sleep.
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Κ Book X
A night expedition fills Book 10 of the Iliad, the Doloneia, in which Dolon is killed and Diomedes slays Rhesus. Eustathius explains the title and names of its kind, reads the raid as making up for the Greeks' defeat by day, comments on the heron that Athena sends as an omen, and closes with the meal and libation of Odysseus and Diomedes on their return.
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Λ Book XI
Agamemnon's exploits on the third day of battle open the commentary on Iliad 11, set against Diomedes' earlier rebuke of the king. Along the way come the dawn rising from Tithonus's bed and a digression on Thessalian words for wagons and on Thessalian appetite, drawn from Athenaeus; the book ends with Patroclus treating the wounded Eurypylus with a bitter root.
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Μ Book XII
The Greek wall and ditch before the ships are the setting of Book 12 of the Iliad, the battle at the wall. Eustathius reads Hector's rejection of Polydamas's warning from the eagle omen as an argument from absurdity, and follows the breach of the wall, begun by Sarpedon and completed by Hector as the Greeks flee to the ships.
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Ν Book XIII
Poseidon's help for the hard-pressed Greeks at the ships is the matter of Iliad 13. The notes comment on Zeus turning his eyes away from Troy, Homer's postponement of Achilles' return, Idomeneus's killing of Asius with the felled-tree simile, and the shout of both armies that reaches the upper air at the close of the book.
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Ξ Book XIV
Hera's deception of Zeus gives Book 14 of the Iliad its name. The commentary begins with Nestor, alert to the battle even while drinking Hecamede's potion, follows Hera's persuasion of Sleep, who recalls the storm she raised against Heracles sailing from Troy to Cos, and ends with the Greek rally under Poseidon while Zeus sleeps.
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Ο Book XV
Zeus wakes in anger at Poseidon and Hera, and the Trojans drive the Greeks back to their ships in Iliad 15. Eustathius discusses how broken word order imitates the crossing of the ditch, Apollo bridging the ditch and throwing down the Greek wall like a child scattering sand, and Ajax defending the ships against Trojans carrying fire.
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Π Book XVI
The story of Patroclus, killed by Hector, gives Book 16 of the Iliad its name, the Patrocleia. The notes explain the ship's rowing-bench and its etymology, read similes such as Patroclus as a weeping girl and the autumn storm Zeus sends on men who give crooked judgements, and close with a digression on words for slaves and subject peoples, from the Spartan Helots to the Mariandynoi.
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Ρ Book XVII
Menelaus stands over the body of Patroclus like a cow over her first calf as Iliad 17 opens, and Eustathius asks why he is the first to defend it. A digression on the herald's office starts from the Trojan herald Periphas, whose shape Apollo takes to rouse Aeneas; the book ends with the arms that fall around the ditch.
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Σ Book XVIII
Antilochus bringing Achilles the news of Patroclus's death opens the commentary on Iliad 18, the making of the arms. The notes go on to Hephaestus's workshop and his unfinished tripods, the many senses of agōn, and the materials of the new armour, ending with the etymology of tin and with Thetis carrying the arms down like a hawk.
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Τ Book XIX
Achilles renounces his wrath in Book 19 of the Iliad. Eustathius sets Homer's dawn beside imitations including Lycophron's, comments on Achilles' mourning over Patroclus and his refusal to eat before vengeance, against Odysseus's advice, and closes on the horse Xanthus foretelling Achilles' death and Achilles' answer.
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Υ Book XX
The gods take the field against one another in Iliad 20. Its notes dwell on Homer's address to Achilles as insatiable of battle, the genealogy Aeneas gives with Erichthonius's three thousand mares, and Achilles' slaughter on the plain, likened to oxen treading out barley, as he presses on for glory with gore-stained hands.
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Φ Book XXI
The Xanthus, the river Achilles fights in Book 21 of the Iliad, is a son of Zeus both in allegory and in myth, and Eustathius begins by explaining why. He follows Achilles splitting the Trojans between plain and river, his reproach to his mother as he struggles in the stream and his foreknowledge of death by Apollo's arrows, and ends with the Trojans crowding into the city.
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Χ Book XXII
Before Hector's death in Iliad 22, the Trojans rest on the battlements like fawns after their flight, and the commentary begins there. It turns to Achilles' refusal of any pact with Hector, framed as lions with men and wolves with lambs, and ends with Andromache's lament and the clothing she resolves to burn.
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Ψ Book XXIII
Patroclus's funeral games are the subject of Book 23 of the Iliad. The notes begin with the Myrmidons driving their chariots round the body in mourning and the extent of the Hellespont, take in the chariot race and Menelaus's brief words to his horses, and end with Achilles awarding the spear-throwing prize to Agamemnon without a contest.
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Ω Book XXIV
The commentary's last book, on the ransoming of Hector in Iliad 24, opens with the acrostic that the first five lines happen to spell and other verse games of the ancients. Eustathius comments on Hermes' report that Hector's body lies unharmed after twelve days, and ends with the Spartan Carnea and Homer's fondness for the number nine.