Verse 291 — W. Leaf's commentary on Homer's Iliad 1 0

προθέουσιν — (ἡ διπλῆ) ὅτι συνήθως ἑαυτῶι προθέουσι τὰ ὀνείδη, i.e. the plural verb with the neuter plural is in accordance with the poet's practice. This shows that Ar. took ὀνείδεα as nom., but we are not told how he explained the line. Ameis (followed by Monro) takes the words to mean ‘do his revilings therefore dash forward (like spearmen themselves, cf. the phrase πολὺ προθέεσκε 22.459) for him to speak them?’ Monro compares, for the ‘halfpersonified’ ὀνείδεα, Herod. vii. 160 ὀνείδεα κατιόντα ἀνθρώπωι φιλέει ἐπανάγειν τὸν θυμόν (though the other passage which he quotes from i. 212, κατιόντος τοῦ οἴνου ἐς τὸ σῶμα, seems to weaken the relevancy of this, as shewing that the metaphor is material, not personal); and for the use of προθέω, Od. 24.319 ἀνὰ ῥῖνας .. δριμὺ μένος προὔτυψε (where again μένος is rather a physical conception than a personification, cf. μένος πνείοντες). The extreme harshness of this metaphor has led most recent editors to regard ὀνείδεα as the object, and προθέουσι as another form for προτιθέασιν, ‘do they set before him (i.e. allow him) revilings for him to utter?’ This certainly gives a better sense, but no satisfactory analogy for the form of the verb has been given (there is a doubtful ἀνέθει in an Ionic inscription, C. I. 1195; see Curtius Verb. i. 213). Bekker suggests προθέωσι as aor. subj. The mood might be explained as one of expectation: ‘are we to look for them to suggest words of insult?’ But the form with the short stem-vowel is entirely unexampled, and I see no choice but to regard the passage as hopelessly corrupted.