Verse 567 — W. Leaf's commentary on Homer's Iliad 1 0

ἆσσον ἰόνθ', ὅτι Ζηνόδοτος γράφει ἆσσον ἰόντε. οὐκ ἔστι δέ, ἀλλ' ἀντὶ τοῦ ἰόντος. συγχεῖ δὲ καὶ τὸ δυϊκόν — Ariston. That is, Zenodotus took ἰόνθ' to be for ἰόντε in the sense of ἰόντες, agreeing with θεοί. His theory was that the dual and plural were interchangeable — a theory which has been held also by some modern philologists, and receives some support from several passages in Homer; see 5.487, 8.74. Aristarchos opposed this view, and took ἰόνθ' here for ἰόντα (sc. ἐμέ, acc. after χραίσμωσιν): ἀντὶ τοῦ ἰόντος meaning that we should have expected a gen. absolute, ‘when I come near,’ as the construction χραισμεῖν τινί τινα, ‘to ward one person off another,’ is not found elsewhere, though we have χραισμεῖν τινί τι (e.g. 7.144), which is perhaps sufficient analogy. Bentley conj. ἆσσον ἰών, while Düntzer would eject the line altogether. ἆσσον ἰέναι = attack, cf. 15.105.