Erwin F Cook

On the “Importance” of “Iliad” Book 8

he scene from Iliad Book 8 in which Diomedes rescues a chariotwrecked Nestor remains one of the most controversial in contemporary Homeric studies. Scholars have often argued that it is modeled on a closely similar scene from the Aithiopis ; in the belief that the Aithiopis is the later poem, many have concluded that the Iliadic scene is interpolated. Underlying such arguments is the further belief that Nestor’s rescue in the Iliad is less well integrated into the narrative of Book 8 than its counterpart in the Aithiopis ; even those who reject the notion that the scene is interpolated tend to concede that it is inadequately motivated. 1 Although I agree that the scene was inspired by the Aithiopis , in what follows I hope to show that it is not only well integrated into Book 8, but has also been carefully prepared for in the preceding books and is, moreover, very well motivated in its immediate narrative context. In fact, the entire narrative of Book 8 is structured around a pair of complementary emotional climaxes that this scene serves to introduce and that account for its appropriation from the Aithiopis . Criticism of the scene must be understood in terms of scholarly attitudes toward the book as a whole. Indeed, few books of the Iliad have come in for more severe censure than Book 8, or are more routinely ignored in scholarship on the poem. 2 The roots of this censure and neglect lie in the old