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Tarn (J. H. S. xxviii. 212-15) regards the whole account of the storm as a blend of two irreconcilable stories. In one, the Persian fleet is rightly regarded as strung out along the little beaches of Magnesia, and the loss fell chiefly on the supply-ships driven ashore at many places from Meliboea to Cape Sepias (188. 3, 191. 1); in the other, a poetical invention, Homer is closely imitated. The whole fleet comes to a harbour too small for it, and is drawn up, more Homerico πρόκροσσαι, and defended with a bulwark (ἕρκος） of wreckage (188. 1, 191. 1). Further, the losses are greatly exaggerated. Even if we reject this hazardous analysis, we must recognize the patent imitation of Homer, and the evident exaggeration in the account of the storm and of the losses caused by it.
πρὸς γῇ and ἐπ᾽ ἀγκυρέων are opposed, the innermost row of ships was moored to the land, the outer rows swung at anchor. πρόκροσσαι: probably ‘with beaks turned seawards’. κρόσση = κόρση head (cf. κόρυς, κόρυμβος) is used apparently for battlements (Hom. Il. xii. 258, 444; and cf. H. ii. 125. 1). Thus in iv. 152. 4 the griffin-heads encircling the bronze bowl in the Heraeum stood out in relief. Here the ships are in eight rows, and the high prows turned seawards stand out like battlements; cf. Il. xiv. 33 f. οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδ᾽ εὐρύς περ ἐὼν ἐδυνήσατο πάσας ι αἰγιαλὸς νῆας χαδέειν, στείνοντο δὲ λαοί: ι τῷ ῥα προκρόσσας ἔρυσαν, καὶ πλῆσαν ἁπάσης ι ἠιόνος στόμα μακρόν, ὅσον συνεέργαθον ἄκραι, which, as Eustathius observes, is completed and interpreted by this passage. The Achaean ships were drawn up in parallel rows on the beach, row behind row landwards, just as the Persian ships here lay at anchor in eight rows off the shore. Aristarchus takes κρόσσαι as ‘ladders’, and explains that the ships in the Iliad were drawn up on the shelving beach one above the other, like the audience in a theatre, but the explanation is inapplicable here. Schweighäuser, however, would construe ‘in quincuncem dispositae’.
ἀπηλιώτης: east. Καικίης (north-east) would be more exact (cf. Plin. N. H. ii. 121 ‘Caecian aliqui vocant Hellespontiam’). The icycold north-easter blowing from the steppes of Russia over the Euxine is meant. The Athenians living further south call it Boreas (north wind); cf. vi. 44. 2; vii. 189.
Cf. Strabo 443 εἰς Ἰπνοὺς τόπον τραχὺν τῶν περὶ τὸ Πήλιον . . . τραχὺς δ᾽ ἐστὶν ὁ παράπλους πᾶς ὁ τοῦ Πηλίου ὅσον σταδίων ὀγδοήκοντα: τοσοῦτος δ᾽ ἐστὶ καὶ τοιοῦτος ὁ τῆς Ὄσσης. μεταξὺ δὲ κόλπος σταδίων πλειόνων ἢ διακοσίων ἐν ᾧ ἡ Μελίβοια. Ipni is directly under Pelion, Meliboea, a considerable city (Hom. Il. ii. 717) in a shallow bay (Strabo) at the foot of Ossa (Liv. xliv. 13). It is proved by inscriptions to be Thanatu, where there is a long stretch of beach (J. H. S. xxviii. 210).
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