τάφροιο διέσσυτο
The act of crossing the ditch for the meeting conveys a spatial significance to the need the Achaeans feel and the plan they will construct to meet it. In Iliad 7, the Achaeans created a new boundary on the landscape by building their wall and ditch. The wall was built in the dark, before the dawn (Iliad 7.433). In the subsequent daytime battles, the boundary created by these two elements is of the utmost importance. M. L. West notes that “once they have been built they are frequently mentioned again, in every book from the eighth to the eighteenth, as well as in the twentieth and twenty-fourth” (1969:255). The boundary is mentioned either in order to indicate who is winning at that point or whenever the tide of battle turns. In the battle that takes place on the day before the night of Iliad 10, for example, Hektor pens in the Achaeans behind the wall so that the entire space is filled with men and horses (Iliad 8.213–216). The Achaeans rally after some inspiration from the gods and cross the ditch on the offensive (Iliad 8.253–265), but Hektor forces them back over the ditch as he once again takes the upper hand (Iliad 8.340–343). And, of course, the boundary will become even more significant the day after the night of Iliad 10, as the Trojans themselves cross it and threaten the ships with fire (the Trojans pass over the ditch and wall at the end of Iliad 12). Since the wall and ditch act as a threshold between the camp and the battlefield, one way of understanding the leaders crossing the ditch to hold their meeting is as a shift toward being on the offensive. Only the ditch is mentioned here: Petegorsky (1982:238n13) suggests that the “absence” of the wall presages its breach the next day. (For more on the poetic possibilities and traditional associations offered by the Achaean wall, see Boyd 1995.)