The recorded textual multiforms for 10.306 provide a good example of how oral composition operates within its tradition. In 10.305, Hektor offers as the great gift a chariot and two horses, and in the reading of the main text of the Venetus A, in 10.306, he further qualifies that he will give whichever horses are best at the swift ships of the Achaeans (οἵ κεν ἀριστεύωσι θοῇς ἐπὶ νηυσίν Ἀχαιῶν). The scholia in the A manuscript record three different readings by the three major Alexandrian Homeric scholars, which in turn all differ from this main text. First, it says that Aristarchus read οἵ κεν ἄριστοι ἔωσι θοῇς ἐπὶ νηυσίν Ἀχαιῶν. The meanings of that version and that of the main text of A are similar: Hektor indicates that the gift will be the best of the Achaean horses, but he does not make it any more specific. The difference between ἀριστεύωσι and ἄριστοι ἔωσι may be a performance variation, or it might have been introduced at some point in the textual tradition. Both Zenodotus and Aristophanes, however, knew versions of a line that did specify which horses: those of Achilles. Zenodotus read αὐτοὺς οἳ φορέουσι ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα (“the ones which carry the faultless son of Peleus”), similar to line 10.323 below. Aristophanes read something slightly different: καλοὺς οἳ φορέουσι ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα (“the fine ones which carry the faultless son of Peleus”).
In these four readings, then, we see how from performance to performance certain words or phrases might be used in place of one another, ἀριστεύωσι or ἄριστοι ἔωσι, αὐτοὺς or καλοὺς. But the choice between simply stating “whichever are best” and specifying the horses of Achilles reveals a deeper layer. In either case, Dolon would likely name the horses of Achilles in his reply, as he does in our version (see 10.323), so it is not a question of someone else’s horses being offered as a prize that is at issue here. Instead, if the singer sings “whichever are best at the ships of the Achaeans,” a traditional audience will immediately think of Achilles’ horses, knowing that they are indeed the best. We know this, too, because at the end of the catalog of ships, the narrator asks the Muse who was the best of the men, and who the best of the horses (Iliad 2.761–762). Eumelos’ mares are at first mentioned as the best horses (Iliad 2.763–765) and Ajax, son of Telamon, as the best man, but then both are qualified by the statement that this was true only so long as Achilles stayed angry, since both he and his horses were by far the best (Iliad 2.768–770; there, too, we have a similar phrase to describe the horses: ἵπποι θ’ οἳ φορέεσκον ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα). So the singer may be implicit or explicit about which horses Hektor is offering, and these textual variations record different possibilities for how the line was performed. As we will see in further detail below (see 10.332), in both the Iliadic tradition and in other versions of this story, Hektor has his own designs on capturing the horses of Achilles (for example, he pursues them after the death of Patroklos, who drove them into battle, see Iliad 17.483–496), and the performance variation of whether Hektor is explicit or not in naming Achilles’ horses as the reward may be related to whether the singer has in mind that aspect of the tradition. In any case, these variations recorded in the scholia of the Venetus A reveal the multiplicity of the compositional possibilities here.