ὣς φάτο καί ῥ᾽ ἐπίορκον ἐπώμοσε
In the other instances of ἐπίορκον and related words in the Iliad it means a ‘false oath’: that is, one swears an oath and then violates it, or one is lying when he swears about some action in the past. At Iliad 3.276–280, Agamemnon calls on Zeus, Helios, the Earth, the rivers, and those in the underworld who punish swearers of false oaths (ἐπίορκον, Iliad 3.279) to guard the sanctity of the oaths that the Achaeans and Trojans are about to take in advance of the duel between Menelaos and Paris. In Iliad 19.187–188, Agamemnon responds to Odysseus’ request that he swear to Achilles that he never slept with Briseis by saying that he is willing to swear to it and that he is not falsely swearing (οὐδ’ ἐπιορκήσω). When Briseis is then brought back to Achilles, Agamemnon does indeed take an oath to that effect, beginning it in much the same way as in Iliad 3 (Iliad 19.260 ≈ Iliad 3.279), but adding the stipulation that, if he is swearing falsely (ἐπίορκον, Iliad 19.264), he wishes that the gods may give him the many sufferings that they give to those who transgress their oaths. These contexts leave little doubt that the false oath is either intentionally broken or is an intentional lie.
Yet in this case readers, translators, and critics over the ages have been reluctant to think of Hektor as intentionally lying. Over a dozen manuscripts have ἐπεὶ ὅρκον, and some of these have it as a “correction,” indicating perhaps a felt need to remove the characterization of Hektor’s words as an intentionally false oath. The main scholia in the Venetus A similarly suggest that Hektor is not purposefully swearing a false oath, but that it is false because what he swears will happen is not fulfilled (οὐχ οἷον ἑκουσίως, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ ἀποτελεσθῆναι τοῦτο, ὅπερ ὤμοσεν). Cunliffe (1963) likewise makes an exception of this use in his lexicon, saying its use is “here of unintentional falsity, the fulfilment of the oath turning out to be impossible.” As we have just seen on 10.300, fulfillment of the oath is indeed impossible, and because there is no sense that Hektor should be punished (an idea that does appear in the other contexts), perhaps we should interpret Hektor’s oath as unintentionally false. In Iliad 17, Hektor goes after the horses himself, suggesting that he does not know that they cannot be captured by an enemy of Achilles.
But there are other possibilities for interpretation by a traditional audience. The Trojans are portrayed as oath breakers, as when Pandaros breaks the ceasefire in Iliad 4 (Idomeneus explicitly says the Trojans have broken their oaths at Iliad 4.269–270). Even for the duel between Paris and Menelaos itself, Agamemnon requires Priam to come to the battlefield to swear the oath because he does not trust his sons (Iliad 3.105–106). The earlier Trojan king Laomedon reneged on his deals both with Apollo and Poseidon for building the walls of Troy (see Iliad 21.439–460) and with Herakles, to whom he had promised to give his horses upon the rescue of his daughter Hesione (an episode alluded to at Iliad 5.640). So a traditional audience might have understood Hektor’s promise within the general traditional framework of Trojan promises in return for work or missions that are subsequently broken. Another possibility is offered in the tragedy Rhesos, where Hektor makes plain that he has designs on getting Achilles’ horses for himself, recounting their immortal origins (Rhesos 184–188). When he acquiesces to Dolon’s request, he explicitly says that he will not be false (ἀλλ’ οὔ σ’ ἐπάρας ψεύσομαι, Rhesos 189). The Rhesos employs different, yet traditional, narrative possibilities for the story (Fenik 1964), and the possibility that Hektor really plans to get Achilles’ horses for himself may underlie the mention of a false oath here in a compression of details that would have meaning nevertheless for a traditional audience.