Iliad 12.118–123

Reference is made at I.12.118 to the left-hand side of the encampment protecting the ships of the Achaeans. So, in terms of the Master Narrator’s perspective, the positioning refers to the east side: see the comment on I.11.497–500. Described here at I.12.118–123 is the opening in the Achaean Wall through which the charioteers drive their chariots from the Achaean encampment to the scene of chariot fighting and then back again. The use of the word pulē ‘gate’ in the plural at I.12.120 does not necessarily point to the existence of more than one gate, since the function of the plural pulai here may be elliptic: ‘the gate and related things that belong to the gate’. There is a reference to the same pulai at I.07.339–340 and at I.07.438–439. On the concept of an elliptic plural, see the comment on I.04.196. And it is next to this gate that the sacred common tomb of the Achaean dead is located, I.07.336–337.