^{page 112 note 1} Two points should be noted: (i) this is not a case of synecdoche; it was normal for boats on landfall to approach the shore stern first to facilitate departure; cf. Virg, . Aen. 6. 3Google Scholar and the commentators ad loc.; (ii) it is better to understand the first wish to express a general regret (‘would that no Athenian ships had ever beached on Crete’’) and the second the particular regret that Theseus ever came than to suppose with most commentators a mere hendiadys, ‘Cnosia Cecropiae …’’ and ‘indomito nee both alluding to Theseus’’ arrival. After all, he had only one ship. With characteristically perverse ingenuity, Baehrens proposed 'ne) Cnosia Cecropiae [a noun!] tetigisset litora puppis', ‘would that the Cnossian stern (i.e. of Androgeon's ship) had never touched the shores of Attica’’, thus making the regret extend back to the first contact of Cretans and Athenians; but this reading is out of the question because of the point of style discussed below, p. 113.

^{page 113 note 1} See Norden, E., Aeneis VI (3rd edn., 1927), pp. 393–8;Google ScholarPatzer, H., ‘Zum Sprachstil des neoterischen Hexameters’’, Mus.Helv. 12 (1955), 77 ff.,Google ScholarConrad, C., ‘Traditional Patterns of Word-Order in Latin Epic from Ennius to Vergil’’, HStCP 69 (1965), 195–258,Google ScholarPearce, T. E. V., ‘Enclosing Word-Order in Latin Hexameters’’ C.Q. N.S. 16 (1966), 140–71, 298–320,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and id., ‘A Pattern of Word-Order in Latin Poetry’’, C.Q. N.S. 18 (1968), 334–54. It is not too much to say that these authors' researches and the generality of the underlying principle are among the most important discoveries ever made in the field of Roman poetic technique.CrossRefGoogle Scholar