At Iliad 13.751-3, Hector heeds Polydamas' advice to rally the Trojans by gathering their best fighters together and debating their next move (13.736-47). The speech is followed by a simile that has puzzled some commentators, in which Hector is compared to a snowy mountain as he moves through the Trojan ranks. The passage runs as follows:

The reasons for exegetical unease are immediately apparent. The image of the mountain in 754 indicates stillness, while Hector is twice described as moving (ὁρμήθη … πέτετ’). The enjambed participle κεκλήγων seems out of place.Footnote ¹ There is also an issue of scale: while Hector is physically imposing, one might feel that the comparison with a mountain is odd given that mountain similes are used elsewhere in Homer only in relation to figures of superhuman stature, Polyphemus and the Laestrygonian Queen.Footnote ² Richard Janko is unperturbed by these potential problems, commenting that the simile conveys Hector's ‘huge size’, and that ‘the … effect is enhanced, not spoilt, by the fact that mountains do not move’.Footnote ³ Janko's reading, however, has not commanded assent,Footnote ⁴ and requires more detailed analysis than is given in his relatively brief note.

A different approach is taken by Edward Bradley, who argues that the primary point of comparison is not ὄρεϊ but νιφόεντι. On the basis that νιφάς (‘snowflake’) is often used in contexts where movement is at issue, he claims that the adjective νιφόεις would have connoted movement. Audiences ‘conditioned by repetition to recognize a close symbolic relationship between snow and dynamic movement would have easily isolated the dominant element of th[e] simile and appreciated the justesse of likening a relentlessly surging hero to the essential nature of snow’.Footnote ⁵ Bradley's explanation, however, is weakened by several interrelated considerations. First, Hector is compared to the mountain, not the snow. Although Homeric similes frequently have multiple points of comparison,Footnote ⁶ a simile's connotative force should not be explained purely by making a secondary aspect of the vehicle the ‘dominant element’. His reading also fails to account for the role of κεκλήγων in relation to the simile.

Moreover, while it is true that snowfall is often used to describe rapid and decisive movement,Footnote ⁷ the other passages in which ‘snowy mountains’ are mentioned contain no connotations of the snow itself moving. Hera ‘speeds over the snowy mountains of the horse-driving Thracians, over the highest peaks’ at Il. 14.227–8 (σεύατ’ ἐφ’ ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν ὄρεα νιφόεντα | ἀκροτάτας κορυφάς), and at 20.385 Tmolus is described as ‘snowy’ during the account of Iphition's birth (ὃν νύμφη τέκε νηῒς Ὀτρυντῆϊ πτολιπόρθῳ | Τμώλῳ ὕπο νιφόεντι Ὕδης ἐν πίονι δήμῳ). At Od. 19.338 Odysseus describes leaving behind Κρήτης ὄρεα νιφόεντα. None of these passages explicitly says that the snow is moving, and there is no reason to take νιφόεις in these passages other than neutrally as ‘snowy’ or ‘snow-covered’.Footnote ⁸ Consequently, we should not think that Homeric audiences necessarily or always took the phrase ὄρεα νιφόεντα as picturing moving snow, an observation which enjoins caution when considering Il. 13.754. It could be argued that, because Hector is moving, it is necessary to find some figuration of movement in the vehicle, a consideration which Bradley meets with his reading of νιφόεντι. Taking fuller account of the mountain's role in the simile, however, will preclude the need for this connection and for privileging νιφόεντι as Bradley does.

At this point it is worth considering the ancient scholia on the passage. Ancient commentators do not seem to have been overly troubled by the simile, and explain it in terms of a focus on Hector's size:

Janko follows T's line of interpretation, asserting that the mountain's stillness is essential to the picture (‘[t]he savage and fearsome effect is enhanced, and not spoilt, by the fact that mountains do not move’),Footnote ⁹ but does not explain why this is the case. He also notes the importance of νιφόεντι; use of the metrically identical ὄρει σκιόεντι ‘would have had a pastoral nuance’, an analysis similar to that of ΣT, which contrasts snowy and ‘cultivated’ mountains (τὸ γὰρ ἄνιφον πάντως καὶ ἥμερον).Footnote ¹⁰

We do not, however, need to endorse ΣA and bT's stress on Olympus as the point of comparison; as noted above, Homeric audiences would have been familiar with other snowy mountains, and there is nothing to link Hector to Olympus beside this detail. Instead, the simile's visual aspect is of a more general nature, the image of a snow-capped mountain according with that of Hector and his glittering helmet (κορυθαιόλος),Footnote ¹¹ and connoting Hector's forbidding appearance. This aspect, and indeed the simile as a whole, makes more sense if we allow ἐοικώς the specific force of connoting visual likeness which it often has elsewhere.Footnote ¹² Indirect yet suggestive evidence for taking the simile in this way is offered by Aen. 12.701–3, where Virgil describes Aeneas in terms which recall our passage (quantus Athos aut quantus Eryx aut ipse coruscis | cum fremit ilicibus quantus gaudetque niuali | uertice se attollens pater Appenninus ad auras).Footnote ¹³ Since there is no other Homeric simile comparing a hero with a mountain to serve as a model, it seems likely that gaudetque niuali | uertice is an expansion of ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι ἐοικώς as connoting Hector and his helmet, and that Virgil understood Il. 13.754 in something like the visual terms I have outlined.

While the scholia show that it is possible to read the simile as unconnected with the notion of movement, many readers may feel dissatisfied with the explanations they outline. However, two features which have hitherto been overlooked can help to clarify the simile's effect, and yield an explanation which expands on that given by the scholia. First, the objection that Hector's μέγεθος does not warrant such comparison can be overcome if we consider that the simile focalizes the perception of Trojans looking at Hector from a distance, alerted by his call (κεκλήγων … Ἕκτορος ἔκλυον αὐδήν). Hector is in the centre of the Greek line at 13.681 and moves through the Trojan ranks (755),Footnote ¹⁴ meaning that he could be seen by the Trojans from different directions. On a focalization-based reading, the problem of scale is diminished: Hector appears like a mountain which when seen from a certain distance does not appear overwhelmingly large to the viewer. Thus understood, the simile conveys both the idea of Hector's magnitude and the scale at which he is seen.

More serious is the problem raised at the outset, of comparing a moving figure to a static object. ΣbT evinces sensitivity to this issue. The phrasing of πρὸς δὲ μέγεθος ἡ εἰκών, ἐπεὶ ἀκίνητόν ἐστι τὸ ὄρος indicates that the disconnection between movement in the narrative and motionlessness in the simile was thought striking by ancient readers: ‘it must be directed at magnitude, since the mountain is motionless’. Similarly, the textual movement from ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι to κεκλήγων also emphasizes the distinction between simile and narrative. Yet this interpretative difficulty and the negotiation of the disconnection between the two levels that it occasions in the listener, together with the image's compression,Footnote ¹⁵ is part of the simile's effect. In registering the striking shift from movement to a static image and back again, the listener enacts how the Trojans see Hector, and the surprise created by this shift emphasizes Hector's extraordinary status. The static visuality of the mountain combines with the verbs of movement which frame it to imitate the moment of perception: a single visual image is abstracted from process of movement, connoting the brief glimpse an onlooker catches of Hector in motion.

Differentiation of tenor and vehicle is a common feature of Homeric similes, and creates various effects. For example, the comparison of violence to a scene with domestic or pastoral colouring is a frequently noted technique for creating pathetic contrast.Footnote ¹⁶ Il. 13.754 is a particularly marked instance of this technique, involving as it does a distinction of kind between tenor and vehicle which has to be negotiated by the listener, rather than a difference of scale or quantity. Although there is no exact parallel for the effect created by the comparison of Hector to the mountain, it can be seen as part of a pattern in which the contrastive elements in similes contribute to their effects.Footnote ¹⁷ To elucidate we might compare the simile which likens Apollo destroying the Greek wall to a boy destroying sandcastles (ἔρειπε δὲ τεῖχος Ἀχαιῶν | ῥεῖα μάλ’, ὡς ὅτε τις ψάμαθον πάϊς ἄγχι θαλάσσης, | ὅς τ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ποιήσῃ ἀθύρματα νηπιέῃσιν | ἂψ αὖτις συνέχευε ποσὶν καὶ χερσὶν ἀθύρων, Il. 15.361–4). Here the contrast between tenor and vehicle lies in the scale of the actions and their objects, as noted by ΣbT Il.15.362–4 (καὶ ταπεινὴ μὲν ἡ εἰκών, ὅμως πᾶσι γνωστή), whereas at Il. 13.754 the contrast pertains to the states of the comparanda. But it is important to note that this distinction is only partial, and, as shown above, this contrast does not so outweigh the points of similarity between Hector and the mountain as to make the simile incomprehensible. On this reading, the mountain being ἀκίνητον creates a surprise which, rather than being explained away, should be seen as contributing to the text's expressive force.