1. Strasburger Priam. G. , Die kleinen Kämpfer, p. 24, suggests that, in contrast to the Achaeans, the Trojans are presented as forming a unity, embodied in the house hold of Priam. Aesthetically, I think the principal point is that Priam is the old man and father whom we see suffer in the poem (apart from the death of Hector, cf. also xxii. 44 ff., Priam on the deaths of his sons), and the accumulation of disasters upon him can be made visible and tangible in terms of pathos. We know Priam: other pathetic fathers are, by contrast, bloodless. And the Iliad is greatly interested in bereaved fathers (cf. p. 174).
2. Kakridis J. Th. , Homer Revisited (1971), p.131.
3. Marg W. , Homer über die Dichtung (1957), p.14.