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Β350 φημὶ γὰρ οὖν κατανεῦσαι ὑπερμενέα Κρονίωνα
Β351 ἤματι τῷ ὅτε νηυσὶν ἐν ὠκυπόροισιν ἔβαινον
Β352 Ἀργεῖοι Τρώεσσι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέροντες
Β353 ἀστράπτων ἐπιδέξι’ ἐναίσιμα σήματα φαίνων.

Kirk calls 353 "an easy ad sensum lapse", though we should have the accusative to match 350 (so Aristarchus in the scholia). Monro calls it "a kind of exclamation." I'm not sure that the lapse would be that easy, and it doesn't exactly look like an exclamation to me.

Checking the notes in my Leaf & Bayfield, they mention that ἀστράπτων "should strictly be accusative, but the anacoluthon is natural".
In Smyth:
3006. Anacoluthon usually produces the effect of naturalness and liveliness, sometimes of greater clearness (as after long parentheses), or of brevity, force, or concentration.

Call it a lapse, call it an anacoluthon, call it a metrical fudge, it's all the same. The two intervening lines make the audience/reader and possibly the poet too forget that syntactically the two participles should be unmetrical accusatives. It would not be the only departure from strict syntax in the Homeric poems.

What I think Munro means in describing the line as a kind of exclamation is that it's something like an anacoluthon -- a disruption in syntax for the sake of vividness or immediateness. When you think about it, accusatives might actually be confusing in oral delivery, the accusative case of Κρονίωνα having disappeared from memory by the time 353 is reached, a line where Zeus' logical (as opposed to syntactic) role is agent rather than patient.

Or could 353, despite appearing nowhere else in the poems, be a formula for a favorable omen from Zeus, out of the poet's vast repertory, even though it apparently shows up nowhere else in the Iliad or Odyssey?

Hylander wrote: ↑Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:50 pmOr could 353, despite appearing nowhere else in the poems, be a formula for a favorable omen from Zeus, out of the poet's vast repertory, even though it apparently shows up nowhere else in the Iliad or Odyssey?

I was wondering about something like this. Rather than a formula, I was thinking that it could have been the recapitulation of the event as already told. I suppose that it would have been related directly in the original version, and then there was "editorial fatigue" in the translation to second-hand narration.

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But in support of your formula idea:

Il 4.381 ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς ἔτρεψε παραίσια σήματα φαίνων. Il 9.236 Ζεὺς δέ σφι Κρονίδης ἐνδέξια σήματα φαίνων Od 21.413 ἐτράπετο. Ζεὺς δὲ μεγάλ’ ἔκτυπε σήματα φαίνων· In Bacchum 46 ἄρκτον ἐποίησεν λασιαύχενα σήματα φαίνων· Hesiod Fr. 41.25 [ ἀριστ]ε̣ρὰ σήματα φαίνων

Thanks. Your citations clearly show that 353 is built around the formulaic σήματα φαίνων, which is associated with both ἐπι-/εν-δέξια and ἐναίσιμα. And again, with Zeus as logical (if not strictly syntactic) agent in 353, and the antecedent three lines earlier, the nominative is natural and the anacoluthon is barely noticeable to the reader and likely to the poet, too. I wouldn't worry too much about this.