Epitome

Achilles did not go forth to the war, because he was angry on account of Briseis,---the daughter of Chryses the priest.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 1.1ff. From this point Apollodorus follows the incidents of the Trojan war as related by Homer.) Therefore the barbarians

Diomedes, doing doughty deeds, wounded Aphrodite when she came to the help of Aeneas;[*](Compare Hom. Il. 5.1-417.) and encountering Glaucus, he recalled the friendship of their fathers and exchanged arms.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 6.119-236.) And Hector having challenged the bravest to single combat, many came forward, but the lot fell on Ajax, and he did doughty deeds; but night coming on, the heralds parted them.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 7.66-312.)

The Greeks made a wall and a ditch to protect the roadstead,[*](Compare Hom. Il. 7.436-441.) and a battle taking place in the plain, the Trojans chased the Greeks within the wall.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 8.53-565.) But the Greeks sent Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax as ambassadors to Achilles, begging him to fight for them, and promising Briseis and other gifts.[*](The embassy of Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax to Achilles is the subject of the ninth book of the Iliad. Hom. Il. 9. Libanius composed an imaginary reply to the speech of Ulysses (Libanius, Declam. v., vol. v. pp. 303-360, ed. R. Foerster).)

And night coming on, they sent Ulysses and Diomedes as spies; and these killed Dolon, son of Eumelus, and Rhesus, the Thracian ( who had arrived the day before as an ally of the Trojans, and having not yet engaged in the battle was encamped at some distance from the Trojan force and apart from Hector); they also slew the twelve men that were sleeping around him, and

But by day a fierce fight took place; Agamemnon and Diomedes, Ulysses, Eurypylus, and Machaon were wounded, the Greeks were put to flight[*](These events are told in the eleventh book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 11).) Hector made a breach in the wall and entered[*](Compare Hom. Il. 12.436ff. ) and, Ajax having retreated, he set fire to the ships.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 15.716ff. )

But when Achilles saw the ship of Protesilaus burning, he sent out Patroclus with the Myrmidons, after arming him with his own arms and giving him the horses. Seeing him the Trojans thought that he was Achilles and turned to flee. And having chased them within the wall, he killed many, amongst them Sarpedon, son of Zeus, and was himself killed by Hector, after being first wounded by Euphorbus.[*](These events are narrated in the sixteenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 16).)

And a fierce fight taking place for the corpse, Ajax with difficulty, by performing feats of valor, rescued the body.[*](These events are the subject of the seventeenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 17).) And Achilles laid aside his anger and recovered Briseis. And a suit of armour having been brought him from Hephaestus, he donned the armour[*](These events are narrated in the eighteenth (Hom. Il. 18) and nineteenth (Hom. Il. 19) books of the Iliad .) and went forth to the war, and chased the Trojans in a crowd to the Scamander, and there killed many, and amongst them Asteropaeus, son of Pelegon, son of the river Axius; and the river rushed at him in fury. But Hephaestus dried up the streams of the river, after chasing them with a mighty flame.[*](These events are related in the twentieth (Hom. Il. 20) and twenty-first (Hom. Il. 21) books of the Iliad . As to the slaying of Asteropaeus by Achilles, see Hom. Il. 21.139-204. As to the combat of Achilles with the river Scamander, and the drying up of the streams of the river by the fire-god Hephaestus, see Hom. Il. 21.211-382. The whole passage affords a striking example of the way in which the Greeks conceived rivers as personal beings, endowed with human shape, human voice, and human passions. Incidentally (Hom. Il. 21.130-132) we hear of sacrifices of bulls and horses to a river, the horses being thrown alive into the stream.) And Achilles